Sometimes you only have a week to travel, and if that’s the case, you can’t waste any time.
As such, I poured a good amount of time into creating a solid one-week Morocco travel itinerary. This Morocco itinerary hits what I consider to be the best spots the country has to offer with as little downtime as possible.
It may cost you a little more, but if you’re like me and aren’t huge on repeats, then this Morocco itinerary may be right up your alley.
Morocco Travel Itinerary – Top to Bottom
The biggest problem I ran into while crafting my Morocco itinerary was where to start and finish.
The initial instinct of the majority of travelers is to buy a round-trip ticket. With Morocco, the most popular thing is to fly to and from Marrakech.
But what if you want to see someplace like Chefchaouen that’s on the opposite end of the country? Sure, you can go there and back, a simple solution that I explored, but it’s a 9-10 hour trip just to get there from Marrakech.
Twenty hours on a bus and train? You’re sacrificing almost a full day.
Yes, you can fly, but not directly there so you’re still going to be costing yourself six or more hours of flight time one way.
Plus, that’s not even counting the time you’ll waste getting to the airport early and then taking a bus from Tangier to Chefchaouen.
In the end, you’ll be paying a few hundred more for what essentially works out to be double the time, assuming a round-trip flight from Marrakesh.
This led me to utilize one-way flights instead. I opted to start in northern Morocco at Tangier, and then fly home from Marrakech.
Regrettably, flights tend to cost more when you do it this way.
In the end, I spent $1200 on my flight from Newark to Tangier and $500 on my return flight from Marrakesh. Conversely, a round-trip ticket to and from Marrakesh would have only cost me $1100, at the time of booking.
Not ideal, but this is the cost of maximizing time in your Morocco travel itinerary, and time is life’s most valuable resource.
Flights to Africa have always been expensive, but the current global situation has only made things worse.
Tangier to Chefchaouen
Regrettably, you won’t be spending much time in Tangier. Well, actually, with this Morocco travel itinerary, you won’t be spending any time there at all, sorry.
With any short itinerary, you’re going to be forced to pick and choose.
Unless of course, you’re one of those “Oh you can’t possssibly spend anything less than six weeks in XYZ small village to fully experience it.” Geze those people drive me insane.
Anyway! First up is Chefchaouen and there’s no time to waste, so as soon as you step out of the airport, hop a cab to the CTM bus station. This will run you around 100 Moroccan Dirham, which is the equivalent of $10. Easy to convert, right?
I don’t know if haggling for cab rides is much of a thing in Morocco, especially since the shorter rides are metered, but for a 25-minute ride, $10 seemed fine.
I didn’t attempt to negotiate prices a single time while in Morocco. Pretty much everything was already cheap.
Chefchaouen: Day 1-2
You’ve probably seen pictures of it. Chefchaouen, the famous Blue City of Morocco.
Also known as the Blue Pearl of Morocco, it’s beautiful, but also somewhat small. I admit that I was disappointed to learn that Chefchaouen isn’t entirely blue.
The blue section is only the old town, but that’s more than enough. Though it may be more aptly named the Blue Village of Morocco.
Regardless, it’s completely worth the visit either way. The size just means that you need less time there.
I spent one night and a little less than a day here and felt like it was more than enough time to see it all.
Day trips to Chefchaouen from the surrounding areas are quite popular.
The most important thing to do is get up early. Discipline. Up and out the door by 6:00 – 6:30 a.m.
This will give you access to all of the best spots with nobody else around. The light wasn’t ideal this early as it made some shots appear extra blue, but once 9:00 a.m. hit, people started appearing left and right.
By then you’re out of luck. It’s the start of lines to take a picture or other people walking through your shots. Come 10:00 it’s another extremely overcrowded tourist hot spot.
Starting as early as I did I only ran into one other person, but that wasn’t a big deal.
Chefchaouen to Marrakech
With Chefchaouen, the Blue Pearl having gotten its love, it’s time to move on to Marrakech.
While you can take the bus all the way to Marrakech, getting off the bus in Tangier and switching to the train will set you up to make the rest of the trip much more comfortable.
Taking the bus the entire way also takes a little longer. While the bust system in Morocco is pretty good, it’s still twice as full and it can get hot (no AC, just open rooftop vents).
This is all for about the same cost. Plus, the train offers first-class tickets. Some are nicer than others depending on the train (my first was incredible), but both are a major upgrade over coach (you need to switch trains in Casablanca).
