What should I know about the souks before visiting?

The first thing to grasp is that a souk is not a shop, it's a living maze, and getting lost in it is part of the experience rather than a failure. Historically the lanes are grouped by trade — the dyers' souk, the slipper-makers, the spice and the metalworkers' quarters — so if you can't find leather, follow your nose toward where the leather sellers cluster. Street signs are scarce and GPS struggles between the high walls, so I tell clients to relax about direction, note a couple of landmarks, and accept that they'll come out somewhere unexpected. An offline map helps, but wandering is the point.

On price, the single most useful move is to browse before you buy. Walk the same kind of item — a lamp, a rug, a leather bag — past three or four stalls, ask prices, and let the real range reveal itself before you commit anywhere. Opening prices for obvious tourists can be three to five times what something sells for, so a common rule of thumb is to counter at about a third of the first ask and settle somewhere in the middle. Decide your true walk-away price before you start, and the negotiation becomes calm rather than stressful.

The social choreography matters as much as the numbers. You'll be invited to sit, drink mint tea, and chat — and accepting tea does not obligate you to buy anything, despite the gentle pressure that follows. Stay warm, smiling and unhurried; the worst thing you can do is get irritated, because the whole exchange is meant to be enjoyable. Walking away slowly is your strongest tool and often summons the best price as you go. And a genuine "la shukran" with a smile, repeated kindly, ends any encounter you're not interested in without rudeness on either side.

A few practical guardrails make it all easier. Carry small cash and never flash a thick wad. Be wary of anyone insisting a route is "closed" or steering you to "his cousin's shop" — polite decline and keep walking. Know what you actually want and roughly what it's worth so you're not buying on impulse and emotion. And take breaks: souk fatigue is real, so a courtyard café and a fresh orange juice resets you. Played as a friendly ritual rather than a fight to be won, the souk goes from the thing people fear to the thing they recount most fondly.