by Brandon Ross | 5 October 2025 | Marrakech, Morocco

My First Ever Solo Trip to Marrakech

I booked Marrakech because I wanted to do things

I didn’t choose Marrakech because I had a deep curiosity about Morocco or a long-standing fascination with the city.

I chose it because I wanted to feel like I was properly living.

At 20, I was restless in a very specific way. Not unhappy, not bored – just aware that most of my life existed in planning mode. Ideas stacked neatly in my head. Trips I’d “do one day”. Experiences I’d get around to once timing, money, confidence, or company aligned.

Solo travel had become part of that category. Something I spoke about without having tested it.

Marrakech felt like a clean way to break the pattern. Affordable. Direct flights. Five nights. A hotel, not a hostel – deliberately. And, crucially, a place where I could book experiences that forced me into the day rather than letting me drift through it.

Quad biking. Camel riding. A hot air balloon over the desert at sunrise.

I wasn’t going to wander aimlessly and call it growth. I wanted movement. Sensation. A sense that I was using the days rather than filling them.

Going alone wasn’t the headline. Acting on it was.

The first realisation: being solo was… fine

One thing surprised me almost immediately: how comfortable everything felt.

Airports didn’t feel tense. Flights didn’t feel lonely. Transfers, check-ins, logistics – all smooth, all ordinary. If anything, it was simpler. I moved faster. I made decisions without friction.

I’d assumed the discomfort would come from navigating unfamiliar systems alone. It didn’t.

The only genuinely awkward part (and this caught me off guard) was eating alone.

The hotel was all-inclusive. There was no ordering, no waiting, no social choreography to manage. And yet, sitting alone in the evenings carried a strange weight. Not threatening. Not dramatic. Just exposed.

It was almost comical how out of proportion that felt compared to everything else.

Flying to another country alone? Fine. Riding a quad bike through the desert? Fine. Sitting quietly with myself at a table, with nothing to perform or distract? That’s where my confidence briefly wobbled.

That contrast mattered. It stripped away some of the mythology around solo travel. Most of it is practical. Mundane. Only occasionally awkward – and usually in ways you don’t predict.

Quad biking: adrenaline, headspace, and a quiet realisation

The quad biking day was the first time the trip fully clicked.

It demanded attention – hands tight on the handlebars, eyes scanning the terrain, body responding instinctively. But between those moments were long stretches where my mind opened up. The rhythm of movement created space rather than filling it.

I remember feeling genuinely buzzing.

Not just excited in the moment, but struck by a bigger thought: this is actually my life now. I didn’t mean Marrakech specifically. I meant the fact that I’d decided something, acted on it, and found myself here – alone, capable, moving through an experience without needing anyone else’s permission or presence.

We stopped at a small desert village partway through. Moroccan tea. A pause. Dust settling.

It wasn’t framed as reflective, but it became that anyway. Sitting there, I noticed how calm I felt. Not euphoric. Just steady. The kind of calm that comes when there’s no performance required.

That moment anchored the trip more than the speed or the photos ever could.

The camel ride surprised me

I expected the camel ride to feel touristy. Slightly awkward. Something to endure rather than enjoy.

It didn’t.

It was slow, quiet, almost meditative. The opposite of the quad bikes. The repetitive movement. The lack of urgency. The desert stretching without demanding attention.

I wasn’t thinking about how it looked or how it would come across. I wasn’t narrating it internally. I was just there.

That calm mattered. It created contrast. It stopped the trip from becoming one long spike of stimulation. It reminded me that “doing things” doesn’t always mean chasing intensity.

Sometimes it means allowing stillness to land when it arrives unexpectedly.

The balloon: doing the thing I normally avoid

The hot air balloon was different.

This is something I would normally skip – not because I’m scared of heights, but because I’m cautious about risk. I tend to avoid experiences where the margin for error feels abstract and absolute at the same time.

But it was sunrise. The desert was quiet. And I’d already committed to going alone – backing out here would have felt dishonest.

Floating at around 2,000 feet, with the mountains in the distance and the desert below slowly shifting colour, was genuinely unforgettable. One of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen.

What struck me wasn’t adrenaline or fear. It was perspective. Literal, yes, but also internal. Everything else fell quiet. No agenda. No noise. Just scale.

Doing that alone mattered. There was no shared reaction to mirror. No one to check in with. The experience belonged entirely to me.

I didn’t feel brave. I felt expanded.

Solo changed my behaviour – in good ways

Being alone shifted how I moved through the days.

I was more decisive. More open. Less self-conscious. Not because I was trying to be, but because there was no one else to absorb the uncertainty.

I noticed details more. I lingered when I wanted to. I left when I didn’t.

The change in environment (geographically and socially) allowed me to step into a better version of myself. Not a different one. Just a clearer one.

More confident. More independent. More aware of my own rhythms.

That wasn’t imagined. It was lived.

Imagining solo travel vs actually doing it

Before this trip, solo travel lived in theory. I understood why people did it. I could articulate the benefits. I could picture myself enjoying it.

But imagining it didn’t create momentum. Action did.

Actually going didn’t flatten the experience – it sharpened it. The confidence wasn’t abstract. It was embodied. Earned quietly through small decisions repeated across days.

The difference wasn’t dramatic. It was practical. And because of that, it stuck.

A beginning, not a peak

Marrakech wasn’t a defining moment in the cinematic sense.

It didn’t turn me into someone new. It didn’t solve anything. It didn’t need to.

What it did was expand my sense of what’s available when I stop waiting for conditions to be perfect. It removed a barrier I’d been maintaining out of habit rather than necessity.

This trip sits as a starting point. Proof of action. Proof of capacity. Proof that independence doesn’t arrive all at once – it accumulates.

I went to Marrakech not to reinvent myself, but to finally step into motion.

And that, more than the destination, is what stayed with me.