7 Days in Morocco: The Best Things to See and Do

Morocco is a beautiful country to visit where you can explore the orange sands of the Sahara desert, see rolling green hills in the north and explore the vibrant souks and medinas within the cities. I had 7 days in Morocco to explore the country and saw quite a bit within that time frame. It’s a good amount of time for a vacation but there is a lot to see in Morocco and you can definitely spend more time here.

About Morocco

The thing about Morocco is that the best things to see are pretty spread out around the country. I didn’t realize that the Sahara Desert is only along the very bottom part of Morocco and a lot of the country is actually pretty green. Only about 30% of the country is desert. So if you want to see the Sahara Desert in Morocco, you’ll be traveling pretty far.

To put this into perspective, from Marrakech it’s about 8.5 hours east to Merzouga, which is a popular tourist town for the Sahara Desert. Even Erg Chigaga, which is southeast, is about the same distance driving. Chefchaouen, aka The Blue Pearl of Morocco, is located in the north and is a little over 7 hours to get to.

So basically, it depends on what you want to see, but you’ll likely be covering some ground when you visit.

Getting There

Marrakech and Casablanca are two popular cities to start tours in. But the problem is getting back to those cities once you venture around. It’s easier to book a round trip ticket out of the same city but then you’ll need to get to your original destination. And it’s about 3 hours between the cities (I had to leave from Marrakech at about 5am to make a mid-morning flight from Casablanca).

7 Days in Morocco

I’m just going to preface this by saying this is a whirlwind tour. You can obviously spend much more time in most of these cities. But because of how spread out the country is and how short a lot of the tours are, you’ll be going from place to place very quickly and spending a lot of time in the car.

If you’re exploring on your own, you have the luxury of planning out your trip a little better and spending more time in the main cities. But you’ll still run into the issue of a lot of the best places being far apart.

This 7 day tour of Morocco is what you can likely expect if you book a group tour. This is how a lot of the tours are unless you do a tour focused on one general area.

Day 0 Arrive in Casablanca

If you’re on a tour, it may or may not include your arrival in the tour days. Mine did not, so I had to factor that into arriving to Casablanca the day before. I also booked my own hotel instead of booking through the tour as it was cheaper.

Day 1 Rabat + Chefchaouen

Another reason to arrive early is so you have time to explore Casablanca or adjust to jet lag. The day starts with a tour of the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest functioning mosques in Africa.

From here, we made our way over to Rabat, one of the four imperial cities of Morocco. It’s also the capital city and is located along the Atlantic coast. There are a few stops you’ll see such as the Udayas Kasbah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Hassan Tower and Mausoleum of Mohammed V.

This is where you would definitely spend more time, but on a tour, you’ll be off again to make it to Chefchaouen by evening. Chefchaouen is known as ‘the Blue Pearl of Morocco’ as a lot of the buildings are painted a bright blue.

It’s a very picturesque town and fun to get lost in. It’s one of those places that is out of the way to get to, so cute to explore but there’s not quite a lot to do there. We got there in the evening, but unfortunately it down poured from the minute we arrived to the minute we left the next morning.

I wasn’t about to let the rain stop me since this is one of the places I was really excited to see. I was drenched for the entire day and nearly messed up my camera from water exposure but the pictures still turned out good.

But an evening and a morning is probably enough time to spend here as the main thing to do is take pictures and explore.

Day 2 Volubilis + Fes

Once we packed up from Chefchaouen, it miraculously stopped raining. The landscape in Morocco is incredibly beautiful and I didn’t expect it to be so green.

The first stop is to Volubilis, Roman ruins that date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. They chose this area to build as it looked like Italy–and it does. It’s a very scenic area and we lucked out with blue skies (it started pouring again just as we got to the car!).

From here, we drove on to Meknes, another imperial city. The weather wasn’t on our side and this was supposed to be a quick stop since it’s very close to Fes. The weather sort of discouraged us from exploring and since we were on a small enough tour, we all decided to go on to Fes earlier.

Day 3 Fes

Fes is one of the more popular cities to visit in Morocco and the 3rd imperial city that we visited. There’s a lot to see and do here. We started the day by visiting the Royal Palace gate. You aren’t allowed inside (no one is) but the gates are extravagant and nice to photograph.

The Medina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is a labyrinth of shops and alleyways. Our guide grew up within the walls of the Medina so our tour was very fun and informative. The alleyways are small and narrow, and our guide said that even he can get lost sometimes.

There are many different sections within the Medina to visit–sections for spices, women’s weaving (they do bigger things like rugs and bedspreads) and men’s weaving (smaller things like scarves and pillow cases). And of course, there’s the famous tanneries where you can go through the stores and up to the terraces. They overlook the large pots of dye and hides laid out to dry.

It was raining again for us so no one was out working when we saw it. (Morocco just happened to have very unusual weather the week I was there.)

Within the Medina, you can also visit the oldest university in the world (Quaraouin mosque and university), the Medrasa Bouanania, the Najjarine Fountain and the Jewish Quarter, aka ‘the Mellah’.

Somehow we also had time to visit a ceramics factory to get a tour of the handmade process of making and designing ceramics. As well as an old fortress that has a panoramic view of the city.

Day 4 Merzouga + Sahara Desert

Of my 7 days in Morocco, my favorite day by far was when we started heading into the desert. (Also possibly because it was the first time we truly felt like we were escaping the rain).

