How we choose a partner hotel

When a tour page says “7 recommended riads”, it means seven places a planner has stayed in, eaten breakfast at and walked to from the nearest sight. Here is what they look for.

It is walkable from the reason you came

A beautiful hotel forty minutes from the old town costs you two hours a day. We map every partner against the places on the itinerary, and anything that needs a taxi for the basics stays off the list.

Someone answers at three in the morning

Late flights, lost keys, a fever in the night. We ask every partner who picks up the phone after midnight, and we test it.

The breakfast is real

It sounds small. It is not. A good breakfast is the first impression of every day on the road, and a hotel that cuts corners there usually cuts them elsewhere.

The rooms are quiet

Planners sleep in a street-facing room on purpose. If they wake up at five to delivery vans, guests will too.

The owners care about the place

We favour family-run hotels and riads that employ local staff and buy from local suppliers. In Marrakech that means riads inside the medina, run by people who grew up in it.

If a partner slips on any of these, guests tell us in the app, and we visit again. Hotels leave the list every year. That is how it should work.