Where to stay in Fez: the 4 neighborhoods to know in 2026
In Fez, the charm of a neighborhood settles nothing: what settles it is whether or not you accept finishing on foot. Fes el-Bali, the medina founded in the ninth century, is the largest car-free urban area in the world, and no vehicle moves inside it. A taxi drops you at a gate, Bab Boujloud at the top, R'cif at the bottom, and your suitcase carries on by handcart, pushed by a man walking ahead of you through alleys where loaded mules still pass. Inside there is the Karaouiyine mosque and its university from 859, the Bou Inania madrasa, the carpenters' fondouk, the Batha museum, and the vats of the Chouara tanneries, watched from the terrace of a leather dealer. Outside, ten minutes away by taxi, there are lifts, swimming pools and car parks.
This guide cuts the city into four, and each part answers that question, not another one. The medina holds seven of the fourteen addresses, because that is where the riads are: courtyard houses turned inward, five to twelve rooms, a roof terrace. Fes el-Jdid and the Mellah, the Merinid town of 1276, hold the royal palace, the Jewish cemetery and the Jnan Sbil garden, and their hotels have what the medina does not: a door where a taxi can park. The northern heights, Borj Nord and the Merinid tombs, have a single address, and it is the view. The new town, laid out from 1916 two kilometres away, has the railway station, the pavement cafés of Avenue Hassan II and the hotels with lifts. As for prices: $12 to $17* buys a dorm bed, a simple guesthouse room runs $46* up to $91*, a riad with character asks $102* and tops out at $181*, the medina's two palaces sit at $290 to $340*, and the new town's hotels with lifts spread from $51 to $147*.
In any case, it is the most beautiful medina I have visited in this country.
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Fes el-Bali: the medina, the riads and the alleys The Karaouiyine mosque and its university, the Bou Inania madrasa, the Nejjarine fondouk and its wood museum, the Blue Gate of Bab Boujloud, the Dar Batha museum, Bab Ftouh, Bab Guissa, the Chouara tanneries, the two main streets Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghira
to live in the medina, for the riads, for the call to prayer at dawn
You sleep here for one reason, and it is enough: at five in the morning the mosques answer one another from one end of the quarter to the other, and by six the handcarts are passing under the windows. The medina is not visited, it is crossed: two main streets, Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghira, run down from Bab Boujloud towards the Karaouiyine, and all the rest is a tangle of derbs where a phone loses its bearings. The addresses are riads, that is, houses turned towards their courtyard: nothing shows from the street, the door is low, and inside is a well of zellige and carved wood. Most of them send someone to meet you at the nearest gate, and that is the service that counts most here. The downside: the last two hundred metres are on foot, by day as at night.
You get woken up by the sound of prayer, because there are mosques on every street corner.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Riad Fes - Relais & Châteaux Luxury
Above Batha, ten minutes' walk from the Karaouiyine: three houses joined around courtyards, a black pool, a swimming pool, a roof terrace looking over the whole medina. Rated 9.2 on nearly three hundred reviews, with 9.6 for comfort and 9.5 for cleanliness. It is the most expensive address in this guide, and the one reviews cite for its restaurant as much as for its rooms.
Palais Amani Luxury
In the lower medina, near the R'cif: one of the largest original riads in Fez, a courtyard planted with orange and olive trees, a spa, a restaurant, a terrace from which the labyrinth unfolds. Rated 8.8, but on forty-five reviews only, with 9.6 for cleanliness and 9.4 for the staff. The reviews speak of a restored house rather than a hotel, and that is exactly what it is.
Riad Laaroussa Mid-range
A seventeenth-century palace near Talaa Seghira, and the best score in this guide: 9.6 on nearly three hundred reviews, with 9.8 for cleanliness, comfort, location and staff. Swimming pool, hammam, spa, and a breakfast the reviews mention every time. At around $147* a night, it is also the address best placed on the ratio between score and price.
Hotel & Spa Dar Bensouda Mid-range
A quarter of an hour's walk from Batha square, two courtyards, a pool, a spa: the large guesthouse of the medina, with the biggest review count in the quarter, 9.1 on more than one thousand five hundred. The detailed scores are steady (9.5 for the staff, 9.4 for comfort and cleanliness), and that is what such a volume says: it is not a stroke of luck.
Dar Seffarine Mid-range
A few steps from the Seffarine square, the brassworkers' one, and therefore in the exact heart of old Fez: 9.5 on more than three hundred reviews, including 9.7 for the staff and 9.5 for value for money, the best score in this guide on that point. The reviews all tell the same story: someone comes to wait for you at the entrance of the medina, and dinner is served under the dome.
Riad Verus Budget
Derb Arset Bennis, in Batha, five minutes from the Blue Gate: a hostel inside a riad, dorm beds from $14* and private rooms, a roof terrace where breakfast is served. Rated 8.5 on nearly seven hundred reviews, with 9.2 for location and 9.1 for the staff. It is the address for solo travellers who want to sleep in the medina without paying medina prices.
