Do I need travel insurance for Morocco?

Travel insurance isn't a visa-style requirement to enter Morocco, but I'd put it in the 'genuinely don't skip this' category, and I say that having watched what happens when people do. The core reason is medical: Morocco has perfectly good private clinics and hospitals in the cities, but you pay upfront and your home health cover almost certainly doesn't extend here. A decent policy turns a stressful, expensive medical episode into a phone call and a claim form.

The line item people forget to check is emergency medical evacuation. Much of what makes Morocco magical — the Sahara, the High Atlas, remote kasbah country — is hours from a major hospital. If something serious happens out there, you may need transport to a city or even repatriation home, and that can run into tens of thousands of dollars. Confirm your policy includes evacuation and repatriation with a high limit; it's the cover you hope never to use and are deeply grateful for if you do.

Then there's the trip itself. Comprehensive policies cover cancellation and interruption (illness, a family emergency, a missed connection), delayed or lost baggage, and stolen belongings — relevant in busy medinas where pickpocketing, while not rampant, does happen. For us, the cancellation cover is the part that protects your investment in a multi-stop itinerary if life intervenes before you fly. Keep digital and paper copies of the policy and the 24-hour assistance number, and a record of what you've packed.

One Morocco-specific catch I always flag: activities. Standard policies sometimes exclude or under-cover 'adventure' pursuits, and a surprising number of Morocco trips include them — camel trekking, quad biking and dune buggies, hot-air ballooning, hammam and spa, and serious High Atlas hiking. Read the activity list, and if you're trekking above a certain altitude or doing motorised desert sports, buy the add-on or a policy that names them. It's a small upgrade that closes the exact gap most likely to bite a Morocco traveller.