Day trip to Morocco from Tarifa

Tangiers is not the best place to visit in Morocco. Fes and Marrakesh are great.

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any suggestions? We plan on taking the ferry to Morocco from Tarifa for the day and would appreciate any thoughts on places to see for a day visit.

Few of us would recommend that you spend a day that way; that's why you're not seeing many responses.

Are you sure you've allocated sufficient time to Granada, Seville, Cordoba, Cadiz and Malaga? Those are all places I'd recommend over Tangier. And there are attractive day trips from those places as well.

Morocco is a very interesting country, but Tangier is not one of its best targets. Much more interesting cities like Fes and Marrakech are served by flights from many European cities, so it's not as if a trip to Spain is your only (or best) opportunity to scoot over to Morocco.

Thank you acravan for your reply. While I do plan on spending my time in Spain in some of the places you mentioned, I originally omitted a day trip to Morocco. It wasn't until I picked up the RS guidebook that I changed my mind. Apparently, you both don't agree with RS on venturing over. Thank you. I appreciate your thoughts and reconsider my plans. In any case, that's what this forum is for. Thank you.

I visit a town close to Tarifa every March (near Vejer de la Frontera).
Tangier is no longer the awful city that some people remember,a though its reputation has obviously lived on.

However, since I'm nearby every year, I looked very closely into a day trip and did a LOT of reading. (I've been to Morocco several times but had never been to Tangier). In the end, I decided not to go. The souk is very small and not the authentic marketplace you will find further south. I could not find even one restaurant that tempted me. So what would you do there if you take a day trip?

In my opinion, there are many, many places you could visit nearby in Spain, rather than spending the time and the money to take the ferry to Tangier. And believe me, I read endlessly about the subject and asked a lot of questions on the big travel forums.

Have you been to Baelo Claudio, for example? It's close to Tarifa and I thought is was well worth a visit to see the site, the museum, and the sand dune which I think is the largest in Europe. And there's great food nearby.

Where else will you be visiting in the area? Vejer itself is well worth a look.

The tired reply of "Tangiers is not a nice place to visit" is quite outdated. The king and government have invested hugely in Tangiers as it is the first thing many people see of their country. We were just there in September; true we didn't stay long as we were off to Chefchaouen, but I saw nothing that would dissuade me from Tangiers, and nothing that made it any less appealing than Fes or Marrakech.

I originally just wanted a day trip from Gibraltar, as it just sounded cool to take a ferry across the strait to Africa. As we read more, we liked Morocco more, and made that the focus of our trip. But I still think it would be a cool day to hop across from Tarifa, especially if you're already there.

My advice is to take the earliest ferry you can drag yourself up for. This is a once in a lifetime trip and you don't want to miss hours in Tangiers. And the ferries notoriously run late, so you will get to Tangiers later than you think.

Thank you very much for these replies. They've been very helpful.

My husband and I enjoyed a day trip from Tarifa, Spain to Tangiers, we hired the guide from the Rick Steves travel guide who was excellent.

Thanks, @Week5 ! Did you ask to see or experience anything particular?

Like you, Nancy, we will be in Tarifa and decided after reading Rick Steve's Spain guidebook to take a day trip to Tangier. However, in his book, Rick lists the recommended local guides as giving a half day walking tour for from EU 15 and full day minibus plus walking tour is listed as EU35. The guides' website lists these same tours at, respectively EU100 and EU180!! There is some sort of disconnect there for sure! I dont know what to think and am now questioning the whole thing...