Martil and M'diq are where northern Morocco goes to the beach, and in high summer that's no exaggeration — these are the bays Tangier and Tetouan decamp to. They sit about 75 km east of the airport, just over an hour away once you've cleared Tetouan, and what you arrive at are proper Mediterranean resort towns rather than fishing villages: long sandy beaches, a working marina and yacht basin at M'diq, palm-lined corniches with cafés running shoulder to shoulder.
The two towns share a coastline but have different characters. Martil is the bigger, louder one, a long promenade that fills with families and a younger crowd after dark; M'diq is a notch more polished, its marina and resort hotels giving it a quieter, slightly smarter feel, with the upmarket villas of Cabo Negro just to the south. Season is everything here.
Come in July or August and you're sharing the sand and the road with half the north; come in June or September and the same beaches are wide open, the water still warm, the drive in clear. That single difference shapes how you should plan the transfer more than anything else.
Compare your options
| Your options | Price from | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Private transfer Recommended 1 h 10 | €55 · 590 MAD | Family beach arrivals with luggage |
| Airport grand taxi 1 h 10 | €56 · 600 MAD | Charter without pre-booking |
| Shared taxi via Tetouan 1 h 50 | €5 · 50 MAD | Budget travellers light on bags |
How to get there
A pre-booked private transfer is around €55 and the obvious choice for a resort arrival — beach bags, kids, and a driver who takes you to the exact apartment block rather than a vague stretch of promenade. The road runs east past Tetouan, then drops gently to the coast; it's all fast, level driving with none of the mountain switchbacks of the Chefchaouen run.
An airport grand taxi chartered for the trip will quote roughly 550–650 MAD for the whole car, meter off as always, so agree the figure before you load. Public transport is doable but fiddly with luggage: a shared grand taxi or CTM coach from Tangier to Tetouan (about 35–45 MAD), then a local shared grand taxi for the last twenty minutes down to the coast (around 8–12 MAD per seat) — the exact relay Tetouan families pour onto all summer.
All of it, though, starts from central Tangier rather than Ibn Battouta, so factor in a city taxi first. For anyone landing with a holiday's worth of bags, the fixed-price car straight to the hotel door is well worth the premium over stitching the legs together.
Arrival tips
These are car-friendly resort towns, so the driver pulls up at the hotel entrance or the apartment block — no gates, no walking in with cases. M'diq's marina district and Martil's seafront are the two main drop zones, and both run for a couple of kilometres, so give the driver the exact building name or hotel rather than 'the beach', which means nothing here in August.
If you've booked a self-catering apartment, have the host's check-in instructions and phone number saved offline, since many handovers happen by code or key-box rather than a front desk. Draw cash at the airport: smaller seafront cafés and the beach kiosks are cash-only, and ATMs near the promenade can run dry on busy summer weekends.
Plan your arrival
- Before you fly, save your hotel or apartment's exact name and the host's check-in instructions offline — promenade addresses are long and look alike.
- In arrivals, draw 400–600 MAD; many seafront cafés and beach kiosks take cash only and ATMs run dry on busy weekends.
- Confirm your pre-booked driver, or fix the grand-taxi fare (550–650 MAD) out loud before bags go in the boot.
- Tell the driver the precise building, not just Martil or M'diq — each seafront runs for a couple of kilometres.
- On an August weekend, set off with time to spare: the final crawl into M'diq can add half an hour or more.
Underestimating summer traffic. On a hot August weekend the last stretch into M'diq crawls bumper to bumper, and a one-hour run can stretch well past ninety minutes — never book a transfer tight against a dinner reservation or a sunset boat trip on an August Saturday.
If you want a day with more to it than sand, have the driver detour through Cabo Negro on the headland between the two towns for the views, or build a stop into Tetouan's UNESCO medina on the way in. The coast is for lounging; the culture and the best photographs are twenty minutes back up the road, and one car can do both.
Good to know: Popular in summer; a fixed-price transfer to your exact building beats negotiating at the rank with beach bags.
