Grand Highlights of Morocco Tour: Chefchaouen, Marrakech, and More

Morocco’s Atlantic Ocean coastline hosts scorched valleys that tumble to immense waves. Small towns dot the coastline, many of them with Spanish, French, and Portuguese histories. Asilah is one of these, and it is home to a charming 15th-century kasbah. After lunch and a few hours in Asilah, you will travel inland to the Rif Mountains and Chefchaouen. Your car will stop at the top of the road, and you will continue on foot to a set of stairs and into a 15th-century town that is painted blue and white. Your riad will be toward the top of the old town. You can check in, and the evening will be at your leisure.

A local guide will help you navigate the city with a grand tour. During your tour, you will visit the Grand Mosque, understand how the streets spiral, meet master weavers, and trace the history that lies behind the blue walls. In many ways, Chefchaouen also epitomizes the Moroccan experience. It is more than a feast for the eyes because it is a town with an atmosphere that is distinct from anywhere else in the world. After a morning tour and a traditional meze lunch, you can spend your afternoon in the hammam. Here, you will lie on a large hot stone in a steamy room and feel the treatment as it takes place.

Today, you will explore Chefchaouen. Women in blue dresses will be selling baskets of goat cheese, and traders will be setting up residence on narrow town steps. The entire day will be at your leisure, and it will be easy to lounge the day away in Chefchaouen. During your time here, you can even visit the souks before lazing away the afternoon at a cafe terrace. There is an excellent self-guided hike into the Rif Mountains to consider; it is a 45-minute journey, both ways, to a series of waterfalls. You can also hike further to a village higher in the hills.

Today, you will travel to Fes through two UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Volubilis is a Roman city in a resonant state of ruin. Next, you will transfer to Meknes, which is an imperial city of secrets and seduction. Here, artistic details are inscribed on almost every corner and archway. You will explore Volubilis and have lunch as part of your private Meknes tour. Afterward, you will check in to your boutique Fes riad. Your guide will then lead you on an orientation tour, helping you feel confident and comfortable in this otherworldly city. The evening will be yours to spend at your leisure.

Fes is a city that you must experience because it can never be conveyed in photos or postcards. Today’s full-day tour will aim to explore the magic and mystery of the city. During your tour, you can find sanctity in the Al Karaouine Mosque and then find beauty at the world’s oldest university. Today, you will also admire Bouanania Madrassa before wandering through the tanneries to a famous fountain. On the medina’s outskirts, you will find palaces and gardens, and in the Jewish Mellah, you can uncover a lesser-known local history. You will conclude your full-day tour on a fortress on the hill, where you can watch the sunset over the planet’s largest walled city.

Today, you will travel into the Atlas Mountains, stopping in Midlet and a small Berber village en route to the Sahara. Lunch will come with a panoramic view over the peaks before you descend to the reds and oranges of desert country. You will then follow the Ziz Valley to Erfoud and Merzouga. From here, and there will be nothing but desert until you reach the River Nile. Your journey by camel will lead you deep into the dunes until there is absolutely nothing but you, the camels, and a beautiful Bedouin camp.

Yesterday’s camel prints will have been wiped clean by the wind, so today, you will make some more with a morning ride along the ridges. Near midday, you will be back at your camp and resting beneath a small oasis of palms. Your Bedouin camp will help reset your mind and rest the soul, and the setting will give you a sense of how the world’s largest desert changes throughout the day. As the afternoon heat fades, you will return to the ridges and watch the desert colors change with the sunset. The night will bring bright stars and dinner.

It used to take weeks to travel from the dunes to the red city. Now it is less than two hours by plane. Upon your arrival in Marrakech, you can get a feel for the souks and how to navigate them. You can sip tea at gardens that are maintained by Yves Saint Laurent before strolling through the corridors of Bahia Palace. With just a half a day, you cannot see everything, but you can orientate yourself with how the city works. You will visit the Djemaa el-Fna, which is the favorite evening meeting place of storytellers and drummers.

Marrakech is an excellent city to explore without a guide because there are so many things to do and places to go. Therefore, everyone in your group may want to approach it differently. You might enjoy a cooking class, a food tour, or a journey through the city’s unique palaces and gardens. You can also try out a hammam and compare its style to Chefchaouen before taking a trip to the new part of town. Your day may end with sundowner drinks on an upmarket terrace or with culinary specialties at the Djemaa el-Fna food market.

Knowledge of the argan tree is passed down through generations, meaning the women of today use the same methods to extract oil as they did a thousand years ago. In Western circles, the oil is a modern fad, but the Berbers have been using it for millennia. Today, you will stop at an argan collective en route to Essaouira for some first-hand knowledge of how the oil is harvested. You will probably take some with you to Essaouira, which is a whitewashed town that is draped along the Atlantic Ocean. Loved by Hendrix and other musicians, this quiet town will provide you with two days of tranquility.

Today, you can wander the city walls, dip your feet into the sand, taste the town’s famous olives, or spend a day doing nothing at all. While Essaouira does not have the iconic sights of other Moroccan destinations, the city is still a beautiful place to spend the day. Essaouira has become a major hub for Gnawa music, which is a style of spiritual drumming and dancing that originated in West Africa. Today’s only planned activity will be a Gnawa music performance and dinner, which will prove to be an energetic way to end your two weeks in Morocco.

This morning, you will have a two-hour drive back to Marrakech and the nearest international airport. You will arrive with plenty of time to catch your flight for a smooth ending to a grand adventure.