15-Day Complete Morocco Circuit

Your driver-guide meets you at Marrakech Menara and takes you to a riad in the medina, where the noise of the city falls away behind a single wooden door. Settle in over mint tea in the courtyard.

If you have the energy, take an evening walk to Jemaa el-Fnaa as the smoke rises from the food stalls. Your guide goes through the fifteen days ahead with you and adjusts anything you'd like to change.

A full day with a licensed city guide. You'll see the carved cedar and painted ceilings of the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs rediscovered in 1917, and the Ben Youssef Madrasa, then the souks of the dyers, coppersmiths and spice traders.

In the afternoon, go to the Jardin Majorelle, a garden of cobalt walls and giant cacti that Yves Saint Laurent loved. The evening is yours.

Drive north across the plains to Casablanca, about three and a half hours away. In the afternoon, take a guided visit of the Hassan II Mosque, built partly over the ocean, with a prayer hall lit through carved cedar and a minaret 210 m tall. Non-Muslim visitors can enter on the guided tours.

Walk the Art Deco boulevards of the city centre, then dine by the sea on the Corniche.

Stop in Rabat, the calm capital, to see the unfinished Hassan Tower, the marble Mausoleum of Mohammed V and the white lanes of the Kasbah of the Udayas above the river mouth.

In the afternoon the road climbs through cork oak and olive country into the Rif mountains, and Chefchaouen appears on the flank of its two peaks, washed in blue.

A day with no schedule. Wander the blue lanes before the day-trippers arrive, sit in Outa el-Hammam square under the walls of the kasbah, and follow the stream to the spring at Ras el-Ma.

If you'd like to walk further, your guide can arrange a local guide for a morning hike in the hills. Before dusk, climb 20 minutes to the Spanish Mosque to watch the town turn violet.

Head south to Volubilis, a Roman city on the edge of the empire, where mosaics of Orpheus and the Labours of Hercules still lie where they were laid. Next door, the white town of Moulay Idriss spills down its hill around the shrine of Morocco's founding saint.

After lunch, see Meknes and its monumental Bab Mansour gate, then continue to Fes for two nights in a medina riad.

With a licensed guide, Fes el-Bali begins to make sense: the Blue Gate, the cedar carving of the Bou Inania Madrasa, the doorway of Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859, and the coppersmiths of Seffarine Square.

Look down on the Chouara tannery from a terrace above its dye pits, then finish the day at the Merenid Tombs for sunset over the whole medina.

A long, beautiful day south. Climb through Ifrane and the cedar forest near Azrou, where Barbary macaques watch from the trees, then cross the high plateau past Midelt and drop through the Ziz Gorges into one of the longest palm groves in Morocco.

At Merzouga the dunes of Erg Chebbi rise out of the plain. Your camels are waiting, and you ride into camp as the sun goes down.

Sunrise from the dune behind camp, then a 4×4 loop of the erg: the Gnawa musicians of Khamlia, tea in a nomad family's tent, and the old market town of Rissani.

The afternoon is for sandboarding or doing nothing at all. Sunset on a dune of your own, then a second night under a sky so clear the Milky Way throws a faint light on the sand.

Drive west past the oasis towns of Tinejdad and Tinghir, then walk into the Todra Gorge, where limestone walls up to 300 m high close in to a narrow corridor.

Continue to the Dades Gorges, where the road climbs in famous hairpins above rock formations locals call the monkey's fingers. You spend the night in a kasbah hotel in the valley.

Follow the Dades down through Kelaat M'Gouna, the Valley of Roses, and the palm grove of Skoura with its Amridil kasbah. After Ouarzazate, arrive at Aït Ben Haddou in time for the late light.

Tonight you sleep at the foot of the ksar. Cross the river after the day visitors have gone and climb to the granary at the top as the walls turn gold.

Take the old salt-caravan road through the Ounila valley to Telouet, the crumbling palace of the Glaoui pashas, with ceilings of painted cedar still intact inside.

Rejoin the main road at Tizi n'Tichka, at 2,260 m, and descend through Berber villages and walnut groves to Marrakech for a free evening.

It's three hours across the argan country to the coast. Watch for goats climbing in the argan trees, and stop at a women's cooperative to see argan oil pressed by hand.

Essaouira is all wind, gulls and blue fishing boats. Walk the ramparts of the Skala at sunset, where Orson Welles filmed Othello.

A free day by the sea. Watch the morning catch come in at the port and choose your lunch from it, browse the thuya-wood workshops, or take a long walk on the beach.

The medina here is gentle and easy to explore on your own. Your driver stays nearby if you'd like a lift or a recommendation.

After breakfast, your driver takes you back to Marrakech airport, about two and a half hours away. If you prefer, we can arrange a late flight from Essaouira-Mogador airport instead.