Fes is Morocco's cultural capital and, on a fortnight's itinerary, almost always the counterweight to Marrakech. It is also where the difference between a driver and a hire car is starkest. Fes el Bali is a walled medieval quarter of roughly nine thousand lanes, none of which admits a vehicle - goods still move through it on donkeys, as they have for twelve centuries.
That single fact rearranges the arrival completely. With a hire car you have to pick the right gate out of moving traffic, find somewhere to leave the vehicle for several days, and then walk into a maze you have never seen carrying packs. With a driver you stop at the gate serving your riad, the luggage comes out, and the car disappears until you want it.
One thing to settle before you arrive: your driver cannot legally guide you inside the medina. Moroccan law licenses tour guides as a separate profession and enforces it. In Fes that matters more than anywhere else, because without a guide most visitors see the tanneries, one medersa and the inside of several shops.
Why hire a driver here
- Nothing drives inside Fes el Bali - roughly 9,000 lanes, all on foot
- The right gate for your riad can save fifteen minutes walking with packs
- This is the one city where a licensed guide is necessary, not optional
- Volubilis, Meknes and Moulay Idriss are easy with a car and a nuisance without
- Running south, the road crosses the Middle Atlas and falls down the Ziz Gorge
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 New Zealand site
- Help with luggage as far as the entrance of the derb
- Bottled water and phone charging in the vehicle
