Essaouira: everything YouTube's best creators show you — sorted

Essaouira’s relationship to the Atlantic is not decorative — it is structural. The trade winds that funnel through the bay at 25–40 knots for most of the year shaped the town’s economy and layout when the Portuguese fortified it in the 16th century, and they continue to determine who comes here now: kitesurfers and windsurfers arrive in the summer months when the winds peak, while the broader medina functions as a working port town with a fish market, boat-building yards, and a fishing fleet that is operational regardless of the tourist calendar. The ramparts running along the seafront — the Skala de la Ville — are the practical place to read both the wind and the town’s layered Portuguese-French-Moroccan architecture at the same time.

The fish souk operates most actively in the early morning when the boats return, but the grilling stalls along the port edge — numbered stalls where you select fresh fish, shellfish, or whole sardines and pay by weight before they grill it in front of you — run from mid-morning through the afternoon. A plate of grilled sea bass with bread and harissa runs 60–100 dirhams depending on the catch size; the stalls are competitive and the transaction is direct. The medina itself is smaller and considerably more navigable than Fes or even Marrakech — the grid is roughly legible, the main thoroughfare of Avenue de l’Istiqlal runs straight through it, and getting genuinely lost requires effort. This navigability is part of what draws visitors who find Marrakech’s medina overwhelming, and the town has attracted artists and musicians since Jimi Hendrix reputedly stayed here in 1969.

Gnawa music — a trance-inducing ceremonial tradition brought to Morocco by sub-Saharan enslaved people centuries ago — has its strongest remaining presence in Essaouira, which hosts an annual Gnawa World Music Festival in June that draws 400,000 attendees over four days. Outside the festival season, the music surfaces in late-evening performances at small venues near the main square and in the rhythmic percussion of street musicians working the medina. The argan oil produced in the surrounding region is sold throughout the medina — Essaouira is the closest significant town to the argan forest — and the cooperatives run by Berber women a few kilometres outside town sell at prices well below the tourist boutiques. A 250ml bottle of cold-pressed culinary argan oil from a cooperative runs around 100–150 dirhams and is worth the detour over the medina shops.