Asilah is a small town of around thirty thousand people on the Atlantic coast, forty kilometres south of Tangier, and it is the easiest place in Morocco to spend three unhurried days. The medina sits inside ramparts the Portuguese built in the fifteenth century, it is whitewashed rather than ochre, painted in blue along the lower walls, and it is small enough that you cannot get properly lost, which is unusual and restful after Fes or Tangier.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.
The thing that makes it distinctive is the murals. Since 1978 the town has run an arts festival each summer where invited artists paint directly onto the medina walls, and the work is whitewashed over and replaced the following year. So the medina you walk through is genuinely different from one season to the next, and if you come in late July or August you will see the painting happening.
What Makes Asilah Different to Pack For
Atlantic wind, not Mediterranean calm
This is the open Atlantic and it is windy, which is the fact people underestimate. Summer runs 18°C to 27°C, pleasant rather than hot, with a persistent onshore breeze that makes it far more comfortable than inland Morocco in August. Winter runs 9°C to 17°C, wet and genuinely windy, with storms coming in off the ocean.
A packable rain jacket doubles as the windbreak and is the most used item here outside high summer, and a merino wool base layer for women handles the evenings, which cool sharply once the sun goes even in July.
The water is cold and rough
Atlantic sea temperatures here run roughly 16°C to 22°C, and the beaches have real surf and current. This is not the warm calm swimming people expect from a Moroccan beach town, and it is why the surf schools at Paradise Beach exist.
Beach and medina need different clothes
Swimwear is fine on the beach and not in the medina or the town, which is a conservative Moroccan community rather than a resort. A cover up that goes on as you leave the sand is the single most useful item, exactly as at Taghazout.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Asilah Packing List
Clothing
Loose, covered and windproof. Two merino tops cover a week and handle the salt air and the temperature drop after dark. Long trousers or a skirt and sleeves for the town, with a cover up for the walk back from the beach.
Asilah is used to Moroccan holidaymakers and a modest number of foreign visitors, so it is a little more relaxed than Tetouan, but it is still not a place for beachwear in the streets.
Footwear
Flip flops you can rinse for the sand, plus closed shoes with grip for the medina and the ramparts. The medina lanes are smooth whitewashed stone that gets slippery when wet, and the rampart walk is uneven with steps.
Sun and wind
A wide brim sun hat with a chin strap, because the Atlantic wind takes anything loose, plus high factor sunscreen and sunglasses. The wind masks the burn, which is how people get caught out on the beach here.
Practicalities
Cash, since the medina shops and the small restaurants run on it. A plug adapter for European two pin sockets. A dry bag if you are surfing. Prescription medication in original packaging.
What to Wear at Key Sites
The medina and the murals
A compact grid of whitewashed lanes inside the Portuguese walls, with the murals along many of them and small galleries and craft shops between. It takes an hour to walk properly and repays doing it twice, once in the morning light and once in the evening.
Practically: modest dress, and the lanes are residential, so people live behind the painted walls you are photographing. Ask before photographing anyone. The murals change annually, so what you see is not what the guidebook photographed.
The ramparts and the Krikia
You can walk sections of the fifteenth century Portuguese walls, with the Krikia bastion looking out over the ocean and, below it, a small cemetery on the rocks. Sunset from the ramparts is the town's daily event.
Practically: the rampart walk is exposed with a considerable drop to the rocks and sea on the outer side, and it is very windy. Uneven stone, no handrails in places, and not somewhere to be after dark.
The beaches
The town beach runs north from the medina and is busy with Moroccan families in summer. Paradise Beach, a few kilometres south, is the better one, reached by taxi, on foot along the sand, or by horse cart in season.
Practically: Atlantic surf, cold water, rip currents, and no lifeguards outside the peak weeks. Swim where other people are and do not go far out. Paradise Beach has a couple of shacks in summer and nothing at all in winter, so take water.
