The Medina of Marrakech – a chaotic maze of ancient architectural treasures, delicious food and drink, and exciting shopping. It’s an opportunity to dive right into Moroccan culture. It’s also pretty hot during the mid-day sun and in the winding souks. These are our favorite Marrakech retreats for when you need a rest. Drop in for a few hours of pampering or just a chance to refresh while enjoying the views.
Traveling to Marrakech was a dream come true! It’s an exciting vacation for lovers of color, architecture, food, shopping, and a bit of chaos. You could easily get lost and lose track of time, spending your whole time in the city navigating the souks, but you don’t want to miss the Medina’s historic sites. If you are only in Marrakech for a short time, here are the 4 Must Visit Sites in the Historic Marrakech Medina.
We recently returned from Morocco, and while we loved the excitement of Marrakech, we can’t get the tranquility of the Atlas Mountains off our mind. Less than 2 hours from Marrakech, the Imlil Valley is home to the most unique lodge we have ever had the opportunity to visit. We stayed only 2 nights at the Kasbah du Toubkal, but now we’re dreaming of going back for more.
The Kasbah du Toubkal is truly a special place. After all, it has been chosen as a National Geographic Unique Lodge of the World. Its uniqueness is evident as soon as you arrive in Imlil. At the small office in town, you are met by your host and a mule that will carry your luggage up the path to the Kasbah. It’s a rambling fortress of a lodge perched on a hilltop overlooking the Imlil Valley while Jbel Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, rises behind it at 13,671 feet.
If the view and the hike don’t take your breath away, the story of the Kasbah will! The land and a kasbah in ruin were purchased in 1989 by Discover Ltd, a family affair, and after years of traditional methods of construction by local laborers with local materials, the Kasbah du Toubkal opened in 1995. Since then, it has impacted the Imlil Valley through sustainable and responsible tourism.
A view of the gardens and lodging from the rooftop where we spent our afternoons lounging under Jbel Toubkal to the sound of birds and the waterfall.
Devotees of HBO’s Game of Thrones know that the show is truly an international production. Portugal, Iceland, Croatia, Northern Ireland, Morocco, and Malta, to name a few, have all portrayed locations in Westeros and Essos. Stephanie, Meagan, and their friend Audrey have all added Game of Thrones filming locations to their recent vacations. Now we’re sharing our GOT stories from Morocco, Northern Ireland and Iceland! The locations we visited include Yunkai (Aït Ben Haddou, Morocco), the Kingsroad north of King’s Landing (Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland), Winterfell (Castle Ward, Northern Ireland), Jon Snow and Ygritte’s “cave” (Grjótagjá near Lake Myvatn, Iceland), and Beyond the Wall (Skaftafell National Park, Iceland).
Despite this Berber village’s obvious resemblance to Yunkai, Meagan, excited to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site, added it to her itinerary based purely on its history and beauty. Once she realized that it had been transformed into the Slaver’s Bay city of Yunkai, her excitement doubled! Continue reading
Wow we can’t believe we’re already a quarter of the way through 2016! We thought it would be fun to provide an update on our 12 trips in 12 months effort so far and our plans going forward. We’d also love to hear from those of you joining us in the challenge on where you’ve been and where you’re planning to go.
If you missed our original #Take12Trips post, be sure to check it out. Our New Year’s Resolution is to travel more often and travel differently, and it’s working!
Stephanie started off the year in Florida visiting the Florida Keys and Everglades National Park. Later in January she also took an overnight trip to the Chattanooga area with a fantastic stay at the Chanticleer Inn.
Meagan’s January trip took her to the beautiful and delicious Beechwood Inn in Clayton, Georgia.
We took a fun girls trip to coastal Georgia! First we went to St. Marys where we stayed at the lovely Spencer House Inn. Then we hopped over to Cumberland Island for a night at the stunning Greyfield Inn.
