CityBest March – May, October – November
Tangier
The strait-side city that drew spies and writers for decades, now a ferry ride from Spain and shaking off its old reputation.
Tangier sits where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, close enough to Spain to see it on a clear day, and it spent decades as an "International Zone" that drew everyone from Matisse to the Rolling Stones. The kasbah and old medina have had a real cleanup in the last decade — still gritty at the edges, but no longer the place its old reputation describes.