I did regret having to skip the city of Fez, but it just wasn’t in the cards, or along the train route.
As for Casablanca, that was pretty far off my radar, but I did spout off a few Casablanca movie quotes as I walked around the train station.
In total, the trip from Chefchaouen to Marrakech took me about nine and a half hours. Timing isn’t the biggest factor, but I did it with a night train so I could sleep and save even more time.
Marrakech: Day 3-4
Full of history and culture, Marrakech is a great city, and it’s easy to see why it’s the most popular destination in Morocco.
If you keep the pace, you’re able to see the majority of it in about two days while leaving yourself enough time to relax and soak it in.
I do have another post about the top things to do in Marrakech in the works, but that’s for another day.
I will, however, say that the souks of Marrakesh were amazing and well worth getting lost in.
As such, you’ll want to stay in, or as close to Medina as possible.
Medina is the historic old town of Marrakech, and while you’re not going to be finding large chain hotels there, you will find what are known as Riads.
A Riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with around ten rooms and an indoor garden or courtyard. While they consider them to be hotels, I’d say that they’re closer to guesthouses.
Many even have a decorative pool! Though I wouldn’t recommend swimming them except for those in the very high-end Riads. (While “clean”, I’m pretty sure the ones I saw were filled with rainwater.
Generally, a Riad is fully enclosed with thick walls. It’s possible you won’t even know it’s there until you see it written on the door.
All three that I stayed in appeared to be little more than an unadorned wooden door with the name sometimes barely visible.
I had one that was so difficult to find that I paid a local teen a few dollars to help me find it. Google Maps tends to discount the fact that Medina is a legitimate maze.
Marrakesh to the Sahara
The thing that I wanted to do the most while in Morocco was visit the Sahara desert. That’s why I dedicated three days of my Morocco travel itinerary to the Great Desert.
Be prepared for some driving… A lot of driving. I’m talking 8+ hours in a day. Does that sound like too much? Well, if you want to get deep into the desert, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. The Sahara is gigantic. It’s not a bad drive at all though as the sights of the desert are breathtaking and adventurous.
As such…
I’m usually anti-tour, and my trip to Morocco was no different, as I was self-guided. That is until I went visiting the Sahara desert.
Having now been to remote desert camps, the thought of trying to reach one solo is a dangerous level of risk that I wouldn’t recommend attempting.
The Sahara Desert: Day 5-7
For visiting the Sahara Desert I ended up booking a tour. I took a tour for a good reason, which I’ll get into below.
The tour I went with was From Marrakesh: 3-Days Erg Chegaga Désert Tours.
There are plenty of shorter one and two-day options, as well as a few that are longer in the 4 – 5 day range.
The length you choose, as well as the starting point, will largely determine what exactly you’ll see. Had I been able to squeeze in another day, I’d have upped my tour to four days.
For my tour, we started in Marrakesh. There, you’ll be picked up in the old town square which seems to be the starting point for all of these tours because there were around a hundred people there and easily over a dozen transport vans.
From there we headed into the desert.
Sahara – Day 1
On the first day, you’ll largely be driving on roads. Some may be dirt, but they’re still roads. In fact, you’d be fine self-driving here.
It didn’t quite feel like the Sahara yet. It was definitely desert, but it looked more like a desert you’d see in Texas or Nevada. Rocky and filled with scrub.
On the way to the camp, we saw places like Tamdakhte Kasbah and Aït Benhaddou.
You may recognize these areas as Hollywood likes to use them as sets for TV and movies. Some include Game of Thrones, Gladiator, and Prince of Persia, amongst others.
I’m not going to lie, I was disappointed that we didn’t go see the arena that was used for Maximus’s first fights in Gladiator. Stupid tours…
Later that night It was out of the van and onto a camel. We rode for about an hour until reaching the desert camp, Zagora Desert Camp, where we’d be spending the night.
The camel ride was too touristy for me, but the others enjoyed it. I’ve just ridden them enough at this point that the novelty of riding a camel just for the sake of riding a camel is lost on me.
Where my head is, I want to be riding the camel to a destination that’s difficult to reach. Not be the first person in a train of camels that’s being led by guides walking on foot… in sandals, to a camp that our van is already waiting at.
I’m sure the more rugged camel trek exists somewhere, but not understanding that this is the default, I didn’t know to seek it out. But now you do, if that’s the sort of adventure you’re looking for.
