This used to be as far as you could go. Tangier was the last stop on the ancient Mediterranean ferry line that began on the shores of Syria and Palestine and called at Rhodes, Alexandria, Rome, Libya's Leptis Magna, Marseilles and Barcelona. Beyond here there were either dragons or you simply fell off.

It's been some time since they took down the “There be Dragons” sign on the outskirts of this Moroccan city and replaced it with the glowing McDonald’s M, but even until relatively recently this whitewashed pearl on the northwesternmost point of Africa simmered with a slightly end-of-the-world feel. The city was an international zone where some came with the specific purpose of getting lost. Bogart went to Casablanca, but it's clear the inspiration came from Tangier.

Years after the last drink was served in Rick's Cafe, rock stars came looking for other ways of getting lost. Amid the haze, they ended up finding funky Gnawa musicians and taking them out on the road with them, giving the world tastes of the fusion that would become trance music. Jimi Hendrix stopped by en route to his Castle Made of Sand in Essaouira, while Beat poets came for similar reasons and ended up fixing Naked Lunches in author William S. Burrough's haunt, the El Muniria hotel.

Hippies and hipsters might have been the most recent stars to spread their notoriety over Phoenician Tingis, but it was a local boy who first spread its name beyond the Levant. The young man saw it in completely opposite terms from those running away: as a beginning rather than an end.

A traveler who set off on a pilgrimage to Mecca that would end up being the longest ever recorded journey, that is, until the invention of the steam engine, which made camel trains and sailing ships passé. The year was 1325 and the wanderer, Ibn Battuta.

I had come to Tangier on a pilgrimage to his tomb and to see what might be left of this traveler’s spirit and how his legacy fit in with the modern-day boom town replete with skyscrapers and row upon row of new beachside construction.

At first glance, the ancient traveler seems ever present. You can step off a ferry from Spain with his name emblazoned on the side, book a flight at the numerous travel agencies that boast his name, bed down at his hotel and even get a quick shave and a haircut at his coiffeur. All of which seemed easier than finding someone who had the key to his tomb.

It used to be that the only way most travelers came to Tangier was by sea. Ibn Battuta himself once disembarked in the nearby resort town of Asilah. Ferries ply the strait of Gibraltar every other hour, moving merchandise and people in a metaphoric flow that symbolizes the place, somewhere between Europe and Africa.