Tangier rewards a thin wallet: the finest views over the Strait cost nothing, mint tea on the Hafa cliffs is 15 dirhams, and a shared grand taxi reaches Cap Spartel for pocket change. Three days of free plateaus, market picnics and Spanish-era streets.
Anglican church consecrated in 1894 with Quranic verses carved in Arabic around the chancel arch. The caretaker unlocks it most mornings and walks you through the garden cemetery where journalist Walter Harris is buried.
Spanish art-deco theatre from 1913, its tiled facade and twin masks still intact behind the railings on Rue Anoual. Shut for decades, so the exterior and the crumbling Spanish-era blocks around it are the free attraction.
The 3 km city beach curving east from the port towards Malabata. No entry fee and no paid loungers on the western stretch; locals play football on the hard sand at low tide. Showers and changing huts run 10 MAD.
Rectangular graves cut straight into the clifftop rock around the 5th century BC, on an unfenced grassy terrace above the Strait. Never staffed, never ticketed; Tangier families gather here for the sunset over the water.
Covered produce market off Rue de Fès where Rif women in striped mendil cloths sell goat cheese, olives and mint. Roughly 5 MAD for a mint bunch and 15-25 MAD a kilo for tomatoes, oranges or new potatoes.
The long street dropping from the old town down towards the port is lined with hole-in-the-wall charcoal grills. Kefta skewers with bread and chopped salad run 25-40 MAD, and a bowl of harira soup costs 5-8 MAD.
Sprawling working-class flea market southwest of the centre: second-hand clothing sold by weight, Rif pottery, bulk spices and household salvage. Sunday is busiest and nothing here is priced with tourists in mind.
Clifftop café on stepped blue terraces, open since 1921, where Paul Bowles and the Rolling Stones once sat. Mint tea is 12-15 MAD and nobody moves you off the wall as the sun drops behind the Spanish coast at Tarifa.
Sea cave 14 km west of town with the famous Africa-shaped opening onto the Atlantic surf. Entry is 60 MAD, and the cheap way out is a shared grand taxi from Place de la Ligue Arabe at roughly 25 MAD per seat.
The 1864 lighthouse standing on the headland where the Atlantic officially meets the Mediterranean. Grounds, cliff path and viewpoint cost nothing, and it is a 5 km coastal walk or one more hop in the same shared taxi.
Around 70 hectares of umbrella pine and eucalyptus on the cliffs above the Atlantic road, once the estate of Ion Perdicaris. Free to enter, with marked trails, picnic clearings and gaps in the canopy framing the Strait.
The rebuilt waterfront walk running from the fishing harbour past the yacht basin to the ferry terminal. Public, unticketed and lit after dark, with fishermen selling the day's catch straight off the boats near the port gate.