Lesson four: Social responsibility takes surprising forms far from home. My riads underscored this point. The Palais Heure Bleue, in Essaouira, earns kudos locally for sequestering its Relais & Châteaux comforts behind a whitewashed facade so subdued that at first I walked right by it. Moroccans, who generally scorn any hint of ostentation, appreciate the absence of signage, awnings, and picture windows. At the Riad Maison Bleue, in Fez, every staffer from clerk to cook receives at least three months of job training, because owner Mehdi El Abbadi hires only the inexperienced. The Riad Farnatchi gives its employees a rare five-day workweek, which enables waiter Redouane Elrhell to work toward a degree in property management. And during the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, when tradition dictates that every family slaughter a sheep, Riad Farnatchi's British owner, Jonathan Wix, buys one for each post-probation employee (at a cost of about $275 each—an extra month's wages). Had I held fast to a rigid set of Western criteria for what constitutes an ethical hotel, I never would have found one, but fortunately Heritage Tours put them on my radar.

I didn't have to jettison my preconceptions altogether, however. At Kasbah du Toubkal, the restored former home of a feudal chieftain in the High Atlas, a five percent surcharge on my bill went to fund community projects for local Berber villages. Proceeds thus far have paid for two ambulances and a hammam for ritual bathing. A new school for girls is in the works. At this spectacularly situated hotel, where I watched a waterfall from my balcony, management limits waste by asking guests to drink its springwater, shun bottled water, and carry out their own empties. For fun, I hiked with a guide to a Berber village where new homes are going up, thanks to a brisk, tourism-driven local economy. By appealing to a Western sense of what's socially responsible, this place attracts conscientious types such as Aaron and Paige Perrine of Seattle, who designed their honeymoon around it. "It gets to be very tiring to have to think about every decision," says Aaron. "It's nice that everything you do [at Kasbah du Toubkal] can be beneficial to the place and the people. It allows your Western conscience to relax."

Lesson five: Perfection is elusive. Although I had some success finding commendable properties, I soon learned this lesson. Employees at the Riad Maison Bleue live under the cloud of El Abbadi's stern employment policy, which says, "If you ever leave, you will never work here again." The Palais Heure Bleue features British colonial–themed rooms as well as a lounge, complete with mounted animal heads, that doesn't exactly evoke a sense of harmony with all creatures great and small. Despite Morocco's looming water shortages, my six-inch showerhead at the Riad Farnatchi drenched me from no less than 95 holes. I slept at the Riad Farnatchi in a newly renovated space that just months earlier had belonged to a Moroccan family who, like others in recent years, sold their home in the medina to make room for foreigners with deep pockets. Such realities upped the ante for my mission, although I faced new ethical challenges at every turn.