What do I do on my first day in Morocco (jet lag / orientation)?

My honest, hard-won advice is to under-plan your first day rather than over-plan it. The mistake I see most often is guests landing tired, dropping bags, and immediately plunging into the deepest, most overstimulating part of the Marrakech medina — heat, crowds, scooters, sellers, the lot — and ending the day frazzled and with a sour first impression of a place they will come to love. Morocco rewards arriving rested. Treat day one as a soft landing, not the start of the marathon.

The good news on jet lag is that the time difference is gentle. Morocco runs on GMT (it shifts to GMT+1 for much of the year), so from the UK and Western Europe there is essentially no jet lag — you might just feel travel-tired. From North America you are looking at a four-to-eight-hour shift, which is real but very manageable: the standard tricks work well, namely get daylight in the late afternoon, stay up to a normal local bedtime rather than crashing at 4pm, and you will largely reset by the second morning.

For the day itself, I steer people toward a short, low-pressure orientation. Check in, take a slow walk just around the immediate area of your riad or hotel so you learn the landmarks to navigate back to your door, find a café for a glass of mint tea, and have an early, light dinner — rich tagines on an exhausted, dehydrated stomach are a common cause of feeling rough on night one. A rooftop terrace at sunset is a perfect, gentle first taste of the country without overcommitting.

Practically: hydrate properly from the moment you land, because the dry air and travel dehydrate you more than you notice; pre-arrange your airport transfer so the first hour is calm; and if you want a guided medina walk, book it for day two when you are fresh and oriented rather than day one when you are not. Lock in the demanding things — the long desert drive, the full-day tours — from your second day onward, and your trip starts on a high instead of a slump.