Tangier Dreams

With its fleet of exciting cultural hubs and smart new hotels, the storied North African city has never been more inspiring to visit.

- Liam Hess

There are few cities in the world as romanticized—or misunderstood— as Tangier. Perched on the northernmost tip of Morocco, near where Africa reaches out to Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, this teeming, multicultural metropolis is dominated by one period of history in the Western public consciousness: its mid-20th-century phase as a colonial “international zone,” when it became as infamous for its liberalism (read: licentiousness) as its sweeping Mediterranean views and architectural marvels. Here, William S. Burroughs drafted Naked Lunch in a frenzied haze of hashish and oxycodone; Mick Jagger recorded “Continental Drift” in a Moroccan palace; and Yves Saint Laurent established his final home within a peaceful, leafy villa overlooking the bustling medina and, beyond it, the craggy southern edge of Spain.