Some places don’t ask you to do anything, they just let you be.
Sunrise yoga, barefoot walks through salty air, and long conversations that stretch with the tide. Welcome to Imsouane, Morocco’s laid-back surf village, home to Flooka.
Both French and Moroccan, a mix that shows in everything they do.
He’s a surfer-architect from Agadir who caught his first wave at ten and never really stopped chasing it. A head for business, a heart that beats to the rhythm of the ocean.
She’s a food lover from Rabat who swears that meals are the quickest way to bring people together, the kind of person who makes you feel at home before you’ve even sat down.
Together, they dreamed up Flooka: a place that feels like your home by the sea.
Why Imsouane and where the idea came from?
“It’s where I learned to surf,” says Youssef. “There’s this rhythm here, time just slows down.” For him, Imsouane is a happy place, a piece of childhood that never really left.
With a background in architecture and investment, and a family rooted in construction, he saw the potential early. The surf world was just starting to discover Morocco, land was still within reach, and the dream began to take shape.
Together with Layal, they wanted to bring together everything they’d collected along the way: the flavors, textures, and ideas from their travels, and create something that felt like them: a blend of French ease, Moroccan soul, and a space made to bring people together. One wave, one wall, one sunrise at a time.
Was it easy? Not exactly.
Managing permits from Paris while coordinating builders in Morocco was, as Youssef puts it, “a real exercise in patience.” Emails, site calls, and endless back-and-forth trips were part of the process. “We had to unlearn how we worked in France,” he laughs. “Morocco has its own pace. You either fight it, or flow with it.”
When did you realise it’s gonna work out?
There wasn’t a single “we made it” moment. Just a slow accumulation of progress: walls going up, locals joining the team, the first guests walking barefoot through the sand. “It was small wins that told us we were on the right path,” Youssef says.
If you started again, what would you do differently?
We’d buy more land,” Youssef admits with a grin. “Imsouane has this energy, you just know it’s going to grow.”
When asked if Flooka changed their lives, did they quit their jobs, move permanently, or start over?
Layal says, “It didn’t change our life completely, but it made it richer, more meaningful.”
For Youssef, Flooka is a bridge back to his origins, perhaps a first step toward returning for good. For Layal, it’s the chance to create rituals around food and welcome, to see strangers become friends over dinner.
The dream is only growing.
A second Flooka is already under development in Taghazout. The vision? A collection of Flooka hotels along Morocco’s golden coastline, and eventually across Portugal, Spain, and France.
But this isn’t a race to scale. It’s about building slowly, consciously, staying true to what made the first one special.
Layal sums it up best:“Believe in your dream, go deep in the details, and enjoy the ride.”Youssef just smiles, “And buy more land.”
