14-Day Morocco Itinerary: The Grand Tour from Marrakech

Arrival in Marrakech

You are met at Menara Airport and driven to your riad in the old medina, a traditional courtyard house with carved stucco, painted cedar ceilings and a fountain, where mint tea is waiting. Marrakech is the Red City for its rose-pink rammed-earth walls, which have encircled the old town for about 19 kilometres since the Almoravids built them in the 12th century. After you settle in, we walk to Jemaa el-Fna for a first evening among storytellers, Gnaoua musicians, acrobats and steaming food stalls, a gathering that is UNESCO-listed as intangible heritage and has run every night for centuries.

Airport transfer only

Riad Aslal or similar, Marrakech medina

Full Day in Marrakech

A full day with a licensed local guide. We begin at the Koutoubia minaret, the 12th-century Almohad tower that served as a model for the Giralda in Seville and the Hassan Tower in Rabat, then visit the Bahia Palace, built in the 1890s for a grand vizier, with its painted cedar ceilings, zellige and orange-tree courtyards. Next are the Saadian Tombs, a 16th-century royal necropolis sealed up for generations and reopened in the early 20th century, and the Majorelle Garden, painted in its signature cobalt blue by Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and later restored by Yves Saint Laurent. We finish in the souks: the spice square of Rahba Kedima, the copper workers' lanes and the dyers' quarter.

No driving today

Riad Aslal or similar, Marrakech medina

Marrakech to the Dades Valley via Ait Benhaddou

We leave through the High Atlas foothills and climb the Tizi n'Tichka pass, 2,260 metres at the summit and the highest paved mountain road in Morocco, with views over the ranges in both directions. At Ait Benhaddou, a UNESCO ksar of mud-brick kasbahs on the old caravan route and the set for Gladiator and Game of Thrones, a local guide leads you across the river and up to the granary tower. The road then continues past the Skoura palm oasis and the rose-growing valley of Kelaat M'Gouna to the Dades Valley as the canyon walls turn red in the evening light.

About 6.5 hours on the road, roughly 320 km, plus stops

Dades Paradise or similar, Dades Valley

Dades and Todra Gorges to Merzouga

The morning starts with a walk among the Monkey Fingers, the eroded limestone pillars of the Dades Gorge. We then drive east to Todra Gorge, where 300-metre walls close to about 10 metres apart over a clear river, and walk its length. Along the way we stop at the fossil workshops of Erfoud and the souk at Rissani, the home town of Morocco's ruling Alaouite dynasty. In the late afternoon you mount a camel and ride into the Erg Chebbi dunes for sunset, ending at your Berber camp for a tagine dinner, drumming and stars.

About 4.5 hours on the road, roughly 260 km, plus stops

Tiziri Desert Camp or similar, Erg Chebbi

A Day in the Sahara

Climb a dune before dawn to watch the sky go from indigo to gold over the sand sea, then ride back for a nomad-style breakfast of Berber omelette, fresh bread, amlou and mint tea. A morning 4x4 trip takes you to Khamlia, a village of Gnaoua musicians whose guembri and krakeb ceremonies are listed by UNESCO as intangible heritage, and to a nomadic family's goat-hair tent for tea and conversation about life in the desert. The afternoon is open for sandboarding, quad biking, a second camel ride or simply resting at camp.

Short 4x4 excursion only

Tiziri Desert Camp or similar, Erg Chebbi

Merzouga to Fez via the Ziz Valley and Middle Atlas

North of Merzouga the road follows the Ziz Valley, a 70-kilometre ribbon of date palms between ochre canyon walls watered by khettara tunnels that have worked for a thousand years. It then climbs through the Ziz Gorges and Midelt, known for its apples and mineral workshops, into the cedar forest at Azrou, where wild Barbary macaques come to the roadside. We pass through Ifrane, a mountain town of alpine-style chalets built in the 1920s, before descending to Fez for an evening walk through the lantern-lit medina.

