What should I buy in Morocco?

After fifteen years sending guests home with half-empty suitcases and a panic about overweight luggage, here's my honest shortlist. The things actually worth carrying home are the ones that are genuinely Moroccan and genuinely handmade: a hand-knotted Berber rug, leather babouches (the soft slipper-shoes) and a good bag, real argan oil, hand-painted ceramics, a pierced-brass lantern, and a tagine you'll actually cook in. Everything else — keyrings, fridge magnets, mass-produced 'evil eye' trinkets — is filler you'll regret paying for.

Buy at the source where you can. Fes is the leather capital because of the centuries-old tanneries, so that's where I'd buy a jacket, a pouf, or babouches. Marrakech's souks have the widest range of everything and the best lanterns and metalwork. The High Atlas villages and Berber cooperatives are where the real rugs come from — if you do a day in the mountains, you'll buy a better rug for less than in the Marrakech tourist alleys. Safi and Fes are the ceramics towns; Tamegroute near the desert makes that distinctive green-glazed pottery.

My rough budget guide, all heavily negotiable: babouches 80–200 MAD a pair, a leather pouf (unstuffed, so it packs flat) 250–500 MAD, a small hand-painted tagine 100–250 MAD, a good brass lantern 200–600 MAD depending on size, a tea glass set 100–250 MAD, and a small-to-medium hand-knotted rug anywhere from 800 to several thousand MAD. Argan oil from a real cooperative runs about 150–250 MAD for 100ml of cosmetic oil.

Two honest warnings. First, 'antique' and 'genuine Berber' get said about almost everything — assume new unless you really know what you're looking at, and don't pay antique prices for new goods. Second, leave room in your bag and your budget for the rug, because that's the thing people most regret not buying. A pouf and a stack of babouches you can fit anywhere; a rug needs planning, and most good shops will ship it for you.