Visiting Morocco in Under 10 Days

At the conclusion of 2 months working in Kenya and Uganda, I met my husband in Morocco for a week-long, activity-packed, vacation. We spent an entire week traversing this incredibly vast and diverse country. We visited Casablanca, Marrakech, climbed Mt. Toubkal (tallest mountain in North Africa), rode camels through the Erg Chebbi (Sahara Desert), and visited Fes, all in less than 10 days! There were some very, very long days in the car, but we covered a lot of ground! Without dragging you through the details, I am going to give you my Morocco itinerary. If you have specific questions about companies we used to guide us, places we stopped and ate at / visited during long car rides, etc. just drop a comment below!

Day 1 – Arrive in Casablanca

While my husband was flying from America, I was flying from Kenya. It was easiest for both of our flights to land in Casablanca, even though we didn’t fully want our trip to begin there. Since we had spent several months apart, we decided to spend our first night at the Four Season in Casablanca. There are so many hotels, riads, and hostels in Casablanca, but we chose the Four Seasons as a treat to ourselves! We spent the afternoon walking around Casablanca, visiting the Hassan II Mosque (pictured), and eating all the food!

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Day 2 – Fly to Marrakech

We checked out of the Four Seasons and flew to Marrakech in the morning. It is a quick hour-long flight to get to Marrakech, and was the simplest means of transportation in my opinion. We checked into our riad, Les Jardins de la Medina, and walked straight to the Jemaa el-Fnaa (the market in the Medina). Again, magnificent accommodations are endless, but we truly loved staying at this riad, and the location was incredibly convenient! We bought a rug, shoes, scarves, blankets, and everything with a pom on it at the market and had the time of our lives shopping and eating!

Day 3 – Depart for Mt. Toubkal

We used a company called Atlas Mountain Trekking (ask for Jamal) for all of our travel going forward from this day. They helped take the guess-work out of planning the itinerary, provided a driver each day, a guide for our trek, and organized stops and meals for us as well! Les Jardins de la Medina was kind enough to keep our luggage at the hotel, as we intended on staying a night on the mountain, then coming back for 1 more night at the riad after our climb.

A quick price breakdown

• 2 day trip to summit of Mt. Toubkal was 140 Euro / person
• 3 day trip from Marrakech – Sahara Desert – Fes was 320 Euro / person

We drove a couple of hours, very early in the morning, to start our climb. The climb begins in the quaint Berber village of Imlil (1700m). We began our climb, had lunch on the side of the mountain at shrine Sidi Chamhrouch (2500m), then climbed to the refuge where we would spend the night (3200m). We had dinner with hikers from around the world who stayed at the refuge, and headed to bed early, as we were to be up at 3:00am for our summit accent!

Day 4 – Summit Mt. Toubkal

Unfortunately, I woke up around 1:00am with a fever and vomitting. I’ll spare you the details, but I sent my husband up to the summit without me (it still hurts to say that now), and waited for his return to descend to Imlil. He made it to the summit and back in 3.5 insanely quick hours, and we were on our way back down to Imlil by 7am. The hike was stunning, and the views from the summit I heard were not to be missed. The summit sits at 4167m, and you can see the vast Atlas Mountains for miles and miles (pictured, thanks to Adam).

Once we arrived to Imlil, we jumped back in the car and headed back to Les Jardins de la Medina for some much appreciated R&R.

Day 5 – Begin Drive to Sahara Desert (Erg Chebbi)

As I said above, we used the same group (Atlas Mountain Trekking) for the rest of the trip – which meant Jamal was back this morning to pick us up again to start our multi-day journey to Merzouga (Sahara Desert). Today the plan was to drove about 8 hours, ending in Dades Gorge, where we stayed the night in the Dades Valley. On the way we had lots of planned stops, some of which we skipped. Highlights included the Tisi n Tichka pass, Alt ben Haddou, and ‘African Hollywood’. Mostly this is just a long day in the car, but the landscapes across Morocco are so impressive, you never tire of gazing out the window.

Day 6 – Arrive in Merzouga, Sahara Desert

I wish I could say today included less driving, but after at least 8 more hours in the car, we arrived in Merzouga! We stopped at more attractions along the way today, and highlights included the Todra Gorges (biggest canyon in Morocco), and a women’s rug cooperative (where we purchased 2 more rugs)!

We arrived at a random hotel in Merzouga where we had to kill about 1-2 hours of time (luckily they had a pool, because it was 115 degrees outside), until we could board our camels that would take us to our Nomad Berber Tents in the middle of the desert.

After a 2.5-ish long camel ride, we arrived at our campsite! It was so neat, but not necessarily luxury. The tents were very small, dinner was provided but they didn’t have water (can you even imagine my thirst level at that point?) so we were actually pretty relieved to only stay 1 night in the desert.

Day 7 – Leave Desert – Drive to Fes

We woke up early in the morning to ride our camels back to Merzouga, then jumped back in the car with Jamal and headed to Fes! Fes was only a few hours away, but we did stop in Midelt for lunch on the way! Once we arrived in Fes, Jamal introduced us to our Fes guide who took us all over the city! This, in my opinion, is very helpful! Fes is outrageously confusing, and with so much to see in so little time, she was a life-saver!

We spent several hours driving to specific attractions, and then hours walking all over the city. We walked through countless markets, learned about the local culture, visited numerous mosques, visited the tanneries, and had a phenomenal day touring Fes. We stayed the night at Riad Rcif – which is a magnificently renovated Riad right in the heart of the city. The journey to get to the riad was one I will never forget. A huge cart followed us with our luggage weaving through alleyways for upwards of 20 minutes before we reached an inconspicuous door. Once that door opened, my jaw dropped… seriously, just click the hyperlink and see for yourself.

We treated ourselves to full body scrubs (a couples session, and boy is that a story if you ever want to hear it… just picture, completely naked in a stone – like sauna, sitting across from your significant other while a Moroccan woman rubs your whole body down with scrubs and mud). Nonetheless, I highly recommend it! After the saltiness and sandiness of the desert, it was nice to feel like a newborn baby. We had dinner at our Riad on the rooftop, listening to the call to prayer and sounds of the city, and were off to bed.

Day 8 – Drive to Casablanca

After a magnificent breakfast and another stroll through Fes, Jamal picked us up to drive back to Casablanca! It took about 3 hours to drive to Casablanca, where we chose to stay at the Movenpick Hotel.

We were pretty tired from such a busy trip, so we layed low by the pool with delicious cocktails, and had dinner on the rooftop restaurant at the hotel. Then we packed up and went to bed, ready to head back to America the following morning.

Day 9 – Fly to America

Just like that – our week in Morocco was over, and we were on our 10am flight back to the United States. I was excited to be going home, seeing as it had been 3 months away for me! Morocco was a truly spectacular trip, and while we covered a TON of ground, there are still so many places we have yet to visit! Chefchaouen, Tangier, and Essaouira are only a few destinations in Morocco I am still dying to visit!

We did a ton of shopping, but I still dream of going back to the markets. In my opinion, in all of my travels, the markets of Morocco are the best in the world, so you should buy all the things!