I’m a co-founder at Maptia and after we graduated from the TechStars Seattle program at the end of last year, our team’s temporary U.S. visas expired, and so we were forced to re-locate away from the States. Being three British co-founders, London seemed like an obvious option, but it is of course extremely expensive to rent accommodation and office space. Needing to make our runway last until we had launched the Beta for our product, we instead spun the globe and found a cheap apartment only ten metres from the Atlantic ocean in the Moroccan surf town of Taghazout – now equipped with high speed broadband and enough space for all five of us currently on the team to live and work comfortably. We’ve been living here for six months now and loved every minute of it…

Taghazout is a sleepy fishing village on the coast of Morocco – home to some of the best surf in Africa it has been a firm favourite of nomadic surfers for decades.

The mornings here are so peaceful. When the tide is out and there is good swell, nothing beats a morning surf at Anchor Point – it’s long hollow right-hand waves are some of the best I have ever surfed. When we have time, hiking and cliff jumping in the nearby Paradise Valley is beautiful, followed by home-cooked tagines in the evening outside under the stars.

The people go out of their way to help you. In such a small community everyone knows everyone and we have made a lot of friends since moving out here!

Power cuts occasionally hit at bad moments (eg. when we on Skype)

My top three would be:
#1 The internet access is as fast as back home in England.
#2 It only rains 1-2 weeks per year here
#3 It has a startup population of one!

Micronesia – via boat or sea plane and searching for un-surfed, perfect waves.

Taylor Steele, the greatest surf film-maker in the world in my opinion. Steve Mccurry, National Geographic photographer and photojournalist. Rolf Potts – author of ‘vagabonding’ who inspired me to hit the road in the first place.