Enter custom title (optional)
This topic is locked
Last reply was
37

I'm undecided between going to Greece or Morocco in August. The tours are
MOROCCO
1 Casablanca
2 Casablanca - Rabat
3 Rabat - meknes - Volubilis - fez
4 fez
5 fez - beni mellal - marrakech
6 marrakech
7 marrakech - ait benhadou - ouarzazate - zagora
8 azgora - n'knob - tazzarine - merzouga - erfoud
9 erfoud - tineghir - ouarzazate
10 ouarzazate - marrakech
11 marrakech
GREECE:
1, 2 Athens
3 Athens - Olympia - Micenas
4 Mecenas - Delphi - Meteora
5 Meteora - Athens
CRUISE
6 Athens - Patmos -
7 - Kusadasi - Rhodes -
8 - Crete - Santorini -
9 - Mykonos - Athens

Report
1

I would not go to Greece on holiday for purely ethical reasons. Refugees from war-torn areas of the Middle East and North Africa have landed in Greece and are at the present time being treated abominably by the authorities.
This may not be the response you expected, but it's how I feel, and is the reason why I think you ought to come to Morocco.

Report
2

Both in Greece and Morocco in August will be too hot for your trip. Morocco I would save to Autumn or Spring actually. And your itinerary in Morocco is too rushed, very rushed. Slow down a bit. Travel is slow also, distances big. You would sit the whole days only in the car. You would need drive the whole time, even at night. Take a guidebook and map and look properly. Count with that even 300 km per day are too much.
Better in such case to take a cruise, then you can sleep while the ship is moving from place to place.


We travel because we need to. Because the distance and difference are the secret tonics to the creativity. When we get home, home is still the same, but something in our minds has changed, and that changes everything.
Jonah Leher
Report
3

I love both Greece and Morocco. I usually alternate my holidays between the two each year. I find they offer totally different experiences, but both equally as rewarding.

To echo Khamlia’s sentiments, you’re itineraries for both places are way too rushed....if not impossible. Travel in both of these places is slow, slow, slow, with many potential hiccups that can throw an over ambitious plan in to disarray. Khamlia's idea of a cruise is great, as you'd see loads of where ever you choose without the fuss.

Greece in particular is the kind of place that is best savoured slowly with plenty of time, say, on a beautiful beach where you usually feel like you could spend the rest of your life. Morocco, too, requires lots of time to get around and appreciate.....especially in August when the last place you want to be is in a car/bus. But I would never avoid Morocco in August as I love the vibe of it being hot, with lazy midday siestas and cool evening strolls.

I usually travel to both of these places in August as I like to feel the heat as much as possible.....I’m English so it’s the only chance I have for a summer. Going to Greece in low season (before June and after August) can be a miserable experience, where much of the tourist industry is closed down when families move away to work winter jobs or just shut up shop for the season. Where my in-laws live in Lefkas most of the restaurants shut down from the very beginning of September, and it’s the same story with my friends who live in Corfu......1st September everything shuts down. Luckily the weather in Greece in August is stunning, where I personally find it perfect for lolling around in the sun, water sports and relaxing. If you want to trawl the ruins and museums then maybe low season would be better if you don’t want to do it in the sun, but you can always just go in the morning or late in the day. Like I said, lots of restaurants and amenities shut down out of season so depends on what you want out of the holiday.

Morocco has no real tourist season so things are always open year round (apart from Ramadan).

In relation to David’s comments on the ethicality of travelling to Greece, I can’t help mention the fact that Morocco has a heinous human rights record, where dissidents and political upsetters still go missing, the government continues to stifle freedom of speech and it’s also being accused of aiding the rendition and torture of prisoners in the international hunt for religious extremists. This, on top of the fact that the UN have just been kicked out of the Western Sahara where Morocco continues to break international conventions and guidance on human rights towards the Polisario movement which contests Morocco’s claim to the region (and its mineral wealth!).......I could go on and on about the veneer of human rights that the Moroccan government likes to tout. In addition, Morocco has not set up any formal mechanism of accepting refugees from Syria etc, but prefers to just turn a blind eye to the wave of Syrians using Morocco (mostly via illegal routes from Algeria) as a staging post for migrants trying to enter Europe via the enclaves of Spain in the north, and provide little or no formal support or help to their fellow Muslims. According to Al Jazeera “.....refugees frequently complain of violence and discrimination by authorities there” and though they finally reformed their immigration situation in 2013 to offer legal residency to refugees they “....continue to face abuse, camp closures and forced relocation”.

Don’t even get me started on Morocco’s track record on women!

Greece does have formal camps, mechanisms for acceptance and actually offers the opportunity to claim asylum in Europe.......though they're struggling to cope at the closed Macedonian border where the refugees are refusing to be bussed to processing camps for legitimate asylum processing, which is a hellish situation and one that can’t be blamed on the Greeks. Volume is the issue here, not the system.

Both countries have a long way to go in being “human rights” acceptable when it comes to this global nightmare, but to suggest Greece is worse than Morocco is a statement that I would be forced to contest.

p.s. If the Moroccan authorities are reading this....please don’t hate me for this post, I'm just trying to balance an argument. Please don’t black-list me or anything. I love you despite what I said!

Report
4

......but I do agree (of course) with David that Morocco's the right choice. With the limited time you have I think there's more to see in Morocco in a compact area. Also, as a westerner (who are all essentially Greek at heart and culture) Morocco offers more of an "experience" of another culture and continent.

Report
5

I am agree with Kate about the hot, even I love the hot weather, prefer it than to have so bad and cold weather as we have here in Sweden, br. Somewhere I have read this sentence and like it: "After a intemperate solar heat is approaching the evening to the fresh zephyr, which bathe the body and all the sweat."


We travel because we need to. Because the distance and difference are the secret tonics to the creativity. When we get home, home is still the same, but something in our minds has changed, and that changes everything.
Jonah Leher
Report
6

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.

Pro tip
Lonely Planet
trusted partner