Where can I experience authentic Berber culture in Morocco?

First, a point of respect: the indigenous people of Morocco are the Amazigh (the word “Berber” comes from outsiders), and their language, music, dress and customs are very much alive — not a museum piece. The most authentic way to experience the culture is to go where Amazigh life is lived daily: the mountains and the south. My top recommendation is a homestay or village-to-village trek in the High Atlas around Imlil, Ouirgane and especially the remote Ait Bougmez valley, where you sleep in family gites, share tagine and bread baked in a communal oven, and walk between mud-brick villages and terraced fields.

The south-east is profoundly Amazigh too. The Dades and Todra gorges, the Saghro massif and the road of a thousand kasbahs are dotted with villages where you can be welcomed for mint tea, watch carpets being woven on upright looms and hear the language spoken in the markets. A weekly souk in a town like Rissani, Tinghir or Boumalne Dades is the real thing — farmers, dates, livestock, spices and craftsmen, with barely a tourist in sight. The nomadic and semi-nomadic families on the desert fringe near Merzouga and M’Hamid are another window, and some welcome respectful visits to their tents.

For a different Amazigh region, the Anti-Atlas around Tafraoute is stunning — pink granite mountains, palm oases and stone villages, famous for its almond blossom festival in late winter. If you can time it, the Imilchil marriage moussem in the Middle Atlas (usually September) is one of the most extraordinary cultural gatherings in Morocco, where mountain communities come together for trade and traditional courtship in full traditional dress. These festivals (moussems) are where you see the music, the ahwach dancing and the silver jewellery at their most vivid.

My honest guidance: avoid the staged “Berber dinner shows” near the big resorts and instead invest in a local Amazigh guide and a couple of nights in the mountains. It costs little, the money goes directly to the community, and the experience is real — you are a guest, not an audience. Learn a couple of words (“azul” for hello, “tanmirt” for thank you), accept the endless glasses of sweet mint tea, and you will be met with a warmth and hospitality that is, genuinely, the deepest part of Moroccan culture.