Morocco Itinerary 10 Days: The Complete Two-Week Route

Fly into Casablanca Mohammed V Airport. The Hassan II Mosque — built on a platform extending over the Atlantic — is Morocco’s most extraordinary piece of modern architecture and worth visiting on arrival day. The Old Medina and the Art Deco centre of Casablanca are both walkable from the city hotels. Overnight in Casablanca before an early departure north the following morning.

Head north from Casablanca to Rabat, Morocco’s administrative capital. The Hassan Tower — a 12th-century minaret and the remains of a mosque that was never completed — and the adjacent Mausoleum of Mohammed V are the main stops. Allow 90 minutes in Rabat. The road then continues north-east through Meknes (a brief Bab Mansour stop if time allows) and up into the Rif Mountains to Chefchaouen. The drive into the blue city at dusk, with the whitewashed streets catching the last light, is one of the great Morocco arrival moments.

Chefchaouen is Morocco’s most photographed city and one of its most distinctive. The medina is small enough to navigate without a guide and large enough to spend a full day in. The blue-washed walls and streets climb steeply through the Rif Mountains. The Spanish Mosque above the city offers a panoramic view in the early morning before the day-trippers arrive from Fes. The main square — Plaza Uta el-Hammam — has good restaurants and is the natural gathering point for the evening. The city is significantly more relaxed in atmosphere than Marrakech or Fes and makes a good breathing space in the middle of the itinerary.

The drive from Chefchaouen to Fes runs south through the Rif Mountains — a scenic 200 km that takes around 3 hours. Arrive in Fes with the afternoon free to walk the edge of the medina, visit the pottery district outside the walls, or simply find the riad and recover from the previous days. An evening walk through the Bou Jeloud gardens and into the lower medina gives a first impression of the scale and atmosphere of Fes el-Bali without the full sensory intensity of a daytime medina visit.

A full guided day in the Fes el-Bali medina. The Chouara tanneries — viewed from the leather merchant terraces for the best vantage — are the centrepiece, but the surrounding area of the medina is as remarkable as the tanneries themselves: the Al-Attarine Souq directly adjacent, the Qarawiyyin Mosque (one of the oldest universities in the world, founded 859 AD), the Bou Inania Madrasa with its carved cedar and stucco interior. Book a guide through your riad the evening before. Budget 300 to 500 MAD for a half-day guided tour of the main sites.

The long drive south to the Sahara. The cedar forest near Azrou is the first stop — Barbary macaques inhabit the forest and approach the roadside in numbers. Ifrane, the unexpected alpine town in the middle of the Moroccan Atlas, makes a brief but memorable stop. The plateau beyond Midelt gives way to the dramatic Ziz Valley, a corridor of date palms between red canyon walls that runs all the way to the pre-Saharan plain. Arrive Merzouga in late afternoon for the sunset camel trek into Erg Chebbi. One night in the desert camp under the stars.

Desert sunrise before 6am, then west through Rissani toward Todra Gorge. The gorge walls rise 300 metres on either side in the narrowest section and the river runs cold between them — allow 45 minutes for the walk. The Dades Valley road west of Tinghir is one of the finest drives in Morocco: red clay kasbahs against canyon walls, the gorge road climbing hairpin bends above Boumalne. Overnight in the Dades Valley.

The return west along the Route of a Thousand Kasbahs, stopping at Ait Ben Haddou for 90 minutes — the UNESCO ksar on the Ounila River, built entirely in pisé and one of the finest examples of earthen architecture anywhere. Ouarzazate follows: a brief stop at the Taourirt Kasbah before the long climb over the Tizi n’Tichka Pass and the descent into Marrakech. Arrive early evening.

A full day in Marrakech. The Djemaa el-Fna, Bahia Palace, Saadian Tombs, and Majorelle Garden are the primary cultural stops. The souks north of the square — organised by craft type — are worth two hours of unhurried exploration. The evening on the Djemaa el-Fna, with the food stall operators and musicians competing for attention, is one of those experiences that functions as a proper ending to a Morocco trip.

If your flight departs in the afternoon or evening, a morning in Marrakech works fine. If you have a full final day, the drive to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast (2.5 hours each way) is the best day trip from Marrakech — a walled port city with a very different atmosphere, excellent fresh fish, strong sea winds, and a medina that feels genuinely lived-in rather than staged for tourists. Return to Marrakech for an evening flight from Menara Airport.