8 Days Morocco Private Tour: Marrakech to Casablanca

Your driver meets you at Marrakech airport and takes you to your riad or hotel, where you can settle in and rest after the flight.

If you arrive early, your driver can take you on a short drive around the ramparts, the Menara gardens and the Gueliz new town to get your bearings. In the evening, a walk to Jemaa el-Fna is the best first taste of the city.

Moment to remember: the first sounds and lights of Jemaa el-Fna at nightfall.

A local guide spends the day with you. You start at the Jardin Majorelle, with its cobalt-blue villa and cactus gardens, then enter the medina for the Bahia Palace and its painted ceilings, and the 16th-century Saadian Tombs. The Koutoubia Mosque, the landmark of the city, can be admired from outside, as non-Muslims cannot enter.

In the afternoon you walk through the souks, where artisans work leather, metal and wood, and stalls are piled with spices and lanterns. The day ends in Jemaa el-Fna as dusk falls and the storytellers, musicians and food stalls take over the square.

Moment to remember: watching Jemaa el-Fna fill up from a café terrace at sunset.

You cross the High Atlas on the Tizi n'Tichka pass, with stops for views over the valleys. On the southern side you reach Aït Ben Haddou, a UNESCO-listed fortified village of earthen houses that has been the backdrop for many well-known films. You walk up its lanes to the top for the view.

In Ouarzazate you can visit one of the film studios and the Taourirt Kasbah, once home to the powerful Glaoui family. The road then continues east to Boumalne Dades, at the mouth of the Dades Gorges, where you spend the night.

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

After breakfast you drive to Tinghir and into the Todra Gorges, where limestone walls rise high on both sides of a narrow canyon. You have time to walk through the narrowest part before lunch.

In the afternoon the road crosses the Tafilalet, a wide oasis of palm groves, and reaches Merzouga at the edge of the Erg Chebbi dunes. You ride a camel across the sand as the sun sets and arrive at your desert camp for dinner, with Berber music around the fire.

Moment to remember: the dunes turning orange and red under the setting sun.

Wake early for sunrise over the dunes, then ride back to Merzouga for breakfast. The road north follows the Ziz Valley, a long line of date palms and earthen villages between rocky hills, and climbs to Midelt at the foot of the Middle Atlas.

In the afternoon you drive through the cedar forest near Azrou, where you may see Barbary macaques, and stop in Ifrane, a mountain town with sloping roofs that locals call the Switzerland of Morocco. You reach Fes in the evening.

Moment to remember: the green line of the Ziz palm groves seen from the road above.

A local guide takes you into Fes el-Bali, the UNESCO-listed old medina, through the blue-tiled Bab Bou Jeloud gate. You walk through souks where each lane keeps its own trade, visit the Nejjarine museum of wooden arts in a restored caravanserai, and see the carved stucco and tilework of the Bou Inania Madrasa.

You pass the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque and university, founded in the 9th century and often described as one of the oldest universities in the world, and end at the Chouara tannery, watching hides being dyed in the stone pits from a terrace above.

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

In Meknes, the 17th-century capital of Sultan Moulay Ismail, you see the monumental Bab Mansour gate and the lively Place el-Hedim, then the huge Heri es-Souani granaries and stables built to supply the sultan's army.

In Rabat, the capital, you visit the Hassan Tower, the minaret of a great mosque that was never finished, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V beside it, the blue and white lanes of the Kasbah of the Udayas above the ocean and the ruins of Chellah. You reach Casablanca in the evening.

Moment to remember: the view over the Atlantic from the walls of the Kasbah of the Udayas.

Depending on your flight time, you can spend the morning in Casablanca: see the Hassan II Mosque on the ocean front, walk the Corniche or the Habous district, and enjoy a last Moroccan lunch.

Your driver then takes you to Mohammed V airport. If your flight home leaves from Marrakech, we can drive you there instead, and the route can be adjusted to your plans.

Moment to remember: the Hassan II Mosque standing over the Atlantic waves.