Funky Fes Budget
Near Bab Jdid, in the south-western corner of the medina: the cheapest of the fourteen addresses, $12* a bed, Moroccan breakfast extra. Rated 8.3 on more than one thousand two hundred reviews, with 9.1 for the staff and 9.0 for value for money. The reviews insist on the size of the rooms and on the help from the staff, which here is what replaces a map.
Pros
- Everything you came to see is less than ten minutes' walk away
- The best-rated riads in the city, by a wide margin
Cons
- No cars: your suitcase ends up on a handcart, and you behind it
- The dawn prayer is heard everywhere, and the alleys are dark at night
Fes el-Jdid, the Mellah and Avenue Allal el-Fassi The royal palace and its brass gates, the Mellah and the Jewish cemetery with its white tombs, Bab Semmarine the farriers' gate, the Jnan Sbil garden, the mausoleum of Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn Al Arabi, the Borj Fes shopping centre
for a door where the taxi parks, and the medina ten minutes away on foot
This is the compromise of Fez, and it is an honest one. Fes el-Jdid, the town the Merinids built in 1276 beside the old one, has straight streets wide enough for a car: the royal palace and its seven brass gates, the Mellah and its Jewish cemetery with white tombs lined up on the slope, Bab Semmarine and its street of grocers. Between the two medinas, the Jnan Sbil garden is the only real breathing space in the old city, with its bamboo and its pond. The hotels, for their part, are on Avenue Allal el-Fassi, on the medina's edge: large, with car park and swimming pool, and a quarter of an hour's walk from the Blue Gate. The downside: scores there top out around 8, and the rooms are the age of their photographs.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Riad Jnan Sbil Mid-range
Right against the Jnan Sbil garden, and therefore between the two medinas: a small guesthouse of a few air-conditioned rooms with a terrace, rated 8.5 on seventy-six reviews. The volume is low and so is the score: what you buy here is being able to come home along a street a car can use, and having the garden as a neighbour.
Palais Medina Riad Resort Mid-range
On Avenue Allal el-Fassi, five hectares of Andalusian garden, swimming pools and a spa, rooms looking onto the medina or onto the trees. Rated 7.9 on more than two thousand three hundred reviews, with 8.8 for location, 8.2 for cleanliness and 7.5 for value for money: that is the average score of a large hotel growing old, not that of a bad address, and at $91* it holds up.
Barceló Fès Medina Mid-range
Next to the Borj Fes shopping centre, on the medina's edge: an international hotel with no surprises, recent rooms, a car park, and the breakfast the reviews put forward. Rated 7.9 on more than one thousand four hundred reviews, including 8.9 for location and 8.6 for comfort. At $74* a night, it is the address in this guide that asks the least effort.
Pros
- A taxi, a car park and a suitcase that never leaves the boot
- The palace, the Mellah and Jnan Sbil without taking the car
Cons
- Only three addresses, and none above 8.5
- The tanneries and the Karaouiyine take twenty minutes on foot
The northern heights: Borj Nord and the Merinid tombs The Borj Nord, a sixteenth-century Saadian fort turned arms museum, the ruined Merinid tombs on the ridge, the panorama over the medina at sunset, the climb up from Bab Guissa
for the view over the medina, and for a single address
This is not a quarter you live in, it is a ridge you look from. Twenty minutes' climb from Bab Guissa, or five by taxi, and the whole medina lies flat beneath your eyes: the white chequerboard of the terraces, the minarets, the smoke of the tanneries, the hills beyond. The Borj Nord, a sixteenth-century Saadian fort, now houses a collection of weapons; the Merinid tombs, a few walls still standing above the drop, are the viewpoint everyone reaches an hour before sunset. One single address is up there, and it lives on that view. The downside: for dinner, for anything to drink other than tea, for everything else, you have to go back down.
To make the most of your visit, I would suggest grabbing a drink at a hotel located on high ground, which lets you enjoy a superb panoramic view.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Les Mérinides Mid-range
The hotel of the hill of the tombs, and the only one: outdoor pool, two restaurants, free car park, and rooms whose window holds the entire medina. Rated 8.1 on more than six hundred reviews, with 9.1 for location, the best location score in this guide. The reviews all say the same things in the same order: the view first, the staff next, breakfast after that.
