Using an eSIM in Fes

What Fes is like on a phone

Fes draws travellers who stay longer and walk slower than they would elsewhere in Morocco: people here for the craft workshops, students of the language, and visitors pausing before heading north to Chefchaouen or south towards the desert. The old city has no cars in it at all — goods move by mule and handcart — so the day is entirely on foot, and the phone gets used to confirm that you are still on the right lane rather than to navigate outright. The newer districts are unremarkable in the good sense. Inside the old medina the data arrives, but your position on the map deserves less trust than you would like to give it.

Al aterrizar

Fes-Saiss (FEZ) is small and the formalities are quick, so switch the eSIM on while you are still inside the building: medina accommodation usually asks for your arrival time and will name a meeting point. The road from the airport runs through the new districts first and then drops down towards the old city, which sits in a bowl below. Cars cannot enter the medina, so a driver stops at a gate — Bab Boujloud or whichever is nearest your riad — and you walk in from there. If you have heavy bags, many places will send someone with a handcart to meet you. Arrange that in advance, and save both the gate name and a screenshot of the walking directions on the phone.

Dónde cambia la cobertura

The newer districts and the ring roads are steady, and so is a rooftop terrace, which is usually the best-connected spot in a medina house. The lanes of the old city are very narrow, walled high and roofed in places, which makes your map position wander even while the data itself is fine — download the offline map of the whole quarter before you go in. Out of town is a different matter: the roads climbing into the Middle Atlas and through the cedar forest have gaps along the valleys and the passes, and the winding route north towards the Rif has quiet points of its own. On any day that leaves the city, load the whole route and save the numbers you might need while you are still at the riad.

What a day here costs in data

A day in the medina usually lands around 1–1.5GB, but the thing that runs out first is battery, not data: the screen stays on for most of the day and the phone keeps hunting for a position in lanes where the satellite view is poor. Carry a power bank. Translation works harder here than people plan for, with signage and conversation moving between Arabic and French. Between the lanes, the tannery terraces and the tiled gateways, one day produces a great many photographs, so let them upload once you are back at the house. Calls home tend to settle on the evening here, which is late at night in Thailand, so agree on a time before you travel.

Districts travellers ask about

• Fes el-Bali and the two main talaas — The spine of the old city, where two wide lanes run downhill from the western gate. Stay on them and you will not get badly lost; branch into the small alleys and the map stops being trustworthy. Treat those two as the thread you follow back out.
• Fes el-Jdid and the Mellah — The quarter between the old and new cities, with palace gates and wider streets, where both the line and the navigation are easier than in Fes el-Bali. A reasonable place to regroup before heading back into the old lanes.
• The Ville Nouvelle — Wide streets, clear signage, cafes and offices you can actually sit and work in, with the steadiest line in the city. The place to take an online meeting, make a transfer or deal with paperwork before you drop back down into the old city.
• Borj Nord and the Merenid hillside — The hillside above the city looking down over the whole medina — open ground, so it works well, and a spot plenty of people use to show the view to family on a video call. Coming back down into the old city after dark, load your route before you leave the viewpoint.

Day trips out of the city

• Meknes and the ruins at Volubilis — Meknes behaves like the mid-sized city it is, and the ruins sit in open farmland where the line usually still reaches. The small roads through the fields between the two thin out in patches. Save the meeting point you agreed with your driver before you walk off into the site.
• Chefchaouen, the blue town in the Rif — The road north winds along the hillsides with real gaps between villages, while the town at the end is small, set on an open slope and comfortable to use. Load the map and your accommodation address before setting off, because finding a guesthouse among the blue lanes after dark is harder than it sounds.
• Ifrane and the cedar forest at Azrou — A day of driving up into the Middle Atlas. Ifrane itself is normal, and once you are into the cedar forest and on the roads over the passes it goes for long stretches. Treat the forest hours as offline time, and take a warm layer, because the altitude is a good deal colder than the city you left.