I wake to the call of gulls and the distant crash of Atlantic waves. The morning light filters through wooden shutters in my rented riad, painting stripes of honey on the worn tiles. Rachel Jones, the voice behind Hippie in Heels, is already stirring beside an open journal, a cup of mint tea steaming at her elbow. We are in Essaouira, the wind-swept coastal town that Morocco wears like a loose, comfortable scarf. She does not reach for her phone first; instead, she writes three sentences about the quality of the light. "If I don't capture the feeling of a place before the day crowds it out," she says, "I lose the magic."
Morning: The Art of Slow Waking
Rachel’s morning ritual is deliberate. She pads to the rooftop terrace in bare feet, carrying only her journal and a small pouch of loose-leaf tea she bought from a spice souk in Marrakech years ago. The terrace overlooks the blue fishing boats bobbing in the harbour. She sits cross-legged on a cushion and writes for twenty minutes—not about logistics or to-do lists, but about what she sees, hears, and smells. "This is the part of solo travel that no one photographs," she says, tucking a strand of henna-dyed hair behind her ear. "The quiet before the world wakes up."
Breakfast comes slowly. She walks to a café she found on her first day here, a narrow place run by a woman named Fatima who remembers everyone’s order. Rachel orders msemen—flaky, buttery squares of fried dough—drizzled with local honey and served with a bowl of fresh figs. She sips her second mint tea and watches a group of fishermen mend their nets on the sand. "This is how I choose restaurants when I'm alone," she tells me. "I look for places where locals eat, where the menu is handwritten, and where the owner makes eye contact. It’s not about the best rating on an app; it’s about the feeling you get when you walk in."
Midday: Walking Without a Map
By mid-morning, the wind picks up—the famous alizee that has shaped this coast for centuries. Rachel pulls on a linen jacket and steps into the medina. She never carries a map. "Getting lost is the whole point," she says, weaving through alleys lined with indigo-dyed textiles and carved thuya wood. Her only rule: if a shopkeeper calls out to her in English, she keeps walking. If they greet her in Darija or French, she stops. "It’s a small filter, but it changes everything. You end up in places where real exchange happens."
Today, that filter leads her to a women’s argan oil co-operative tucked behind a carpet shop. A Berber woman named Khadija shows her the process—hand-cracking the nuts, roasting the kernels, grinding them by stone. Rachel buys a small jar of culinary argan oil and a tin of amlou, the local almond and honey paste. She asks Khadija about her daughters, about the school in the village, about the price of goat cheese at the weekly souk. The conversation lasts longer than the transaction. "Solo travel has taught me that the most meaningful souvenirs aren't things—they're the stories you earn by showing genuine curiosity," Rachel reflects as we step back into the sun.
Lunch: A Lesson in Local Flavours
For lunch, Rachel leads us to a tiny restaurant near the port that serves only three dishes: grilled sardines, lamb tagine with prunes, and couscous with seven vegetables. She orders the sardines—caught that morning, she’s told—and a side of zaalouk, a smoky eggplant and tomato salad. "Eating alone in a new country can feel intimidating," she admits, "but I've developed a few tricks." She shares them over the meal:
- Always sit at the counter or a communal table if one exists—it invites casual conversation with the cook or neighbouring diners.
- Learn to say “delicious” and “thank you” in the local language before you arrive. It changes the energy of the table.
- Order something you’ve never heard of. If you hate it, you have a story. If you love it, you have a new favourite.
She eats slowly, using bread to scoop the zaalouk, and asks the owner about the best street food in the medina for dinner. He recommends a stall near Bab Marrakech that sells snail soup after sunset. She makes a note in her journal.
Afternoon: Finding Stillness
After lunch, the wind dies down and the heat settles. Rachel retreats to the riad’s hammam—a small, tiled room with a copper basin and a wooden bench. She spends an hour in the steam, scrubbing her skin with a black soap paste made from olives and eucalyptus. "This is the wellness part that actually works," she says later, wrapped in a cotton robe. "No fancy retreat price tag, no promises of transformation. Just heat, water, and the discipline to be still." She reads a chapter of a novel—The Sheltering Sky, fittingly—and falls asleep for twenty minutes on a daybed in the courtyard.
I ask her how she finds these pockets of stillness on the road. "I schedule nothing between 2 and 4 p.m.," she explains. "That’s my un-busy window. It’s the most important part of my travel day. If I don’t protect it, I burn out by day three."
Evening: The Golden Hour
As the sun begins its slow descent, Rachel walks to the Skala de la Ville—the 18th-century rampart that overlooks the harbour. She finds a spot between two cannons and sits on the warm stone. The light turns the whitewashed walls of the medina to amber. A few local boys fish off the rocks below. She takes out her journal again, but this time she doesn’t write. She just watches.
"This is why I travel alone," she says quietly. "Moments like this, when you’re not performing for anyone, not waiting for someone else to say 'look at that.' You get to experience it completely—on your own terms."
Dinner is a simple affair: the snail soup she was recommended, followed by a plate of grilled fish at a stall near the port. She sits on a plastic stool, eats with her hands, and shares a table with a French photographer who is documenting the city’s woodcarvers. They talk about the ethics of photographing people without permission, about the best light for shooting the medina’s alleyways, about the loneliness that creeps in even on the most beautiful trips. "That loneliness is not a problem to solve," Rachel says. "It’s a signal that you’re paying attention."
Back at the riad, she lights a candle and writes three postcards: one to her mother, one to a friend in London, and one to her future self. It’s a ritual she started years ago, after reading about Gloria Atanmo’s solo day in Granada and feeling a spark of recognition—the idea that a single day could be both ordinary and extraordinary when you choose to live it deliberately. She stamps the cards and places them in her bag, ready to mail in the morning. Then she turns off the light, listens to the wind in the palm trees, and lets the day settle into memory.
