Essaouira · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
Essaouira is cheap, walled and permanently windy — the budget traveller's break from Marrakech, three hours west.
Sleep inside the ramparts
Hostels and small riads fill the medina between Bab Doukkala and the port; rooms on the sea wall are loud with wind and gulls.
What a day costs
Dorms run MAD 80–140 and grilled sardines at the port MAD 40–70; everything else is walking. Budget MAD 150–260, roughly $15–26.
Getting around cheap
CTM and Supratours coaches reach Marrakech in about three hours for MAD 80–110. In town you walk, or take a MAD 10 petit taxi.
Free by day
The Skala de la Ville ramparts and their cannon, the blue boats and gull-noise of the fishing port, and the long beach south towards Diabat.
Beach bars, Plage d'Essaouira
The kitesurf schools and beach cafés a kilometre south of the medina are where travellers collect through the windy afternoons.