March took Stephanie on a brief trip to Phoenix to catch a spring training game with her husband Ed. Meagan & Ryan did a weekend trip to Macon to stay at the 1842 Inn!
We both went to Irvine, California for the Women in Travel Summit (WITS) 2016! Read a little about our experience there on our new friend Lindsay’s blog I’ve Been Bit. The night before we flew back home we went whale watching with Captain Dave’s and saw 5 grey whales. It was pretty exciting!
Meagan is more than a little in love with her day job. The Carter Center just held a staff retreat in Plains, Georgia, home of President and Mrs. Carter, and Meagan and her husband went to check out the small town. It’s the perfect example of a tiny southern town. The shops that you see above are all that make up downtown Plains, and that’s incredibly charming. Naturally, there’s a lot of President Carter pride there.
Stephanie is headed to Dubai and Durham, North Carolina for work in April! She’s hoping to have a bit of time to explore both.
[Photo credit: Ulrich Latzenhofer]
Meagan and her husband are heading to Istanbul for the first leg of their trip and will be there on their 5th wedding anniversary. They’ll be spending nights on both the Asian side of the Bosphorus in Kadikoy and the European side in Sultanahmet.
[Photo Credit: Kasbah du Toubkal]
Stephanie is dreaming about a domestic National Park visit for June but doesn’t have definite plans yet.
Stephanie is in the early stages of planning an epic Sound of Music tour of Austria, visiting WWII sites in Germany and maybe a visit to Prague in the Czech Republic.
Meagan has too many ideas, but none of them are concrete. Does anyone have a ticket to Hamilton that they’d like to share?
We’re both headed to Ireland with our husbands for the Georgia Tech versus Boston College American football game in Dublin! We can’t wait to explore the city and also see some of the iconic Irish countryside. If you’ve been, please give us your tips below since we’re still planning our trip!
At this point we just have ideas but nothing firm planned! Stephanie is dreaming about celebrating her three year wedding anniversary at Big Bend National Park in October. She also wants to visit Biltmore Estates in Asheville in December to see it all decorated for Christmas!
Meagan wants to take the Blue Ridge Scenic Railroad through the North Georgia Mountains and is also looking at a trip with Georgia Conservancy.
Where have you been so far this year? Do you have any exciting trips on your calendar? We’d love to hear all about them in the comments below.
If you have tips for any of our upcoming destinations, we’re all ears!
Day-dreaming about future adventures has become a full-fledged hobby of mine. I could spend hours looking at travel photos, reading about adventures, and trying to determine which destinations are in my Top 5. There are too many!
While recently planning my family’s upcoming trip to Paris, Avignon, and Beaune, I came across this brilliant website that makes travel-planning a cinch! Trust me. You NEED this resource!
Rome2rio is an amazing one-stop website that shows you all of the possible ways to get from Point A to Point B, and it includes times and rates. Having trouble deciding if you should rent a car, take the train, or brave the local buses? Rome2rio provides all the details so you can decide which route will be the cheapest, the quickest, or the easiest!
Here’s a screenshot of the Rome2Rio Tool.
See that sidebar on the left? Just click through your transportation options to compare costs and times, then select your favorite to book your tickets! Once you have your logistics handled, you can focus on what really matters: daydreaming about your destination!
It’s hard enough to decide where to go next. Let this website do the transportation planning for you!
[Friends, this is not a sponsored post. We’ve been using Rome2rio in our personal vacation planning, and we love it! We think you will, too!
Morocco Photos courtesy of Apartment Therapy and AFAR Magazine. ]
My Top 5 list of places to travel to changes all the time. All it takes is an Instagram picture, a friend’s story, or a new restaurant for me to throw all of my former priorities out the window for some place new. I wonder if my locations have a connecting theme, because they sure look different on paper. Maybe it’s that they’re all less-visited in comparison to other tourist destinations. After all, that’s how I ended up studying abroad in Thailand.
Does this happen to you? Where are your Top 5 Destinations?
Tell us about them in the comments below!