The Palais de Raissouli
The palace on the sea wall was built in the early twentieth century by Moulay Ahmed er Raisuni, a Rif chieftain, bandit and kidnapper who at various points governed the region and took hostages for ransom, including an American citizen in an episode that led Theodore Roosevelt to send warships. It now hosts the arts festival and opens only intermittently outside it.
Practically: access is unreliable, so treat an open door as luck rather than a plan. The terrace above the rocks is the part worth seeing and it is exposed to the full Atlantic wind.
The Moussem and the festival
The arts festival in July and August fills the town with artists, musicians and visitors, accommodation books out and prices rise. It is the most interesting time to be here and the least restful.
Around the town
Tangier is forty minutes north by train and Larache with the Roman site at Lixus is half an hour south. The train line runs along the coast and is the easy way to move in either direction.
What Not to Bring
Leave swimwear as town clothing. Leave a hat without a strap. Leave the expectation of warm calm water, because this is the open Atlantic.
Leave a heavy inland Morocco wardrobe, since Asilah is mild year round and windy rather than hot, and leave the assumption that a beach town has nightlife, because this one is quiet after dinner.
Essential Resources for Women in Asilah
Emergency numbers in Morocco: police 19 in towns, Royal Gendarmerie 177 outside them, ambulance and fire 15. The European number 112 connects from a mobile. English is limited; French and increasingly Spanish are more useful in the north.
Tourist police: Morocco's Brigade Touristique operates in the main tourist centres, with Tangier the nearest substantial presence. Unofficial guiding is illegal, though Asilah's medina is small enough that you do not need a guide at all.
US Embassy in Rabat: Km 5.7 Avenue Mohammed VI, Souissi, Rabat, telephone +212 537 637 200, at ma.usembassy.gov, with a consulate general in Casablanca. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: Asilah has a small local hospital and clinics. Anything serious means Tangier, forty minutes north, which has the regional hospitals and private clinics. Travel insurance covers the gap, and should explicitly include surfing if you intend to surf.
Official health authority: the Moroccan Ministry of Health at sante.gov.ma.
US State Department travel advisory for Morocco: current advisory level and detail. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Morocco: entry requirements, safety and health guidance, including its water safety notes for the Atlantic coast.
Official tourism authority: the Moroccan National Tourist Office at visitmorocco.com, which lists licensed guides and regional offices, and carries the dates for the Asilah arts festival, which move each year and determine whether the town is quiet or full.
Solo women safety assessment: Asilah is among the gentlest places in Morocco for a woman travelling alone. It is small, prosperous by Moroccan standards, used to visitors without being dominated by them, and the medina is compact enough that you always know roughly where you are, which removes the disorientation that makes Fes and Tangier tiring. Harassment is noticeably lighter than in the big cities and is generally limited to occasional comments. Walking the medina in the evening is comfortable, and the town is quiet after dinner rather than threatening. The ordinary Moroccan practices still apply: modest dress in the town, no engagement with unsolicited approaches, agree taxi fares in advance, and decline offers of guiding or of kif, since the Rif growing region is not far away and the offers reach the coast. The ramparts are unlit and exposed with a real drop, so they are a daylight walk. The genuine risk here is the ocean: Atlantic surf, cold water, rip currents, and beaches that are unpatrolled outside the peak summer weeks, including Paradise Beach which is empty much of the year. Swim where others are swimming, and treat an empty beach as information. The walk along the sand to Paradise Beach is pleasant by day and not something to do alone at dusk. Note also that Tangier, forty minutes away, is a considerably busier city with a different risk profile.
Reading On
Asilah is the quiet stop on Morocco's northern Atlantic coast and an easy first or last night on a trip. The Morocco travel guide for women is the parent for the whole country and covers the seasons, the regions and the etiquette, and the Morocco packing list for women covers a full country trip. Closest to hand, the Tangier packing list for women covers the port city forty minutes north, the Tetouan packing list for women covers the Andalusian medina east, and the Chefchaouen travel guide for women covers the blue town inland. Down the coast, the Rabat packing list for women and the Essaouira packing list for women continue the Atlantic route. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why merino handles salt air and repeated wears better than cotton, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