Pros
- The view the reviews in this guide mention most, from the room
- Five minutes by taxi from the medina, and complete quiet at night
Cons
- One hotel, and nothing around it: every outing is by car
- The walk up from Bab Guissa is steep and without shade
The new town: the station, Avenue Hassan II and the big hotels The Fez railway station and its trains to Casablanca, Tangier and Marrakech, Avenue Hassan II and Boulevard Mohammed V, the sports complex and its stadium, the cafés and restaurants of the centre, the golf course of the Fes Country Club five kilometres further west
for the train, a pool, a lift and pavements
Laid out by the French from 1916, two kilometres from the old city, the new town is everything the medina is not: straight avenues, pavements, traffic lights, cafés where you sit outside, and the station from which the trains for Casablanca, Tangier and Marrakech leave. You sleep here for practical reasons, and they are good ones: an early train, a hire car, children, a swimming pool, a lift up to the room. The three addresses here are the biggest in this guide by number of reviews, and also the most uneven in scores. The downside is a whole one: the medina is ten minutes away by taxi, and a quarter of nineteen-twenties avenues is not what you came to Fez to see.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Hotel Sahrai Luxury
On the slope of Dhar El Mehraz, above the new town and facing the medina: the contemporary grand hotel of Fez, pool, garden, spa, rooftop bar. Rated 8.6 on more than six hundred reviews, with 9.1 for cleanliness and comfort, but 8.0 for location, and that is fair: you are above everything, therefore far from everything. The reviews cite room service until one in the morning and the sunset from the pool.
Fes Marriott Hotel Jnan Palace Mid-range
The big conference hotel of the new town: wide rooms, outdoor pool, gym, sauna, six restaurants, free car park. Rated 8.4 on more than two thousand reviews, with 8.8 for cleanliness and staff, 7.8 for value for money. At around $147*, it is the address for families and business travellers, and recent reviews say it could do with a refresh.
Ibis Fes Budget
Right beside the station, outdoor pool in a garden, a restaurant, and a room from $51*. Rated 7.0 on more than two thousand five hundred reviews, the biggest volume in this guide, with 8.3 for location and 7.5 for cleanliness: that is an average score owned up to, and what you buy here is putting your suitcase down fifty metres from the platform.
Pros
- The station on foot, taxis everywhere, parking in front of the hotel
- The pools, the lifts and the family rooms of this guide are here
Cons
- Ten minutes by taxi to reach the first gate of the medina
- Nothing historic to see in the quarter itself
Our tips for booking the right place
- The medina is not done by car, and neither is your suitcase: This is the first thing to settle, and it decides the rest. No vehicle enters Fes el-Bali: the taxi drops you at a gate, and from there a man takes your suitcase on a handcart as far as the riad, for a few dozen dirhams. The two useful gates are Bab Boujloud at the top, for the Talaa Kebira and Batha side, and R'cif at the bottom, for the Karaouiyine and the tanneries. Ask the riad, when booking, which gate to arrive at and whether it sends someone: almost all of them do, and that is the difference between twenty minutes of alleys and a simple arrival. Also expect a suitcase that rolls badly: the derbs are cobbled and they climb.
- The maze, the phone and the guides: Fes el-Bali counts several thousand alleys, and the map on your phone loses its bearings there between walls six metres high. The method that works is the one the people of Fez use: you remember the two main streets that run down from Bab Boujloud, Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghira, and you climb back towards them as soon as you are lost. An official guide, with a licence card, is taken for half a day for a first visit, and he opens doors you do not see; the touts who offer the same thing at the gates are not guides and always end up in a shop. In the evening the alleys empty and go dark early: that is the moment when the name of the riad's street, written down before leaving, really serves.
- The tanneries, the leather and what you pay: The vats of the Chouara tanneries are watched from the terraces of the leather dealers who surround them: you go up, you are handed a sprig of mint to hold under your nose, and the visit is free, but the way down goes through the shop. Nobody forces you to buy; on the other hand, a price announced for slippers or a bag is negotiated, and starting at around half is not rude at all. The same goes for carpets, which julies_journeys advises going to see on the rooftops: the view over the vats is part of the trade. Bring cash in dirhams, the small shops of the medina do not take cards, and the cash machines are at Batha, at the R'cif and in the new town.
- When to come, and what summer does to the medina: Fez sits at four hundred metres in a corridor closed off by hills, and summer there is dry and brutal: July and August regularly pass forty degrees, and the shadeless alleys become unwalkable in the afternoon. Spring and autumn are the two good seasons, March to May and September to November, with days at twenty-five degrees and cool nights. Winter is mild and wet, and old riads heat badly: check that a room has heating, not only reversible air conditioning. During Ramadan, monument hours shorten and many restaurants open only at the breaking of the fast: the riad, which serves dinner, then becomes the solution.
- A hotel in the new town chosen on price alone: two very visible addresses there hold scores of 6.7 on five hundred and seventy reviews and 7.1 on one hundred and fifty-six, with repeated comments on the bathrooms and the breakfast. At $51*, the station address cited in this guide is rated 7.0 on more than two thousand five hundred reviews: at that price level, the number of reviews is worth more than a pleasant surprise.
- Riads that advertise a rate without any published score, numerous in the medina below $46*: they exist, some are very good, but a six-room house with no reviews at all is a gamble, and a gamble you cannot walk out of in the middle of the night in a derb.
- Sleeping in the medina with a large suitcase and without having warned the riad: it is the one real regret you read in the reviews of Fez. The same riad, warned, sends someone to the gate and the problem no longer exists.
- The airport area of Fes-Saiss: fifteen kilometres south, nothing around, and twenty-five minutes of road to the centre. Even for an early flight, you sleep in town.
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