Fes is Morocco's cultural capital and usually the second stop on an Indian itinerary. It is also where the gap between a driver and a hire car opens widest. Fes el Bali is a walled medieval quarter of roughly nine thousand lanes, and not one of them admits a vehicle - goods still move through it on donkeys and handcarts, exactly as they have for centuries.
That one fact rearranges the whole arrival. With a hire car you have to identify the right gate out of moving traffic, find somewhere to leave the vehicle for several days, then walk into a maze you have never seen carrying luggage. With a driver, you stop at the gate serving your riad, the bags come out, and the car disappears until you want it.
Worth knowing before you arrive: your driver cannot legally guide you inside the medina. Moroccan law licenses tour guides as a separate profession and enforces it. Drivers own the road, the logistics and the country between cities; Fes el Bali needs a licensed guide for half a day, and without one most visitors see the tanneries, one medersa and the inside of several shops.
Why hire a driver here
- Every one of Fes el Bali's roughly 9,000 lanes is pedestrian only
- The correct gate for your riad saves fifteen minutes of walking with bags
- By car Volubilis, Meknes and Moulay Idriss are simple; without one, awkward
- The road south crosses the Middle Atlas then descends the Ziz Gorge
- Vegetarian meals in the medina need a driver who knows the right kitchens
Included in every booking
- Fuel, tolls and the driver's fee for the agreed route
- Airport, riad gate, hotel or railway station pickup
- English-speaking drivers as standard on the India site
- Help with luggage as far as the entrance of the derb
- Vegetarian meal stops planned into every route
