Slow Travel: What Morocco Taught Me

I arrived expecting chaos and found, instead, a city with an extremely deliberate pace. The chaos was real — the souks, the motorbikes, the calls to prayer layering over each other at dusk — but underneath it was something calm.

I had a list. I abandoned it by day two.

The medina's curriculum

The medina teaches you several things. First: your map is wrong. Second: being lost is not the same as being in danger. Third: the best things are behind unmarked doors.

What slow travel actually is

Slow travel is not traveling slowly. It's the decision to be in a place rather than moving through it. To learn one neighbourhood rather than photograph twenty.

I spent four days in the same souk. I know the name of the man who sells leather bags. He knows I prefer tea to coffee. This is what I came away with.

Not photographs. A neighbourhood.