The Best of Morocco

🛬 Arrival in Casablanca

Arrive at Casablanca Airport, Morocco’s economic capital and largest city. Receive a warm welcome from your English-speaking driver/guide and transfer to your hotel.

Check in at your hotel and take time to relax.

Enjoy the rest of the day at your leisure.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at a local restaurant or your hotel.

Overnight in Casablanca.

🍽️ Breakfast & Casablanca City Tour

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a city tour of Casablanca with visits to:

• Hassan II Mosque – an inside visit to Morocco’s largest mosque and one of the largest in the world
• Ain Diab Corniche – enjoy a pleasant stroll along the scenic coast
• Mohammed V Square – a central landmark of Casablanca

➡️ Transfer to Rabat

Travel to Rabat, the capital of Morocco and one of its imperial cities. Highlights of the Rabat city tour include:

• Kasbah of the Oudayas – constructed during the Almohad dynasty (12th century)
• Mohammed V Mausoleum – home to the tombs of the current king’s father and grandfather
• Hassan Tower – a minaret built in 1195

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

➡️ Transfer to Tangier

Arrive in Tangier, Morocco’s main gateway to Europe.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at a local restaurant or your hotel.

Overnight in Tangier.

🍽️ Breakfast & Tangier City Tour

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a city tour of Tangier with visits to:

• The old town, locally called “The Medina”
• American Legation
• Dar El Oued Makhazen Kasbah
• Mendoubia Gardens
• Grand and Petit Socco

Transfer to Cape Spartel, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, historically known as the “Cape of the Vines” by Greeks and Romans.

Visit the Cave of Hercules, a famous spot with a sea window shaped like a map of Africa.

➡️ Transfer to Chefchaouen

Continue to Chefchaouen, the renowned “Blue City” and one of Morocco’s most picturesque destinations.

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Chefchaouen City Tour:

• Visit the Kasbah of Chefchaouen, built in the early 18th century by Moulay Ismail (1645–1727)
• Stop at Plaza Uta el-Hammam, the main square, home to the striking 15th-century Grand Mosque

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at a local restaurant.

Overnight in Chefchaouen.

🍽️ Breakfast & Visit to Volubilis

Breakfast in the hotel. Transfer to the UNESCO-sponsored Roman ruins of Volubilis, a partly excavated Berber and Roman city.

Volubilis was once the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania. It developed from the 3rd century BC as an Amazigh and proto-Carthaginian city, and expanded rapidly under Roman rule from the 1st century AD onward.

➡️ Continue to Meknes

Travel to Meknes, known as the “Moroccan Versailles” and one of Morocco’s oldest cities.

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Meknes City Tour:

• Bab El Mansour Gate – the grandest of all imperial Moroccan gateways
• Hri Souani – a granaries and stables complex, famously featured in the film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

➡️ Transfer to Fes

In the late afternoon, transfer to Fes, Morocco’s spiritual capital.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at the hotel.

Overnight in Fes.

🍽️ Breakfast & Fes City Tour

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a guided city tour of Fes, starting with:

• Entrance to the largest royal palace in Morocco
• A panoramic view of the ancient medina
• Visit to the traditional ceramic crafts village for an authentic experience

Continue to Fes El Bali, the ancient medina, a medieval part of the city that has remained unchanged for centuries.

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Key Visits:

• Al-Karaouine Mosque & University – built by Fatima Al Fihria in 857; recognized as the first university in the world, and a major spiritual and educational center since 859
• A Merdersa – a traditional Quranic school
• The Leather Souq and the world’s oldest Leather Tannery, dating back over nine centuries

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at the hotel.

Overnight in Fes.

🍽️ Breakfast & Transfer to the Sahara Desert

Breakfast in the hotel. Begin your journey to the Sahara Desert via the Middle Atlas Mountains, with a stop in:

• Ifrane – a charming town and ski resort known for its Alpine climate, European-style houses, and its elevation of 1,665 meters (5,460 ft). Ifrane holds the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in Africa (-24°C in 1935). You may spot the Barbary Macaque and trees like Atlas cedar, Scrub oak, and the London plane.

Continue to Midelt, a Berber town located between the Middle and High Atlas mountain ranges, known for its significant mining industry.

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Travel through Amazigh (Berber) villages and along the scenic Ziz Valley to reach Erfoud.

Proceed to Merzouga, the heart of the Sahara Desert.

