7 Days Morocco Private Tour: Marrakech to Fes

Your private driver meets you at Marrakech airport and takes you to your riad or hotel. We keep this first day flexible so you can rest after your journey.

If you arrive early, walk to Jemaa el-Fna, where storytellers, musicians and food stalls fill the square, or enjoy a quieter start on a rooftop café above the medina. For dinner, try your first tagine or couscous with a glass of mint tea.

Moment to remember: mint tea on a rooftop as the call to prayer echoes over the medina.

A local guide spends the day with you in the Red City. You start at the 19th-century Bahia Palace, with its zellige tilework and quiet courtyards, then the Saadian Tombs from the 16th century, rediscovered in 1917. The Koutoubia Mosque and its minaret, the city's best-known landmark, can be admired from outside, as non-Muslims cannot enter. You also visit the carved courtyard of the Ben Youssef Madrasa, a former Islamic college.

In the afternoon you walk through the souks and the Mellah, the historic Jewish quarter, then relax in the Jardin Majorelle, created by the painter Jacques Majorelle and later restored by Yves Saint Laurent, with its cobalt-blue walls and exotic plants.

Moment to remember: the cool blue paths of the Jardin Majorelle after the busy souks.

You cross the High Atlas on the Tizi n'Tichka pass, one of the most scenic roads in Morocco, with views over valleys, Berber villages and rugged peaks. On the southern side you reach Aït Ben Haddou, a UNESCO-listed fortified ksar of earthen houses that appears in films such as Gladiator and in Game of Thrones. You walk up its lanes to the top for the view.

In Ouarzazate you visit the Taourirt Kasbah, once a residence of the Glaoui family, and the Atlas Film Studios. After lunch the road follows the palm groves and kasbahs of the Skoura oasis and the Rose Valley to Boumalne Dades, where rock formations and winding valleys surround your hotel.

Moment to remember: the first view of Aït Ben Haddou rising above the riverbed.

After breakfast you drive into the Dades Gorges for the view over their famous switchback road, then continue to the Todra Gorges, where rock walls around 300 meters high close in over the river. A short walk through the gorge lets you take it all in. In Tinghir you see the palm groves and earthen villages along the oasis.

After lunch you head to Erfoud, the gateway to the Sahara, where you can visit a fossil workshop. In Merzouga your camels are waiting: you ride across the Erg Chebbi dunes as the sand turns orange and red at sunset, and arrive at your luxury camp for mint tea, a Moroccan dinner under the stars, live music and a campfire.

Moment to remember: the silence of the dunes after the campfire goes quiet.

Wake early for a magical sunrise over the Erg Chebbi dunes, have breakfast at the camp, then return to Merzouga by camel or 4x4, where your driver is waiting. The road north passes Erfoud and enters the Ziz Valley, a long oasis of palm trees in a desert landscape, perfect for photo stops. You have lunch in Midelt, a mountain town known for its apples.

Crossing the Middle Atlas, you stop in the cedar forest near Azrou to see the Barbary macaques, then in Ifrane, often called the Little Switzerland of Morocco, where you can see its famous stone lion statue. You arrive in Fes in the evening and check in to a traditional riad in the medina.

Moment to remember: watching the first light touch the dunes of Erg Chebbi.

A professional local guide shows you Fes el-Bali, the UNESCO-listed old medina. You see the golden gates of the Royal Palace and Bab Bou Jeloud, the blue-tiled gate into the old city, then the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque and university, founded in the 9th century and often described as the oldest operating university in the world, and the Bou Inania Madrasa with its tilework and cedar carvings.

Fes is a city of artisans: you watch potters shape and paint Fassi ceramics, weavers at their wooden looms, and the dyers of the Chouara tannery from a terrace above the pits. You also walk through the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter, have lunch in the medina and spend the afternoon in the souks.

Moment to remember: the colors of the Chouara tannery from the terraces above.

After breakfast at your riad, your driver takes you to Fes airport or to Casablanca airport, depending on your flight.

From Fes the transfer is short, so you may have time for some last shopping or a coffee in the medina. The drive to Casablanca takes about three and a half to four hours through the countryside, and your driver helps with your luggage at the airport.

Moment to remember: looking back on a week from the souks of Marrakech to the medina of Fes.