The only budget prep you’ll need here is a lesson in hardcore haggling techniques...

Bewitching and chaotic in equal measures, Marrakech is a sink or swim kinda place.

Sure you might get ripped off and end up spending all your cash on a knock off leather shoulder bag, but if you’re savvy you can get by on a tenner a day.

This is how to spend £20 in Marrakech…

Free Shiz

Head straight to Jemaa el Fna square to dive straight into spicy, colourful Moroccan bedlam.

See snake charmers, dancers and acrobats without spending a penny and get lost in rows of souks selling everything from gold teeth to sheep heads.

For free art head to New Town to see a row of Eucalyptus trees that have been carved, painted and even burnt into beautiful designs. The result? Forest casual…

Under a Fiver

“Spread em”

For about £2 you can get touched, stroked and scrubbed in places you didn’t know you had at a traditional hammam.

Lots of hotels offer their own versions but you’ll pay 10 times the price. Ask for the local hammam and leave with the skin of a newly hatched prawn.

Get eyefuls of history for a pound at the ruins of El Badi Palace.

Once a majestic palace paved with gold, turquoise, ivory and crystal, ‘The Incomparable’ is now a stark, crumbling ruin - age bites.

Explore Sultan Ahmed el-Mansour’s 16th century home to see the devastation of a whole lotta war.

No point in spending your beans in a fancy restaurant when there’s street food stands on every corner…

You’ll find pretty much everything in Jemaa el Fna square and you’ll still have change from a fiver. Try deep fried potato balls (‘ma’qooda’) or sweet sesame cookies (‘chebakia’). Or if you’re feeling adventurous grab a bowl of spicy snail soup… Best washed down with a glass of world-famous orange juice.

Under a Tenner

Fashion designers are always after your cash, and in Marrakech it’s no different…

The Yves Saint Laurent Museum (£8) is a colourful oasis in an otherwise hectic city.

You’ll find it in the leafy Jardin Majorelle, the garden Saint Laurent saved from greasy hotel developers back in the 60s. See original designs and a library with over 5000 books on fashion, North African history and botanics.

Splashing Out

Not in the £20 budget but if you do one spenny thing, take a trip into the desert 🐪

A 4X4 will whisk you across the sand to meet the nomadic Berber tribe who live deep in the Saharan dunes. Take a swig of traditional Berber whiskey and share a meal under the stars (£54).

Marrakech takes no prisoners. You’ve got to be ready to haggle for everything and accept that you’ll (probably) get scammed. But that’s the price you pay for African magic in 3.5 hours.

Just take a deep breath before you get off the plane…