Illustrative photo of Tangier & North Coast — property galleries are on each booking page.

Where to stay in Tangier & the North Coast

Tangier spent over three decades (1923-1956) as an international zone jointly administered by foreign powers, a status that shaped its port-city, cosmopolitan character far more than the imperial cities inland — a walled Kasbah still looks out over the Strait of Gibraltar from the medina's highest point. It's also the natural base for two smaller neighbours on this stretch of coast: Tetouan, whose Andalusian-built medina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Asilah, a whitewashed Atlantic town known for its Portuguese ramparts and annual mural festival.

Tangier's history stretches back to a Phoenician trading post called Tingis, founded by around the 8th century BCE on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar; under Rome it became a free city and then the capital of the province of Mauretania Tingitana. Its position at Africa's gateway to Europe made it a prize for successive powers — Vandals, Byzantines, Arab dynasties, and, in 1661, England, which acquired it as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married Charles II, holding it until the garrison was evacuated in 1684 under sustained Moroccan pressure. The Kasbah, the walled quarter capping the medina, still holds the old governor's palace, Dar el-Makhzen, rebuilt after the English withdrawal and expanded through the 18th century; it's now the Kasbah Museum, standing over the same drop to the Strait that made this hilltop worth fortifying in the first place. That strategic value resurfaced in the 20th century, when Tangier became an International Zone in 1923, jointly run by France, Spain, and Britain as a neutral, tax-free port — a status that drew spies, exiled royalty, and a wave of expatriate writers and artists until Morocco reabsorbed the city at independence in 1956.

That layered, outward-facing history makes Tangier a different kind of base than Morocco's inland imperial cities — a working port with real medina life rather than a stage set, and the natural hub for two smaller towns worth building a trip around. Half an hour southeast, Tetouan's medina is widely considered Morocco's best-preserved example of Andalusian-influenced town planning: rebuilt from 1492 by Ali al-Mandri and thousands of Muslim and Jewish refugees fleeing the fall of Granada, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 and remains ringed by roughly 5km of walls pierced by seven historic gates. An hour down the Atlantic coast, Asilah is smaller and quieter still — a whitewashed town behind 15th-century Portuguese ramparts, transformed since 1978 by the Moussem Culturel International, an annual arts festival whose visiting painters turn the medina's walls into a repainted open-air gallery every summer. Staying in this region means a genuine port city with international-era architecture and diplomatic history, plus two distinct day trips within an hour's reach, and noticeably fewer crowds than Marrakech or Fez.

Things to do in Tangier & North Coast