Casablanca to Marrakech in 10 Days: Chefchaouen, Fes and the Sahara

Your driver-guide meets you as you clear customs at Casablanca airport and drives you into the city. The rest of the day is yours to sleep off the flight. If you have the energy there is time for a walk along the Atlantic corniche as the light goes - a useful reminder on day one that Morocco is a country on the ocean before it is a country of desert.

The morning is Casablanca: the Hassan II mosque standing over the water, the art deco facades around Place Mohammed V, and the quiet arcaded lanes of the Habous quarter. Then north to Rabat for the Hassan Tower and the whitewashed Kasbah of the Udayas, and inland through Ouezzane as the road climbs into the folded hills of the Rif. Chefchaouen arrives in the late afternoon, its lanes turning indigo as the light drops.

A morning among the blue alleys before the day visitors arrive: the Place Outa el Hammam, the kasbah gardens, and the climb to the Spanish Mosque viewpoint for the view back down over the rooftops. Then south out of the Rif to Fes, arriving in the afternoon, with the evening free inside the old town.

A whole day in Fes el-Bali with a licensed local guide, which is the only sensible way into it: the Al-Qarawiyyin quarter, the carved cedar and stucco of the Bou Inania madrasa, the Chouara tanneries seen from a terrace above their bowls of dye, and the artisan quarters where copper, leather and cedar are still worked by hand. The afternoon leaves time of your own among the lanes, and a second night in Fes means no packing this morning.

An early start south out of Fes into the Middle Atlas: Ifrane with its pitched roofs and pine air, and the cedar forest above Azrou where Barbary macaques come down to the roadside. After a lunch stop in Midelt the road crosses the Tizi n Talghemt pass, drops into the Ziz gorges and follows the great palm sea of the Ziz Valley, past Errachidia and Erfoud, the last town before the sand. It is the one long drive of the trip, about eight hours with stops spread through the day, and it ends the right way: camels carry you into the Erg Chebbi dunes for sunset, and dinner is under the stars at the camp.

Sunrise from the sand, then breakfast at the camp. In the morning a 4x4 excursion takes you across the Erg Chebbi and the open desert around it, to high dunes and viewpoints you would not reach on foot. Midday is in Khamlia, a village founded by families who came north along the trans-Saharan trade routes, where the Gnaoua music tradition is still played in people's own homes, and lunch is with local people in the village. The afternoon is free at the camp before a second sunset over the dunes and a second night under the stars.

Rise before dawn for the sunrise over the erg - the sand goes from grey to gold in about ten minutes and there is no sound at all. Then west across the desert plain through Tinejdad to the Todgha Gorge, where limestone walls rise three hundred metres on either side of a river narrow enough to step across. Through the palm oasis of Tinghir, and on to the Dades Valley, arriving as the late light catches its folded rock formations.

Five hours of driving, broken by the best stops of the south. Morning viewpoints over the hairpins of the Dades Gorge and the cliffs locals call monkey fingers. Then Kelaa M Gouna and the Rose Valley, and the Skoura palm oasis with its old earthen kasbahs standing among the trees. In Ouarzazate the film studios; then a guided visit to Ait Ben Haddou, the UNESCO ksar whose earthen towers rise above the Ounila river. The Tizi n Tichka comes last, at 2,260 metres, and you descend into Marrakech as the Koutoubia catches the final light.

Up before dawn and out to the foothills for the balloon. You lift off over the plains and Berber villages as the light arrives, with the High Atlas along the whole southern horizon, and land to breakfast in a tent. In the afternoon a licensed local guide takes you through the medina: the Koutoubia minaret, the painted ceilings and courtyards of the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs, and the souks, which are best entered with someone who knows where the streets come out. The day ends at Jemaa el-Fna as the lanterns come on.

A free morning at your own pace, then a private transfer to Marrakech airport for your flight. If you are flying out of Casablanca, Fes, Tangier or Agadir instead, we drive you there and the transfer is included.