It’s a long day of driving but there are several stops to help break up the drive. Our tour included a stop at Ifrane, a town known as the ‘Switzerland of Morocco’. But again, since it was pouring down rain, we ended up just driving on through. It’s supposed to be a nice, scenic town but I’m not sure what there is to stop for other than to see it.

A fun stop along the way is the monkeys in Cedar Forest. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were handed peanuts by guys standing out there and monkeys immediately came over to us. They’ll take them right out of your hand to eat them. A fairly big one launched out of a tree and landed on our car and a little one climbed my leg. They were so cute!

But you’ll definitely want to watch out for the peanut scam. The men hand you peanuts and take photos for you on your phone but they’ll try and ask you for absurd amounts of money. A guy was trying to get me to pay the equivalent of $20…a couple bucks is fine.

The Sahara Desert

After a few more hours of driving, you’ll see the landscape change and drive past all these desert towns in the rocks. Merzouga is a popular town for tourism in the desert–an ‘Instagram town’ someone called it. There are camel tours, sand boarding and ATV tours all over the place, as well as desert camps.

The Erg Chebbi sand dunes start to come into view and our guide detoured off into the sand right away. We stopped to get some orange dune pictures and it was pretty surreal being in the Sahara. I’d been to Egypt before but the desert is much different here and so orange!

Next, we hopped on camels to ride into the desert to our luxury desert camp. The camel ride was decently long to our camp, maybe 45 minutes to an hour. No idea where the camp was in relation to the road since our stuff was delivered there when we arrived.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and hiked up the nearest dunes to catch the sunset. We also hauled up a sand board with us. They didn’t give us boots and there were no straps on the board but since I’d been sand boarding in Chile, I remembered the guide telling us to just go straight and not turn. And turns out, that’s how you can board with no straps haha.

The rooms were really nice and once we had dinner, we sat around a fire to listen to local drummers and singers. As tired as I was, I was determined to wake up for sunrise and I’m so glad I did. I ended up getting one of my favorite photos of the trip that morning and there’s nothing like seeing the sun rays hitting the dunes.

Day 5 Ait Ben Haddou + Marrakech

As we left the desert, we drove through the Todra Gorges. There are many stalls along the road and giant rocks on either side of you. We were let out of the car to walk through the gorge. I bought a head scarf here and the shop owner asked one of the German women on my tour how many camels they would take for me.

We also drove through many more desert towns to take photos. One of them was Ait Ben Haddou, but we had stopped so many times, I can’t actually remember stopping here. And I kind of wonder if our guide only stopped from afar. It’s a fortified village that has appeared in many shows and movies like Gladiator, Game of Thrones and the Mummy. I would have loveddd to spend time here though.

We did stop at another town with an interesting rock formation known as the Monkey Fingers. The rest of my group was staying at a hotel here with a nice view of it, but I did not. The night before, we discovered that I was actually on a shorter tour than the rest of them. They had been identical tours up until this point, but I was supposed to be in Marrakech by nightfall.

Another tour guide picked me up and showed me stops along the way. We saw an actual movie set where some of those movies and shows were filmed. He called it the Hollywood of Africa.

The day was a bit scrambled because of the mix up so I’m not sure if that’s why we didn’t get to properly see Ait Ben Haddou or what. But the drive back to Marrakech was a long one. We pulled over around 6:45pm when my driver was able to break fast for Ramadan.

Day 6 Marrakech

I woke up in a Riad in Marrakech and was picked up by a guide in the morning to do a walking tour of the city. Whoever else was supposed to be on that walking tour didn’t show, so it was only me. The guide seemed a bit eager to get through the tour unfortunately, so I felt like we were racing through the Medina.

It was very similar to Fes in that there are certain stores they take you to for souvenirs and tours. I had already seen several, so I wasn’t the most excited this time around. I would have rather spent more time exploring and shopping in the streets.

The big difference between the Medina in Marrakech and Fes is how chaotic the one in Marrakech is. The alleyways are bigger and you’ll be dodging motorbikes right and left. It’s also known for its large spice displays. It rained off and on which made it harder to enjoy since I had to have my head down for the rain, but up to watch out for motorbikes.

The main square has a lot going on too and is where you’ll find snake charmers and performers (more so at night).

It ended up raining for most of the night so I didn’t make it back to the main square. But it’s definitely a place I’d want to return to when the weather isn’t glitching.

I also walked around the Majorelle Garden which has blue buildings and cacti everywhere. It was a nice place to walk around but I don’t know if I would include it if you only have one day here.

Day 7 Transfer Back to Casablanca

The last day of the tour is a travel day. But like I mentioned before, you’ll need to transfer back to the city you flew in to. For me that was Casablanca, which was 3 hours away from where I currently was. So I was up pretty early to have a driver take me to Casablanca and the airport there.

Things to Know

• Ramadan – If you happen to visit during Ramadan, just know that some restaurants may be closed or may have a smaller or set menu available instead.
• Weather – Typically the weather in Morocco is hot, but if you visit in the winter months, you can expect weather in the 50s-60s. I happened to visit when they were getting rain every day which is not common.
• Clothing – Morocco is a Muslim country and people dress very conservatively for the most part. It’s smart to respect their culture by wearing loose, flowy clothing. You’ll also have to have your knees and shoulders covered at some places on tours.
• Restrooms – A lot of public restrooms will have an attendant collecting money. Make sure to have the 5 MAD coins on you at all times. You also might want to keep tissues on you for restrooms in the middle of nowhere.

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