Across Morocco from north to south in five days: Rabat, Volubilis, Meknes, two nights in Fes, the Erg Chebbi dunes and the gorges home to Marrakech.
A single journey down the length of the country, from the city where most flights land to the one most travellers want to reach. You go from the Atlantic to the Sahara and back up into the High Atlas, through three imperial cities, the Roman ruins of Volubilis, a full guided day in the Fes medina, a night in the Erg Chebbi dunes and the gorge road through Todra and the Dades. You have a private vehicle and driver-guide throughout, so you set the pace.
We collect you from your Casablanca hotel or the airport and drive north along the coast to Rabat, for the Hassan Tower and the Kasbah of the Udayas above the mouth of the river. Then inland to Volubilis, the Roman town whose floor mosaics still lie under the open sky, and to Meknes for Bab Mansour and the granaries of Moulay Ismail. You reach Fes in the evening and sleep in a riad inside the medina.
≈6 h · ≈370 km
A Fes guide stays with you the whole day, and the medina needs one: Fes el-Bali is a maze of lanes with no cars. You see the Chouara tanneries, the Al-Attarine and Bou Inania madrasas, the Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in the 9th century, the souks of each trade and the potters' quarter. The second night is in the same riad, so there is nothing to pack.
— · On foot
The longest day, taken in stages. Up through the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas to Ifrane, a town of pitched roofs at 1,665 m, with Barbary macaques in the cedars beyond. Then down by Midelt and the Ziz Valley, a canyon of date palms that runs on for kilometres, to Errachidia and Erfoud. A camel takes you into the dunes of Erg Chebbi at sunset, for dinner and Berber music at camp.
≈7 h 30 · ≈460 km
Sunrise over the dunes, then the camel ride back to breakfast. West along the old caravan road by Tinghir to the Todra Gorge, where the cliffs close in around the stream, and on to the Dades Valley for the night, below the rock formations known as the monkey fingers.
≈4 h 30 · ≈280 km
Through Kalaat M'Gouna, the town where the valley's damask roses are distilled, to Ouarzazate and the Atlas Film Studios. Lunch at Aït Ben Haddou, the UNESCO ksar that has appeared in many films, then over the Tizi n'Tichka pass, 2,260 m, into Marrakech in the late afternoon.
≈5 h 30 · ≈330 km
Starts from: Casablanca — your hotel or Mohammed V airport
PrivateFrom Casablanca by Rabat, Meknes and Volubilis to Fes, across the Middle Atlas to the dunes, and over the High Atlas to Marrakech, with a guided day in each great medina.
PrivateChefchaouen, Fes, two nights at Merzouga, the gorges, Marrakech and Essaouira: the whole of Morocco in ten days, from Casablanca airport and back.
PrivateRabat, the lagoon at Moulay Bousselham, Asilah, two nights in Chefchaouen, Volubilis, two nights in Fes and Meknes: northern Morocco in a week.
PrivateFrom the coast to a desert camp near Zagora by Taroudant and the carpet town of Taznakht, then home along the palm groves of the Draa Valley.
