8-Day Grand Tour from Tangier: Imperial Cities & Sahara Desert

Pickup happens at 9:00 AM from Tangier, whether that's the port, your hotel, or Ibn Battouta airport. A quick walk through the Tangier kasbah comes first, with an optional stop at the American Legation Museum and Café Hafa overlooking the Strait, plus an optional 45-minute detour to Cape Spartel. By mid-morning you're heading south to Tetouan, the UNESCO white-city medina, for a brief walking tour. Lunch follows in Tetouan or on the road.

The drive into the Rif Mountains takes about 90 minutes, through pine forest and Berber villages. You arrive in Chefchaouen at golden hour, check in to your riad, and take mint tea on the terrace. At 5:30 PM you set off for the Spanish Mosque viewpoint, a 25-minute climb above town for one of the great sunsets in Morocco. Dinner follows in the medina.

You wake up early for Chefchaouen at sunrise, the medina photographers travel here for. Walk the empty blue streets, then take breakfast on the terrace before a 9:30 AM departure. A two-hour drive south reaches Volubilis, the UNESCO Roman site, for a 90-minute walking tour with an archaeologist guide covering the Orpheus and Diana mosaics, the triumphal arch, and the basilica.

A 30-minute drive brings you to Meknes for lunch and a 90-minute walking tour of the Bab Mansour gate, the tomb of Moulay Ismail, and the royal stables. A 60-minute drive in the late afternoon carries you into Fez, where you check in to your riad in the medina by 5:30 PM. Dinner follows on the rooftop at sunset.

A specialist local guide leads a full day in the Fez medina, a slow walk of 6 to 7 km over 6 hours. You'll take in the Bou Inania madrasa, the Nejjarine fountain, the Chouara tanneries (mint sprigs included), the brass and copper souks, the carpet souk, and the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque, the oldest continuously operating university in the world, founded in 859.

Lunch is at a riad restaurant in the medina. Late afternoon opens up: an optional visit to the pottery quarter, or rest at your riad with an optional hammam. Dinner follows in the medina.

The day starts early. The road south climbs through Ifrane (the "Switzerland of Morocco," with its red-roofed chalets) and the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas, Barbary macaque country. Lunch is in Midelt, the apple-orchard town in the high mountains, before the afternoon drive through the dramatic Ziz Gorge, a green palm canyon cut into red rock walls.

By late afternoon you're at the edge of Erg Chebbi, the orange-dune sea of the Moroccan Sahara, where a camel team is waiting. The 90-minute trek carries you over the dunes to your luxury camp at sunset. A Berber dinner follows, with drumming around the fire and a sky full of stars overhead.

Sunrise over the dunes is the best moment of the trip. You climb a dune barefoot and watch the sand turn from pink to gold to deep orange. Camel back to the village, breakfast, then back into the 4×4 heading west.

By mid-morning you reach Todra Gorge, where 300-metre vertical cliff walls close to less than 10 metres apart at the narrowest point. Walk the gorge bottom, then take lunch in Tinghir or at a Berber farm in the Todra. The afternoon drive continues into the Dades Valley, past pink-rock canyons, the Monkey Fingers rock formation, and the famous switchbacks above the Dades river, with a stop for photos at golden hour. Dinner follows at a kasbah hotel in the valley.

The morning drive passes through the Skoura palm grove, 80,000 date palms hiding 17th-century mud-built kasbahs, with a brief stop at Kasbah Amerhidil, one of the largest in Morocco. Continue to Ouarzazate for an early lunch, then a 30-minute drive to Aït Ben Haddou, the UNESCO earthen ksar that's stood in as a film set for Gladiator, Game of Thrones, and Lawrence of Arabia. A local guide walks you through the village, and you climb to the panoramic viewpoint above.

Mid-afternoon brings the climb up the Tizi n'Tichka pass, 2,260 metres of switchbacks through Berber villages, with a tea stop near the top before the long descent into the Marrakech plain. You arrive at your Marrakech riad by 7:00 PM. Dinner follows in the medina or on the riad rooftop.

A specialist local guide leads a full day in the Marrakech medina: the Koutoubia mosque (a 12th-century Almohad minaret), the Bahia Palace (a 19th-century vizier's residence with painted ceilings), the Saadian Tombs (a 16th-century royal mausoleum, rediscovered in 1917), and the Madrasa Ben Youssef.

Lunch is in the medina. Afterward, a slow walk through the dyers' souk and the spice souk ends at Jemaa el-Fnaa, just as the storytellers, food stalls, and snake charmers set up for the evening. An optional drive to Majorelle Garden (Yves Saint Laurent's restored cobalt-blue villa garden) fills the time before sunset. Dinner follows in the medina.

You leave Marrakech at 8:30 AM. The motorway north reaches Casablanca in about 3 hours, where an optional 60-minute guided tour covers the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world, built partly over the Atlantic and completed in 1993. Non-Muslims can enter on guided tours, and the interior ranks among the great pieces of contemporary Islamic architecture.

Lunch is on the Corniche in Casablanca, overlooking the Atlantic, with an optional walk through the small Habous quarter. Drop-off is your choice: Mohammed V airport, hotel, or train station, with the tour ending around 4:00 to 5:00 PM. We can also drop you in Marrakech instead, skipping the Casablanca leg, or extend the trip onward. Tell us when booking.