About 7.5 hours on the road, roughly 460 km, plus stops

Riad Fez Mahal or similar, Fez medina

Full Day in the Fez Medina

With a licensed guide you spend the day in Fez el-Bali, the world's largest car-free medina, founded in the late 8th century and still organised around its old crafts. We see Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri and widely regarded as the oldest continuously operating university in the world, and the carved cedar and zellige of the Bou Inania Madrasa. We then look down on the Chouara Tanneries from a rooftop, pass the brass doors of the Royal Palace, walk the Mellah and visit the Nejjarine woodworking museum, ending at Borj Nord for a view over the whole city.

No driving today

Riad Fez Mahal or similar, Fez medina

Fez to Chefchaouen via Volubilis and Meknes

We drive west to Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman city in Morocco and a UNESCO site, where a local guide explains the mosaics of Hercules, Bacchus and Orpheus, the triumphal arch of Caracalla and the olive presses that powered the town. At Meknes, the capital Sultan Moulay Ismail built in the late 17th century, we see the great Bab Mansour gate, whose columns came from Volubilis, and the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail. By evening we reach Chefchaouen in the Rif Mountains as its blue lanes deepen in the fading light.

About 4.5 hours on the road, roughly 260 km, plus stops

Dar Echchaouen or similar, Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen to Tangier

The morning is free in Chefchaouen's blue medina: the Kasbah museum, Uta el-Hammam square, workshops weaving woollen djellabas and blankets, and the walk up to the Spanish Mosque for a view over the rooftops and the Rif. We then drive north to Tangier, stopping at Cap Spartel, the north-western tip of Africa where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, and the Caves of Hercules, a sea cave whose opening is shaped like a map of Africa. In the evening we walk through Tangier's medina and kasbah, a city that drew writers and painters such as Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Matisse during its decades as an international zone.

About 2 hours on the road, roughly 110 km, plus stops

La Maison de Tanger or similar, Tangier

Tangier to Casablanca via Asilah and Rabat

Heading south along the Atlantic, we stop first at Asilah, a small walled town of Portuguese ramparts, whitewashed lanes and painted murals. In Rabat we visit the unfinished Hassan Tower, begun in 1195 by an Almohad sultan and abandoned at his death, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V in marble and carved cedar, and the blue-and-white Oudaya Kasbah above the Bou Regreg estuary. We continue to Casablanca, Morocco's largest city, for an evening along the lit Corniche.

About 5 hours on the road, roughly 340 km, plus stops

Hôtel Club Val d'Anfa or similar, Casablanca

Casablanca to Essaouira

We start with a guided visit inside the Hassan II Mosque, completed in 1993, with a 210-metre minaret, a retractable roof and a prayer hall built out over the Atlantic. The road south passes through the argan forests of the Souss-Massa region, with a stop at a women's cooperative to see argan oil ground by hand and to taste amlou. We arrive in Essaouira, a UNESCO-listed walled port laid out in 1764, and walk the Skala sea walls, the harbour and the thuya-wood workshops. Orson Welles filmed Othello among these ramparts in 1949.

About 5 hours on the road, roughly 380 km, plus stops

Riad Mimouna or similar, Essaouira

Leisure Day in Essaouira

A day with nothing scheduled. Walk the long Atlantic beach, where the trade winds make the coast to the north a well-known kitesurfing spot, browse the medina's art galleries and thuya marquetry workshops, or choose your fish at the harbour stalls and have it grilled beside the boats. If you travel in June, the Gnaoua and World Music Festival fills the town with stages for four days.

No driving today

Riad Mimouna or similar, Essaouira

Essaouira to Marrakech

After a last morning in the medina we drive inland through the argan forests and across the Haouz plain to Marrakech, arriving for the afternoon. The evening is yours for a return to Jemaa el-Fna and a farewell dinner. We suggest pastilla, the flaky pigeon-and-almond pie of Andalusian origin, or tangia, the slow-cooked Marrakech urn dish traditionally left in the hammam embers.

About 2.5 hours on the road, roughly 180 km, plus stops

Riad Aslal or similar, Marrakech medina

Departure from Marrakech

A private transfer takes you to Menara Airport for your flight home, across the Haouz plain with the High Atlas visible to the south.

Airport transfer only