Morocco – 10 Day Itinerary: Marrakech, Sahara & Fez

Start at the Koutoubia Mosque, the 12th-century minaret that anchors the skyline (non-Muslims can't enter, but the gardens around it are the calmest introduction to the city). From there, walk north into the souks, the covered market streets that fan out from the main square. Getting slightly lost is part of it; the main artery, Souk Semmarine, always leads you back out. Visit the Bahia Palace in the afternoon for the finest surviving example of Moroccan stucco and zellij tilework in the city.

In the evening, Jemaa el-Fna transforms. By dusk the square fills with food stalls, musicians, storytellers and crowds; it's touristy and it's also genuinely alive. Eat at one of the busy grill stalls (pick one where locals are eating), or head to Mechoui Alley just off the square for slow-roasted lamb pulled straight from underground pit ovens.

Open the day at the Ben Youssef Madrasa, a beautifully restored 16th-century Quranic school and the single most impressive interior in the medina: go early, before the tour groups. Nearby, Le Jardin Secret is a restored riad garden that makes a quiet mid-morning stop, and the Saadian Tombs and the ruined El Badi Palace are within walking distance to the south.

In the afternoon, cross into Guéliz for the Jardin Majorelle and the adjoining Yves Saint Laurent Museum. The garden is small and extremely popular: book a timed ticket online in advance or you'll queue in the sun. Finish with mint tea on a rooftop as the light drops; the cafés around the Mouassine and Kasbah quarters have some of the best.

Book a traditional hammam in the morning: a steam, a black-soap scrub and a rinse. There's a version for every budget, from neighbourhood public hammams to spa riads, and it's the single best way to reset before the road days ahead. Spend the rest of the morning in the Mellah (the historic Jewish quarter) and the spice and textile souks, where the pressure to buy is lower and the haggling more relaxed.

Keep the afternoon deliberately loose: last shopping in the souks (this is your window to actually buy, since you won't pass this way again), a final rooftop tea, and an early night. If you're itching for a taste of the landscape to come, a half-day trip into the Ourika Valley in the High Atlas foothills is an easy add-on from the city.

Cross the Tizi n'Tichka in the morning, then stop at Aït Ben Haddou, a fortified village (ksar) of rammed-earth kasbahs stacked against a hillside, a UNESCO site and one of the most photographed places in Morocco (Gladiator and Game of Thrones both filmed here). Cross the riverbed and climb to the old granary at the top for the view back over the whole ksar. Continue to Ouarzazate, known as "the door of the desert", with its film studios and the Taourirt Kasbah.

Push on into the Dades Valley, past the rose-growing town of Kalaat M'Gouna, to the mouth of the Dades Gorge. Overnight in a kasbah guesthouse (auberge) in the gorge: half-board is standard, and dinner is usually a home-cooked tagine eaten as the walls of the canyon go dark.

Start with the famous switchback road out of the Dades Gorge, then cross to the Todra Gorge, where limestone walls rise up to 300 metres over a canyon floor you can walk along a river. It's cool, dramatic and a complete contrast to the desert ahead. From Tinghir, the road runs east through increasingly arid country until, near the end of the day, the great dunes of Erg Chebbi appear on the horizon, creating a genuine "there it is" moment.

Arrive at Merzouga in the late afternoon, transfer to camels, and ride out into the dunes for sunset. You'll spend the night at a desert camp in the sand: dinner around a fire, Amazigh drumming, and a sky with more stars than most people have ever seen. Even standard camps now have private, comfortable tents.

Wake early for sunrise over Erg Chebbi: the dunes shift colour minute by minute and it's worth the cold start. After breakfast at camp, spend the day around the desert rather than rushing off: a 4×4 loop of the erg, sandboarding, or a visit to Khamlia, a village of descendants of enslaved Saharan peoples known for its Gnaoua music, where you can sit in on a session. You can also meet nomadic families still living in the fringes of the dunes.

Spend a second night here, either back in the sand or, for a softer landing, in a comfortable kasbah on the edge of the dunes with a pool. After two days of driving and a night in a tent, the pool earns its keep.

The drive north is long (budget the whole day), but it's some of the best scenery on the route. You follow the Ziz Valley and its ribbon of palm oases, climb through Midelt, then enter the Middle Atlas. Stop at the cedar forest near Azrou, home to troops of wild Barbary macaques, and pass through Ifrane, an improbably Alpine-looking town built by the French in the 1930s and nicknamed "Little Switzerland".

Arrive in Fez in the evening. Have your riad arrange someone to meet you at the nearest medina gate: the old city is a genuine maze and finding a riad down an unlit alley on your first night, tired from the road, is no fun without a guide. Eat close to where you're staying and save the medina for the morning.

Hire a licensed guide for the morning: this is the one city on the route where it genuinely pays off, because the medina has thousands of alleys and no logic a visitor can read on day one. Enter through Bab Bou Jeloud (the blue gate), and see the Al-Attarine Madrasa (arguably the finest tilework in the country), the exterior and courtyard glimpses of Al-Qarawiyyin (founded in 859, often called the world's oldest continually operating university), and the Chouara Tanneries from a surrounding leather-shop terrace, where hides are still dyed in stone vats exactly as they were centuries ago.

In the afternoon, let the guide go and wander on your own. Getting lost in Fez el-Bali is the point once you have your bearings; the alleys open onto workshops, food stalls, tiny mosques and courtyards you'd never find on a map.

Take a day trip west to Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman ruins in Morocco, where mosaics sit open to the sky in a hillside of olive groves. Combine it with the whitewashed holy town of Moulay Idriss, spilling down two hilltops nearby, and the imperial city of Meknes with its monumental Bab Mansour gate. It's an easy, rewarding loop and a change of pace from the medina intensity.

Back in Fez, climb to the Marinid Tombs on the hillside above the medina for sunset: the single best view over the old city, with the call to prayer rising from a thousand rooftops as the light goes. It's the kind of moment that stays with people.

Use the final morning for whatever the medina held that you didn't get to: the pottery and zellij cooperatives outside Bab Ftouh, where the famous Fez-blue ceramics are made and where prices are better than in the souks, or simply a last slow walk and a final round of mint tea. Buy now, as this is your last chance on the route.

Allow around 30–40 minutes to Fez-Saïss Airport (FEZ) by petit taxi, and build in a comfortable buffer: agree the fare before you get in. From here you fly home or onward, having crossed the whole country without once retracing your steps.