Marrakech · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
Marrakech runs cheap: medina dorms, grilled food off the square and an old city you can walk end to end.
Sleep in the medina
Backpacker riads and hostels fill the derbs north and east of Jemaa el-Fna, around Riad Zitoun and Bab Doukkala. Rooftop terraces come standard.
What a day costs
A dorm bed runs MAD 90–160, food MAD 60–120, petits taxis and buses MAD 20–40. Budget MAD 180–320, roughly $18–32.
Getting around cheap
Petits taxis are metered — insist on it — and Alsa city buses charge a flat fare. Most of the medina is a thirty-minute walk across.
Free by day
Jemaa el-Fna at dusk, the tanners' and dyers' souks, and the gardens below the Koutoubia minaret; the mosque itself is closed to non-Muslims.
Rooftop cafés, Jemaa el-Fna
The terraces on the square's south side charge for a mint tea and nothing else; travellers gather there before the food stalls light up.