Should I visit Chefchaouen or Tetouan?

These northern neighbours are only an hour apart, yet they offer very different experiences. Chefchaouen is the blue city everyone has seen on Instagram — a Rif-mountain town where lane after lane is painted in dreamy indigo and powder blue. It's genuinely beautiful, walkable, and refreshingly chilled compared with the big imperial cities. Yes, it's become popular, so mornings before the day-trippers arrive are magic and midday can feel busy.

Tetouan, just down the road toward the coast, is the one most tourists skip — and that's exactly its appeal. Its UNESCO-listed medina is one of the most complete Andalusian old towns in Morocco, full of whitewashed houses, working craftsmen, and ordinary Moroccan life going on around you rather than for you. There's far less English spoken and far fewer souvenir stalls; it feels like stepping somewhere genuinely undiscovered.

Honestly, for sheer visual joy and easy charm, Chefchaouen wins, and I'd never talk anyone out of it — those blue streets really do live up to the photos. But if you've grown a little weary of tourist-polished medinas and want somewhere that hasn't been smoothed over, Tetouan is a quietly rewarding half-day or overnight. The good news is they pair perfectly: base in Chefchaouen, take a morning in Tetouan, and you get both.

So choose Chefchaouen if you want the iconic, relaxed, photogenic experience most people are after. Add or substitute Tetouan if authenticity and fewer crowds matter more to you than blue walls. Doing both is the move I'd make myself.