Sahara – Day Two
Now this is where things get a bit more out there.
For day two, things get more rugged and you’ll find yourself cutting across raw desert with little rhyme or reason.
Everything looked the same.
With all the twists and turns but no defined tracks, I asked my driver how he could tell where we were going.
He said it was only because he has made the drive several times per week for the past fifteen years.
I often pride myself on how reliable my international cellular service is.
In fifty-two countries, I’ve only needed to buy a local SIM card once, and that was while in Namibia.
Once, I even took a work text while standing on top of a desolate hill in Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe, much to their shock when I told them why I was busy.
Deep in the Sahara desert though, I lost my signal for large stretches of time.
So now picture if you may, getting stuck in the loose sand you’ll be driving through with no cellular service and no other people around for miles. You’d be cooked. Quite literally.
So for this, just bite the bullet and book a tour.
Deep Desert Camp
After another long drive deep into the desert, you’ll arrive at a camp nestled deep between the dunes of Erg Chegaga. Also known as Erg Chigaga, this largely untouched area is the biggest of the major ergs in Morocco.
The camp I stayed at, Sun Bivouac Chegaga, has a really romantic, escapist feel to it. Comprised of a handful of boxy white tents and a small, but well-built building for dining, it was remote, to say the least.
Sure, there were a few other camps spread out amongst the dunes, but none were within a casual walking distance.
This was easily the hottest place I’ve ever been. When I talked about it on my Instagram story, I equated it to being in an oven.
While here, there was some mingling in the dining area, drives out to the dunes to watch the sunset, dinner, and what I was most looking forward to, sandboarding.
Unfortunately, sandboarding was a bit of a letdown as it was more sand sledding than boarding.
I can’t say it wouldn’t be the same at other camps, but none of the boards where I stayed had intact bindings. This made turning next to impossible, and borderline dangerous depending on the size of the dune.
I’m still determined to do some proper sandboarding, so I’ll update you when I finally do.
By the time the sun set, relief from the heat came fast. As is typical with a desert, once the sun goes down, the temperature takes a sharp drop.
When I woke in the morning it was quite cold. Taking a shower without a towel to dry off on a cold morning is never fun. So if you do happen to take one of these tours, bring a towel with you!
It was mentioned in the tour packing list, but I shrugged it off since I almost never travel with a towel. I think they’re a waste of space. I managed easily enough without, but I could see the lack of one bothering others.
Sahara Day 3
After breakfast, it was back into the vehicles and off to Marrakech. The drive back (technically Day 3) was still long, but it did seem a bit quicker than the drive out since we cut straight through the desert until we hit a road.
This was an amazing drive with wild camels, mirages, a dust devil, and an uninhabited oasis.
On the way back we also stopped in two small towns named Foum Zguid and Taznakht where we explored some ancient ruins, visited a library with even more ancient books, and toured a traditional pottery factory.
The pottery factory pissed me off. It has been owned by several families for generations, each with its own kiln, but being a family business, there were multiple children, some younger than ten working there.
I had been planning on buying some pottery pieces upon returning to Marrakech, but due to this I instead went with small oil lamps.
Unfortunately, the shop owner straight up told me that they didn’t have any djinn when he saw me testing all of the lamps. “We don’t have djinn.” I loved that he knew what I was doing without being asked!
While that is the end of my one week Morocco travel itinerary, there are a few options to stretch it out a bit if you’d like.
Extras
While this Morocco itinerary is written for one week, I was actually there for a day longer. If it’s your cup of tea, I would recommend hopping a bus to a city like Agadir (three hours from Marrakech by bus) where you’ll be able to go dune buggy or quad riding.
If not, then another day in Marrakech would do just fine and allow for a little more breathing room.
I chose the dune buggy in Agadir as I had never driven one before.
It was what you’d typically expect of a tour of this type. Someone from the company leads you around while everyone follows.
Luckily, he didn’t hold back and we were usually going as fast as we could.
I’ve been on some of these tours before where the person leading takes things at a nice, evenly measured-pace. AKA: slow and boring.
This one, however, was decent enough that I’d be willing to do it again.
Have you ever been to Morocco? How does my Morocco itinerary compare to what you did? Or maybe this is a route you’d like to follow. Let me know in the comments below!
[…] then. If you read my Morocco Travel Itinerary, you’ll see that I started from Tangier, and believe you should too. Starting in Fez, […]