I recreated my no-fly trip to Morocco, 42 years on – here’s what had changed ...Middle East

I wanted to show my husband, Andy, the journey I had taken at 23, when I travelled by boat and train to teach English in Rabat. Without a witness, it felt as if that year was a strange dream. 

In 1983, I was recovering from a broken heart and keen for adventure. Yet I had a phobia of flying and hadn’t travelled widely. However, I was taken by the idea of teaching in Morocco, which meant I could venture beyond Europe without stepping on a plane. 

The first leg of my journey was a ferry from Dover to Calais, followed by a night train to Paris. Then, at Gare de Lyon, I squeezed into a corner seat of the sleeper train. I hadn’t thought to pay for a couchette. The compartment was packed, mostly with men in djellabas returning to Morocco. Around 2am, border police came aboard to check passports.

There wasn’t a café on board, and I had failed to pack any food. But my travel companions took pity on me and shared their bread, cheese and water.

After passing Bordeaux, I made friends with a Moroccan student called Ali who said he would help me find my base in Rabat, if I needed.

I didn’t see another woman for the 24 hours to the port city of Algeciras, in Andalucia. It was there that I caught a ferry to Morocco. Mothers carrying babies and shopping bags joined the queue. On board, it was noisy and the air smelt of cannabis.

When we arrived in Tangiers, Ali ushered me from the port to the railway station, where we caught the train to Rabat. The sun was going down. Cumin and mint infused the air. Hawkers were selling leather goods and pottery.

I arrived exhausted and unwashed in Rabat, after a 48-hour journey. The director of the school where I would be working met me at the station.

Fast forward 42 years, my husband has retired, and we have more time to explore. Cross-border rail travel has evolved. Eurostar is the quickest no-fly option for reaching the continent from London. European trains now mostly feature clean, comfortable and, often, high-speed trains.

But organising tickets for a multi-leg, multi-country journey can be complicated. With that in mind, Andy and I rely on travel company Byway to organise our no-fly return trip to Rabat. Rail travel has enjoyed a resurgence: the number of people taking flight-free trips with Byway grew by 66 per cent in 2024, for example. I may be seeking nostalgia, but our journey is right on trend.

We leave St Pancras for Paris Gare du Nord, then walk to Gare de Lyon for our next train to the southern city of Nîmes. Our hotel has a view of the Roman arena. The next day we’re bound for Madrid. After a night’s stay there (enough time to take in Picasso’s Guernica), we catch a train to Cádiz and a bus to Tarifa for the jet ferry to Tangier. The ferry ride is fast (less than an hour) and choppy. Passengers lean on the balustrade watching the minarets of Tangier move closer. I buy whisky (my tried-and-tested sea sickness cure) from the ferry’s tiny bar.

In Tangier, the border police are stony-faced, but gone are the hashish sellers, the touters of crafts, and hustlers. It’s surprisingly quiet once we’re through customs. We find a “grand taxi” (like minibuses, they take passengers between cities). The driver charges us £20 for the 150-mile ride to Chefchaouen.

The drive is hair-raising, and we yearn for the steady clack of trains. On the roadside are makeshift homes, built out of corrugated iron and breeze blocks, stalls barbequing what look like whole goats, sheep and cows, and people working the land by hand harvesting olives, almonds, kolrabi and spinach.

We stay two nights in the blue hill-top town of Chefchaouen, the muezzin’s call waking us at 5am each morning. We get lost in the medina and watch the sunset from the hill outside the “Spanish mosque”.

For breakfast, we enjoy fresh juice and “Berber eggs” (eggs baked in slow cooked tomato and pepper sauce).

We take our only other bus ride for three hours to Fez, now a sprawling, modern city. Our hotel is a traditional riad with tinkling fountains and palm trees in the courtyard.

Our waiter, a thirty-year-old physics student, talks to us about his yearning to leave Morocco and work in the UK or America. In the old days, young Moroccans spoke French as a second language, now he says they prefer English as they all watch American films.

We spend two days exploring the ancient medina set in the steep valley. I first came to Fez in 1984. Back then, I remember the smells of cedar wood and baking bread.

We visit Bou Inania seminary, a theological college with intricate wooden lattice work, then shop for souvenirs.

From Fez station, glorious with its arched entrance, tiled façade and wooden lattice work ticket hall, the train to Rabat takes three hours. There, we find my old flat, and memories surface. I recall Mohammed, our concierge, losing his front teeth in an unprovoked attack. I gave him money to replace them, but he decided to spend it on a suit. All teachers had maids in those days. Ours introduced me to harrira, the chickpea soup still eaten all over Morocco.

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As I reminisce, we wander the Kasbah des Oudaias, overlooking the estuary. At the café near the Andalusian gardens, we sip mint tea and I think of the family I met on my first trip to Rabat, while wandering the Kasbah alone. They had invited to their home, and I ended up having lunch with them regularly. We ate couscous from a communal bowl and bread the daughters had made.  

When we leave Rabat, our high-speed train whisking us back to Tangier, Andy admits Morocco’s “the most different place” he’s been to. He’s enjoyed the bartering, the mint tea, the call to prayer, the mysterious alleyways of the medinas and our beautiful riad.

Morocco was good to me when I was young, its hospitable people giving me a glimpse of local life in a way tourists rarely experience. But I appreciate having a companion to share it all with now. And going by train and ferry has been an adventure in itself.  

Best of all, Andy got to know my former home, so my Moroccan year no longer feels like a surreal dream, but a fascinating and formative experience.

Byway has a no-fly return trip to Rabat from £2,355pp, including accommodation and transport, byway.travel.

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