🍽️ Dinner & Overnight: in a charming Desert Camp by the dunes, Merzouga.

🍽️ Breakfast & Desert Adventure

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy an optional 4×4 desert tour, which includes a visit to Al Khamlia Village, known for its Gnawa music and desert culture.

➡️ Drive to Tinghir via Rissani and Tinjdad.

Tinghir is a stunning 40km-long oasis with one of the largest palm groves in Morocco.

Key Stop:

• Todra Gorge – a 300m-deep canyon carved into the High Atlas Mountains. Its rugged cliffs are a favorite among climbers, with over 150 bolted routes (French Grade 5+ to 8). The gorge was featured in the U.S. reality show Expedition Impossible.

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

➡️ Transfer to Dades

Continue through spectacular desert landscapes, remote villages, and the expansive Jebel Sarhro lunar-scape.

Dades, known as the Valley of Figs, was featured in a 2012 Cadillac CTS advertisement.

🍽️ Dinner & Overnight: in Dades.

🍽️ Breakfast & Transfer to Ouarzazate

Breakfast in the hotel. Transfer to Ouarzazate, with a spectacular drive lined with hundreds of Kasbahs along the way.

Key Stops:

• Kelaat M’Gouna – famous for its rose cultivation and rose-infused products
• Ouarzazate – known as “Morocco’s Hollywood”
  • Visit Taourirt Kasbah, one of Morocco’s most beautiful kasbahs
  • Tour the film studios, where famous desert scenes have been and continue to be shot
• Ait Ben Haddou – a spectacular earthen clay fortress and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, featured in films such as:
  • The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
  • Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
  • The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
  • Gladiator (2000)
  • Son of God (2014)

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Transfer to Marrakech, crossing the majestic High Atlas Mountains.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at the hotel.

Overnight in Marrakech.

🍽️ Breakfast & Transfer to Ouarzazate

Breakfast in the hotel. Depart for Ouarzazate with a spectacular drive through landscapes dotted with hundreds of Kasbahs.

Key Stops:

• Kelaat M’Gouna – renowned for its rose cultivation and rose-based products
• Ouarzazate – famously known as “Morocco’s Hollywood”
  • Visit Taourirt Kasbah, one of Morocco’s most stunning kasbahs
  • Tour the film studios, where world-famous desert scenes have been filmed
• Ait Ben Haddou – a spectacular earthen clay fortress and UNESCO World Heritage Site (since 1987), featured in iconic films:
  • The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
  • Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
  • The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
  • Gladiator (2000)
  • Son of God (2014)

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Cross the High Atlas Mountains to return to Marrakech.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at the hotel.

Overnight in Marrakech.

🍽️ Breakfast & Marrakech City Tour

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a guided city tour of Marrakech, famously described by Winston Churchill as the “Paris of the Sahara.”

Key Stops:

• Koutoubia Mosque – built under Almohad Caliph Yaqub al-Mansur (1184–1199); inspired landmarks like the Giralda in Seville and Hassan Tower in Rabat
• Bahia Palace – a late 19th-century palace reflecting Islamic and Moroccan architectural styles
• Madrasa Ben Youssef – the largest Coranic school in Morocco, named after Almoravid Sultan Ali Ibn Yusuf (reigned 1106–1142)
• Saadian Tombs – dating back to Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur (1578–1603); discovered in 1917 and restored by the Beaux-arts service

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Continue the tour with:

• Jemaa El Fna Square – enjoy performances by storytellers, snake charmers, and traditional medicine peddlers
• The bustling souks of the old medina

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at a local restaurant.

Overnight in Marrakech.

🍽️ Breakfast & Full-Day Trip to Essaouira

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a full-day excursion to Essaouira, a charming and multicultural coastal town in Morocco.

Highlights of Essaouira:

• A small, easily navigable beach city with a unique blend of Portuguese, French, and Jewish influences
• Mild climate and expansive ocean beaches, making it one of Morocco’s top beach destinations
• The walled medina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, showcasing a late-18th-century fortified layout—an excellent example of European military architecture in North Africa

🍴 Optional: Lunch at a local restaurant.

Afternoon at leisure to explore Essaouira’s mellow vibe, colorful shops, whitewashed houses, and historic wooden doors along its narrow streets.

Late in the afternoon, transfer back to Marrakech.

🍽️ Optional: Dinner at the hotel.

Overnight in Marrakech.