We just got back from our 9-day Morocco tour. While there were options for readymade 9-day tours, we decided to string together ours using several shorter tours and day trips instead. It allowed us to save money and see exactly what we wanted. The available 9 day tours always skipped one or more destinations we wanted to visit. Here’s our itenerary:
Day 1 – Arrive in Casablanca and Explore
Our flight was delayed 3 hours and we were lucky to make it to the last tour of the Hassan II Mosque, the only important thing we wanted to see in Casablanca at 3 PM.
After that, we just walked around a bit, ate an early dinner at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, and called it an early night after our redeye.
Day 2 – Drive to Fes via Rabat, Meknes, Volubilis
We used mydaytrip.com to book a ride with stops from Casablanca to Fes. We chose to stop in Rabat for a couple of hours, Meknes for an hour, and Volubilis for an hour. Moulay Idris was also an option but we decided not to stop there.
Day 3 – Day trip to Chefchaouen
The next morning, we made a day trip to Chefchaouen, the blue city.
Day 4 – Explore Fes
We did a half-day guided walking tour of Fes. While the Fes medina (old city) was very interesting, the tour was bad — lots of visits to high-pressure sales shops in addition to the highlights.
In the evening, we took a Moroccan cooking class.
Day 5 – Start of 3-day Desert Tour, Overnight in Camp
Next, we took a three-day tour that took us from Fes to Marrakesh. On day 1 we drove through Ifrane in the Atlas mountains and saw Macaques. At sunset, we rode camels to our luxury tent in the desert.
Day 6 – Drive to Ouarzazate through Mid-Atlas
On the second day of the tour, we saw the Dades gorge, passed through the Mid-Atlas mountains, and ended at Ouarzazate – the Hollywood of Morocco.
Day 7 – See Ouarzazate, drive to Marrakesh
On the last day of our tour, we visited Atlas studios, a Kasbah, and drove to Marrakesh through the High Atlas mountains.
Day 8 – Explore Marrakesh
In the morning, we took a half-day guided tour of Marrakesh. Unlike the one in Fes, this had no high-pressure sales stores involved. In the evening we just explored the Jemaa el-Fna square and the markets on the side streets.
Day 9 – Return to Casablanca and fly back.
After breakfast at our Riad, we headed back to Casablanca to head back home after a fantastic, packed, interesting, and colorful tour of Morocco.
While we did leave some days (day 4, day 8) which were less hectic, the trip was quite tiring with a lot of driving. I’m glad we left a few days after we came back to staycation from our vacation.
If you do need to shorten this tour, I’d skip Chefchouen. Alternatively, if you do want to see everything and have it be less hectic, leave gap days to relax in Fes and Marrakesh. If you have more days, there’s a day trip from Marrakesh to Essaouira.
Stay tuned for more blog posts with more photos from all the places we visited. And of course, also coming soon – the most important part – food photos.