Sidecar Tours Are the Best Way to Go Sightseeing

Picture this: The motorcycle begins humming, as you strap on your helmet and adjust your goggles. Soon you’re darting through the labyrinthine streets of Marrakech’s ancient medina, kicking up dust as you careen around sharp corners, through the arched gateways of the city’s old walls, stopping occasionally for a mule-cart traffic jam. The streets are so narrow you could reach out and run your fingers over the carpets or the spices being sold in the souk. You can feel the engine humming, and yet . . . that mechanical rumble is coming not from between your thighs but about two feet or so to your left. You’re just along for the ride.

Welcome to a sidecar tour, which offers all the romance and beauty of a high-speed, Indiana Jones–style adventure without any of the work. The focus needed to master these tight alleyways? The Frogger-like evasive maneuvering? Better leave those to a professional driver, so you can sit back and focus on taking in the scenery.

Sidecars can trace their roots back to 1890s France, when army officer Jean Bertoux won a newspaper contest to invent a new method for carrying a passenger on a bicycle. They went on to become much more associated with motorbikes and emerged as integral parts of military strategy during the World Wars, when they were used to carry machine guns and ammo.

Today, they’ve become an increasingly popular form of soft adventure travel, with tour companies popping up across the globe. You…