Unforgettable 7-Day Morocco Desert Tour | Casablanca to Marrakech via Chefchaouen & Fes

Today, we will meet you at your hotel in Casablanca or at the airport. From there, we will drive to the famous blue city of Chefchaouen. Along the way, we will make several short stops to visit places of interest. In the evening, the night will be spent in the magical blue Medina of Chefchaouen, where you will enjoy a relaxing bed and breakfast.

Today, you will have the day to yourselves to wander and explore. As you explore, discover the amazing Medina, its rich history, and hidden gems. Moreover, there is plenty to see, including fabulous shopping opportunities, with many artists and artisans producing work exclusive to this town. In the evening, enjoy the lively atmosphere in the square, where numerous places offer great food. Later, overnight accommodations will be at the same location, including bed and breakfast.

After breakfast, we leave the blue city and travel across the beautiful landscapes of the region. Along the way, you’ll pass fields of wheat, wildflowers, typical metal-roofed houses, and winding rivers. Our first stop is Ouazzane, home to some of the best honey and figs. Next, we visit the Roman Ruins of Volubilis, a 3rd-century UNESCO site with extensive excavations, including columns, mosaics, a huge gateway, and many streets and houses. This important city, dating back to 225 BC, offers a fascinating glimpse into Roman life in the region. Following that, we travel to the imperial city of Meknes, founded by the Almoravid dynasty in the 11th century as a military settlement and later becoming the capital under Sultan Moulay Ismail in the 17th century. He introduced a Hispano-Moorish style to the architecture, with landmarks such as the great Bab Mansour gate, intricate mosaic or zellig, ramparts, granaries, and the Sahrij Swani Basin used for irrigation and plantation. Finally, from Meknes, we continue to the spiritual capital of Fes. Overnight will be in a typical ornate riad in the Medina.

After breakfast in your riad, your guide will meet you and start your guided tour of Fes. To begin, the tour will include both walking and driving parts, giving you the opportunity to fully explore and discover the city. First, you will visit the huge seven gates of the Royal Palace and the Mellah, the Jewish quarter, once an important commercial hub. Next, you’ll head to a pottery cooperative, where you can witness the intricate and fascinating process behind some of Morocco’s finest works. From there, enjoy an incredible panoramic viewpoint of the entire medina before heading into the Medina for a delicious Fes-style lunch. In the afternoon, you can visit the cultural and spiritual sites in the Medina, wandering through its narrow souks filled with food, crafts, and artisans, as well as the famous Tanneries. Fes boasts around 9000 streets in its car-free zone, making it best explored with a knowledgeable local guide. Moreover, Fes is home to the world’s oldest still-operating university, the Quaraouiyine, founded in 859 by Fatima, and it houses a library and mosque. Later, you will return to the same riad for the night.

We leave Fes after breakfast and take the road south for the Sahara. Our first stop will be at Ifrane, known locally as “the little Switzerland of Morocco” because of its alpine architecture; we enter the great cedar forest in the Middle Atlas Mountains, where you will most likely see the indigenous Barbary monkeys swinging in the trees. We stop in Midelt for lunch and follow the Ziz Valley, which has some amazing panoramic places to stop and view from. The landscape changes as the journey continues south; mountains and canyons, rivers and plateaus, nomads with their rustic dwellings and flocks of animals, and as we approach the towns of Errachidia and Erfoud, hints of the Sahara become apparent. We drive through Berber towns and villages from Erfoud to Rissani; once the capital called Sijilmassa, and the foundation of the Alaouite dynasty which is the current ruling royal family in Morocco. The open vast desert is suddenly in front of us and Merzouga awaits us and a welcoming glass of mint tea. Our camels will also be waiting to take you across the golden dunes to your desert camp for a night under the stars. Traditional dinner and Berber Music will be served.

This 7-day Morocco tour also includes a one of the most magical times in the day is before the sunrises, the silence is amazing and the way the light changes as the sun moves across the dunes is very special. You will be woken in time to enjoy this, and then you will ride the camels back in silence to fully appreciate the tranquility of the desert and the Erg Chebbi Dunes. You can have breakfast and a refreshing shower before we take the road for our day’s adventure. From Merzouga to Rissani, through adobe kasbah towns and villages, past vast palm groves, we travel to Tinghir and up into the Todra Gorge. 300 metres high and only 10 meters wide at its narrowest point, this vertical walled canyon is a magnet for international rock climbers. You can enjoy a wonder along the crystal clear glacial waters of the river. We continue our tour to the next wonder; Dades Gorge, where erosion has formed some crazy rocks that are called “Monkey Fingers” as they look like fat fingers. You will spend the night in a typical hotel in the gorge and enjoy local hospitality with half board.

After breakfast, we start our day with many wonderful sights to encounter by driving along the Dades valley and the valley of the Roses, also called the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, you will see many rose coloured adobe kasbahs, fields of crops with hedges of Damascus roses which are cultivated here for their highly prized fragrant oil. In Kelaat M’gouna, we will stop at a rose cooperative where you can purchase some rose water gifts and have an idea about the processes of the roses. We continue or journey along this road to the pal grove of Skoura, then Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of Africa, and to the famous Ait Ben Haddou kasbah, UNESCO heritage site and fortress. We will have lunch in the village and a short visit of the ksar. This is where they made the movie The Gladiator, the Kingdom of Heaven and the Prince of Persia, among many others. Back on the road, and we cross the High Atlas mountains with its winding roads that cross the high pass of Tizi n´Tichka at 2260 metres. Here we can stop to observe the process of making Argan Oil at a women’s cooperative before driving down to the plains and the Medina of Marrakech.