May 2015 GW is Morocco! We’ll be using Airbnb as well, and Jerusalem for a bit.

This year, we’re going to Morocco!

Most of the arrangements have been completed in this New Year holidays. We always consider our annual GW trip, usually during the New Year holidays.

(By the way, last year’s visit to a beautiful village in Italy was so disappointing that it has been postponed indefinitely.

Turkish Airlines to Casablanca via Istanbul

There is no direct flight from Japan to Morocco, but there were various flights via various European airlines and Middle Eastern airlines such as Emirates.

そのなかで今回選んだのは「トルコ航空」。スターアライアンスメンバーは久しぶり。もうマイル切れてるな…。

This is the second time I’ve flown with Turkish Airlines, having only flown with them once in 2010. I remember the service was very good. The food was also good.

It was just about 120,000 yen including surcharge on DeNA Travel, so it was well worth the price.

The flight time to Istanbul must have been a bit shorter than the major cities in Western Europe, so this is also good material.

World Heritage Sites, Big Cities and the Great Outdoors

Morocco is full of tourist resources. Major cities such as Marrakech and Fez are world heritage sites.

And this time, of course, we will also rent a car and go to the suburbs.

We won’t drive in the Sahara Desert, but we hope to go there and have a desert experience tour.

The roads are quite rough, sometimes unpaved, and driving can be challenging, but we’re planning on renting a higher class car than usual and using 4WD if possible.

Use the popular Airbnb

今回の旅行では、昨年くらいから爆発的にはやっているAirbnbをできるだけ活用したいと思っています。

Naturally, you have to create an ID, but the authentication process is pretty robust, including uploading a passport photo. It’s great. I also went through the procedure as specified, completed the authentication, wrote a proper English self-introduction and made an ID.

I haven’t posted it here, but in case you’re wondering, my main ID photo is my mug shot.

モロッコには、リヤド（Riad）と呼ばれる伝統的な建築様式の邸宅があり、旧市街などではこのリヤドをホテルとして開放しているところが多いとのこと。もちろんできるだけ利用したいわけです。

There are so many Airbnb listings in cities like Marrakech and Fez, and most of them are a fraction of the price of hotels and riads found in guidebooks and on Booking.com. And it’s usually less than half the price. It’s amazing.

Hmmm, I guess it’s getting so popular in Morocco too! If you check well, there are quite a few Japanese properties, aren’t there?

今回はマラケシュとフェズでそれぞれ2泊、Airbnbを利用することにしました。どちらのリヤドのホストさんも24時間以内に連絡をくれまして、今のところは極めて順調に予約できているみたいです。朝食も出してくれるみたいです。楽しみ。返答率、返答時間というのは、どうやらAirbnbではひとつの重要なファクターみたいです。

The iPhone app also looks useful, and I was able to register to Passbook.

However, Airbnb is not always the best option, so we are also using booking.com for some of our itinerary. We’ve also booked hotels in advance for a lot of the trip, but we’ll be deciding where to stay for a few days or so as the trip progresses.

Speaking of which, French.

That’s right (laughs). It seems that there are some places where English isn’t understood very well, so I have to study a little more seriously.

And a short trip from Istanbul to Jerusalem.

I’m planning to go with my wife again this time, but because of the schedule I might be able to utilize a little more time myself, so I decided to make a quick stopover in Israel by LCC from Istanbul by myself.

トルコにあるPegasus AirlinesというLCCでテルアビブへ飛び、エルサレムに3泊の予定。

The fare is 156 euro including service charge for Istanbul-Tel Aviv round trip. There is also a seat charge. This is 14 euro each way, total 28 euro. It’s my first time to use LCC, but I guess it’s about this much. It is certainly cheap from the sense of using normal airlines.

Well, there is a story that the financial situation is not so good…

You can check in luggage up to 20kg and hand luggage up to 8kg, so it’s ok. I think the weight of the SLR camera is a bottleneck. But it will be okay.

By the way, Morocco seems to be OK even if it is stamped with Israel. My passport will be expired next year, and I don’t seem to go to Arab countries in this one year, so I think I don’t mind to have it stamped, but I’ll think about it after checking a little more just in case.

また、イスラエル情勢は今後事細かくチェックは必要、適宜ネットで情報収集しておきます。