8-Day Ouarzazate to Casablanca Tour via Merzouga, Fes & Chefchaouen

Your tour begins in Ouarzazate with a drive along the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs. In Skoura you walk through the palms to Kasbah Amridil, a well-preserved fortified house.

In the Valley of Roses, a cooperative in Kalaat M'Gouna shows how rosewater is made.

From Boumalne you enter the Dades Gorge, with the Monkey Fingers and its winding road, and spend the night in a guesthouse in the valley.

The day opens with a short drive up the Dades Gorge to the Monkey Fingers, before you turn east to Tinghir.

Todra Gorge is a short walk between towering walls of orange limestone, with the stream running beside you. Afterwards you have lunch nearby.

The afternoon road leads past Erfoud to Merzouga, where you ride a camel into the dunes at sunset and spend the night in a desert camp with dinner and drums.

Climb the nearest dune before breakfast and watch Erg Chebbi glow as the sun rises. Afterwards you have breakfast in camp and return to the village.

A 4x4 excursion explores the desert's edges: Khamlia and its Gnawa music, the old mining sites, the black desert and a family of nomads who welcome you for tea. After rain, flamingos sometimes visit the lake near Merzouga.

The afternoon is free at your hotel, and the night is at the foot of the dunes, ready for the long road north.

Your desert stay ends with sunrise and breakfast, and then the road heads north. The Ziz Valley, seen from a viewpoint, is a canyon of date palms stretching to the horizon.

You continue through the Ziz gorges to Midelt, where lunch is served with views of the High Atlas.

The afternoon crosses the Middle Atlas, through cedar forests where Barbary macaques gather, and passes Ifrane before reaching Fes in the evening.

A guided day in Fes, Morocco's oldest imperial city. Your licensed guide meets you after breakfast and leads you through Bab Boujloud into the lanes of Fes el-Bali, where the sounds of hammers and the smells of spices and leather follow you.

You visit a medieval madrasa, see the Al-Qarawiyyin through its great doors, watch coppersmiths at work in Seffarine and look over the dye pits of the Chouara tannery from a terrace.

After lunch the visit continues by car: the Royal Palace gates, the Mellah, a pottery cooperative and a viewpoint over the whole city. Tomorrow you head north to Chefchaouen.

From Fes the road heads north through rolling wheat fields and olive groves, then climbs into the Rif. It is a quieter drive than the routes of the south, green for much of the year, with reservoirs and hill villages along the way.

You reach Chefchaouen around midday. After lunch you explore the medina on foot: lanes and stairways painted in blues from sky to indigo, the kasbah and its garden on the main square, and the spring of Ras el Ma at the top of the town.

Late in the day a short path leads to the Spanish Mosque, where people gather to watch the sun set and the town's lights come on. The night is spent in a riad inside the blue city.

After a last breakfast on a terrace above the blue rooftops, you drive down from the Rif through Ouazzane and across the Gharb plain towards the Atlantic.

Rabat is reached by early afternoon. The capital is compact and its monuments are close to one another: the twelfth-century Hassan Tower with its field of columns, the white marble Mausoleum of Mohammed V, and the Kasbah of the Udayas, whose blue-and-white lanes end at a platform above the ocean.

The medina's main street, Rue des Consuls, is a pleasant place to look for carpets and leather without the bustle of the bigger cities. You spend the night in a riad or hotel in Rabat.

After breakfast in Rabat there is time for a last visit, perhaps the Chellah ruins and gardens, before you drive an hour south to Casablanca.

There you visit the Hassan II Mosque on a guided tour, then see the Corniche and the Art Deco buildings of the city centre if your schedule allows.

The tour ends with a drop-off at your hotel or at Mohammed V Airport. If you fly today, we plan the morning around your flight.