How much spending money should I bring for a week in Morocco?

The honest answer depends entirely on what is already paid for. If you are on a tour where hotels, the driver, and most meals are pre-booked, your spending money only needs to cover the gaps — lunches, drinks, tips, the odd taxi, entrance fees, and shopping. For that, I tell clients to carry roughly $200–$350 per person for a week and they almost always come home with some left. If you are travelling fully independently and paying for rooms and transport as you go, you will naturally need more like $350–$700 a head.

Here is how that week's spending typically breaks down. Meals out are cheap by Western standards — a sit-down tagine is $5–$10, a fancier restaurant dinner $15–$30, mint tea or a fresh juice a dollar or two. Tipping is woven into daily life: a few dirhams for a café waiter, $5–$15 a day for a good private guide or driver pooled across the group, a dirham or two for the man who watches your shoes at a mosque or helps with bags. It adds up gently rather than alarmingly.

Then there are the variable extras. Entrance fees to major sites are small — usually $2–$8. A hammam ranges from $10 at a local bathhouse to $60+ at a spa. Camel rides, cooking classes, and guided medina walks are $20–$60 if not already included. And shopping is the genuine wildcard: a leather bag, a rug, lanterns, spices, and argan oil can be $20 or $2,000 depending entirely on your willpower in the souk. Set yourself a souvenir budget before you walk in, because the carpet sellers are very, very good at their jobs.

Practical money tips from years of doing this: Morocco is largely cash-based once you leave hotels, so carry dirhams (drawn from ATMs in-country at a better rate than airport bureaux), keep small notes for tips and taxis, and do not rely on cards in the medina or in rural areas. The dirham is a closed currency — you cannot get it before you arrive and you should spend or reconvert it before you leave. Bring a little more than you think you will need; unspent cash is a far smaller problem than running short on a Friday when the banks are quiet.