How do I handle aggressive touts or being followed?

Let me set expectations honestly: in the busy medinas of Marrakech and Fes you will be approached — by would-be guides, shopkeepers, and people offering "directions." It is persistent and can feel intense the first day, but it is overwhelmingly hassle rather than threat. Understanding that flips your whole experience: you are not in danger, you are being marketed to, and you are allowed to decline.

The technique that works is calm consistency. A simple "la, shukran" — no, thank you — said once, without breaking stride and without eye contact, signals you are not a target. The mistakes that prolong it are engaging in debate, looking lost while you decide, or accepting "help" finding a place. The moment you accept directions, a tip is expected, sometimes loudly. Better to look purposeful, glance at your phone map discreetly, and keep moving.

If someone genuinely will not let go, your escape hatches are everywhere: step into a shop, a café, a pharmacy, or a hotel lobby. Staff there have zero patience for touts pestering their customers and will wave them off instantly. Standing near a uniformed tourist police officer — common in the main squares — also works wonders. You are never trapped; the medina is full of doorways and people who will help.

In my years guiding guests, the people who struggle are the ones who feel they must be polite at length; the ones who breeze through are firm and unbothered. And of course, the simplest fix is a licensed local guide for your first medina walk — when you are visibly with a guide, the approaches stop almost entirely, and you get the souk's stories instead of its sales pitches. After a day or two you will barely notice it.