7 Day Tour from Casablanca to Marrakech via Chefchaouen

Day 1: Casablanca – Rabat – Rif Mountains- Chefchaouen

Today, we will meet you at your hotel in Casablanca or the airport and drive to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, where we will visit places of interest. Then, we will continue our drive to the famous Blue City of Chefchaouen, nestled in the Rif mountains.

Upon arrival, we will check into our riad in the magical blue medina of Chefchaouen, including breakfast.

Day 2: Discovering the Blue City, Chefchaouen

Today, you will have the day to wander and explore, discovering the fantastic medina, its history, and hidden gems. There is plenty to see and some fabulous shopping, with many artists and artisans producing work exclusive to this town, and visiting the Spanish mosque. 

Enjoy the nighttime atmosphere in the square, where many places offer great food. Overnight at the same accommodation with bed and breakfast.

Day 3: Chefchaouen – Volubilis – Meknes – Fes

After breakfast, we leave the blue city and travel across the region’s beautiful landscapes —fields of wheat, wildflowers, typical metal-roofed houses, and winding rivers — to Ouazzane, home to some of the best honey and figs.

Our next stop is the Roman Ruins of Volubilis, a 3rd-century UNESCO site with extensive excavations that include columns, mosaics, a considerable gateway, and many streets and houses. It was a significant city dating back to 225 BC. Your guided tour will give you a fascinating insight into life back then and the history of the Romans in this region.

After that, we will travel to the imperial city of Meknes, founded by the Almoravid dynasty in the 11th century as a military settlement. Meknes became a capital under Sultan Moulay Ismail in the 17th century. He introduced a Hispano-Moorish style in architecture, including the great Mansour, a gate with intricate mosaic or Zellig, the ramparts, the granary, and the Sahrij Swani Basin, used for irrigation and agriculture.

From Meknes, we continue to the spiritual capital of Fes. Overnight, it will be in a typical ornate riad in the medina.

Day 4: Explore the cultural capital of Fes

After breakfast at your riad, your guide will meet you and begin your guided tour of Fes. The tour comprises a walking and driving part to make the most of the day. You will see the vast seven gates of the Royal palace, the Mellah or Jewish quarter, which was an important commercial area, and a pottery cooperative to see the intricate and fascinating work involved in producing some of Morocco’s finest work, and an incredible panoramic viewpoint of the whole medina, and then into the medina for a delicious Fes-style lunch.

In the afternoon, after lunch, you will visit the medina’s cultural and spiritual sites and monuments, as well as its narrow souks, which are full of food, crafts, artisans, and famous tanneries. 

Fes has 9000 streets in a car-free zone and is best explored with a knowledgeable local guide. Its ancient history includes housing the world’s oldest still-operating university, the Qaraouiyine, founded in 859 by a woman named Fatima, and a library and a mosque. Overnight in the same riad.

Day 5: Fes – Middle Atlas mountains – Merzouga desert – Camel ride & night in the desert

We leave Fes after a tasty breakfast and head to the Sahara. Our first stop will be Ifrane, known locally as “the little Switzerland of Morocco” for its alpine architecture; we will enter the Great Cedar Forest in the Middle Atlas Mountains, where you will most likely see the indigenous Barbary macaques swinging in the trees. We stop in Midelt for lunch and follow the Ziz Valley, which has fantastic panoramic places to stop and view.

The landscape changes as the journey continues south: mountains and canyons, rivers and plateaus, nomads with their rustic dwellings and flocks of animals. As we approach the towns of Errachidia and Erfoud, hints of the Sahara become apparent. 

We drive through Berber towns and villages from Erfoud to Rissani, once the capital of Sijilmassa and the foundation of the Alaouite dynasty, Morocco’s current ruling royal family.
The open, vast desert is suddenly in front of us, and Merzouga awaits us with a welcoming glass of mint tea.

Our camels will also be waiting to take you across the golden dunes to your desert camp for a night under the stars. Enjoy a Traditional dinner and Berber Music around the campfire.

Day 6: Merzouga Sahara Desert – Todra Gorge – Dades Valley

One of the most magical times of the day is before sunrise; the silence is impressive, and the light changes as the sun moves across the Erg Chebbi dunes is notable.

We will wake you up in time to enjoy this. Then, you will have breakfast at the camp and ride the camels back in silence to fully appreciate the tranquility of the desert and the Erg Chebbi Dunes. Return to Merzouga to meet our driver, then drive to Rissani through adobe kasbah towns and villages, past vast palm groves. We travel to Tinghir and up into the Todra Gorge. 

Three hundred meters high and only 10 meters wide at its narrowest point, this vertical-walled canyon is a magnet for international rock climbers. You can wander along the crystal clear glacial waters of the river.

We continue our tour to the next wonder, Dades Gorge, where erosion has formed some crazy rocks called “Monkey Fingers” that look like fat fingers. You will spend the night in a typical hotel in the gorge and enjoy local hospitality with half board.

Day 7: Boumalne Dades Gorges – Marrakech – Ait Ben Haddou

After breakfast, we start our day with many incredible sights. Driving along the Dades Valley and the Valley of the Roses, also called the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, you will see many rose-colored adobe kasbahs, fields of crops with hedges of Damascus roses, which are cultivated here for their highly prized fragrant oil. In Kelaat M’gouna, we will stop at a rose cooperative where you can purchase rose water gifts and learn about the rose-growing process.

We continue our journey along this road to the palgrove of Skoura, then to Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of Africa, and to the famous Ait Benhaddou Kasbah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and fortress. We will have lunch in the village and briefly visit the kasbah, which was featured in movies such as Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Prince of Persia, among many others.

Back on the road, we cross the High Atlas mountains, with winding roads that reach the high pass of Tizi n’Tichka at 2260 meters. Here, we can stop to observe the process of making Argan Oil at a women’s cooperative before driving down to Marrakech’s plains and medina, where this seven-day Morocco tour ends with a drop-off at your accommodation.