Top 7 Days Morocco Desert Tour from Casablanca to Fes and Merzouga (2026)

Day 1

Casablanca to Meknes via Rabat

You start your Morocco desert tour from Casablanca with a hotel/airport pick up at 7:30 am. First stop is the Hassan II Mosque – non-Muslim visitors are allowed inside on guided tours at 9:00 am, 10:00 am, 11:00 am and 2:00 pm daily, except on Friday. Your Over Morocco Tours guide will arrange your entrance tickets in advance (included in the group packages). Budget 45-60 mins in the mosque complex. Then head north along the Atlantic corniche.

The 90km drive to Rabat, Morocco’s administrative capital, takes in one of North Africa’s most scenic coastal highways, passing the beach resort towns of Mohammedia and Skhirat. Spend the morning in Rabat at the Kasbah of the Udayas, a 12th-century Almohad fortress built at the mouth of the Bou Regreg River, with cobalt-blue-washed alleyways inside that predate Chefchaouen’s famous blue streets by three centuries, and the Hassan Tower, the unfinished minaret of a mosque begun in 1195 that would have been the world’s largest.

Next door the Mohammed V Mausoleum, finished in 1971, is perhaps the finest example anywhere of modern Moroccan craftsmanship, with its hand-carved marble, gilded cedar ceilings and royal guards in ceremonial dress. The Rabat visit is completed by the Chellah Necropolis a walled Roman and Merinid funerary complex with resident storks nesting in the ancient minaret towers.

We drive in the afternoon to Meknes, the “Versailles of Morocco,” built by the sultan Moulay Ismail in the late 17th century. A short evening walk through the Bab Mansour gate, the most monumental entrance gate in all of Morocco and perhaps in all of North Africa, sets the stage for tomorrow’s full exploration. Dinner and overnight in the medina of Meknes.

Day 2

Meknes to Fes via Volubilis & Moulay Idriss

Day 2 of the 7 day Morocco tour from Casablanca begins with a morning walk through Meknes. Meknes is one of Morocco’s four imperial cities and is the least visited of the four, meaning it still has a level of authenticity that has been lost by Marrakech and Fes’s tourist-heavy medinas. What distinguishes the Moulay Ismail Mausoleum from other Moroccan royal tombs is its accessibility to non-Muslim visitors and the fact that its interior courtyard, with its zellij tile floors and carved cedarwood ceiling, is extraordinary. The great Royal Stables of Moulay Ismail (Heri es-Souani) once housed 12,000 horses, and the size of the stone vaulted rooms, even in ruins, speaks volumes about the ambition of the sultan who built them.

A 32-km drive north of Meknes brings you to Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman site in Morocco and one of the best in all of Africa. Volubilis began as a Mauritanian capital which became a Roman provincial city in the 1st century AD. It was abandoned in the 3rd century and partially buried by an earthquake in the 18th century. What remains is extraordinary: a triumphal arch dedicated to Emperor Caracalla (217 AD), the Capitoline Temple, the Basilica and, most remarkably, 30+ intact mosaic floors, still in situ, depicting scenes from Greco-Roman mythology including a stunning image of Bacchus discovering Ariadne and a complete Labours of Hercules sequence. Your guide takes you around the site in about 90 minutes.

A short stop in Moulay Idriss Zerhoun Morocco’s holiest city, built around the tomb of Idris I who founded the first Moroccan Islamic dynasty in 789 AD, and one of the most photographed whitewashed hillside townscapes in the country before the 60-km drive to Fes. Arrive at your riad in Fes el-Bali (the old city). Evening walk in the medina: first impressions, a rooftop cafe with views of the Bou Jeloud gate, dinner in a medina alleyway restaurant.

Day 3

Full Day Exploring Fes el-Bali Medina

Day 3 of the Morocco tour from Casablanca to Fes and Marrakech is totally dedicated to Fes el-Bali, every hour of the day is needed. Established in 789 AD and transformed by the Idrisid, Almoravid and Marinid dynasties into one of the Islamic world’s greatest cities of scholarship and commerce, Fes el-Bali is the largest car-free urban area on earth: about 150,000 people living within 9,400 streets, alleys and cul-de-sacs that have changed in their essential character almost not at all since the 14th century. Your local Fes medina guide is officially licensed and arranged by Over Morocco Tours to lead the morning tour.

The Chouara Tanneries are Fes’s most visually arresting sight: a grid of circular stone vats, each a different colour — indigo, saffron, henna, poppy red and the chalky white produced from pigeon droppings used to soften the hides — in which freshly scraped cattle and sheep skins are soaked by workers standing knee-deep in the dye. Tanning has been carried on here since the 11th century, with the same materials and same methods. The viewing terraces are in the leather shops above – your guide takes you to the highest, least crowded vantage point. A sprig of mint guards the entrance, thought to keep off the smell.

UNESCO recognises the Al-Qarawiyyin University and Mosque, established by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 AD, as the oldest university in continuous operation in the world. It houses over 4,000 ancient manuscripts. The Bou Inania Madrasa (1355 AD), open to non-Muslims, is the finest example of Marinid architectural decoration in Morocco. Every surface of the courtyard, from floor to ceiling, is covered in carved stucco, zellij mosaic tile, and pierced cedar wood lattice. Most visitors are silent for several minutes when they enter. The afternoon is free for independent visits to the souk and shopping.

Day 4

Fes to Merzouga & Erg Chebbi Desert Camp

Day 4: The longest day of driving on the Casablanca to Merzouga trip some 320 km from Fes to Merzouga but every kilometre is through scenery that makes the distance worthwhile. Start at 7:00 sharp.

The first hour heads south from Fes into the Middle Atlas mountains via Ifrane, a French colonial-era mountain resort town at 1,650 metres altitude with chalet architecture, manicured gardens and temperatures averaging 20°C cooler than the Sahara you will reach by the evening. First-time visitors always do a double take at the contrast – a Swiss-looking mountain town plonked in the middle of Morocco. South of Ifrane, the Azrou Cedar Forest is one of the last great Atlantic cedar forests of North Africa and is home to the endangered Barbary macaque, Morocco’s only native primate. Groups of 10–40 macaques are regularly seen along the forest road and your guide will stop for a 20-minute observation session. Don’t feed them, but do take time to just watch their social behavior in the cedar canopy above the road.

Continuing south through Midelt, a mountain apple-growing town at 1,500 metres, which is a good place for a traditional lunch stop, the landscape changes dramatically as the road drops down from the Middle Atlas plateau into the Ziz River gorge. The Ziz Valley palm grove oasis is one of Morocco’s most spectacular landscapes: a deep red-walled limestone canyon with over 100 km of dense date palm forest along both banks of the Ziz River. Above the gorge, the viewpoint of The Tunnel du Légionnaire offers a panoramic aerial view of the whole valley. If your visit coincides with Tuesday or Sunday market days, stop at Erfoud, the fossil capital of Morocco, famous for Devonian-era trilobites and ammonites, and the weekly souk at Rissani.

By 4:30 pm, you will see the village of Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes. At 5:00 pm, you mount camels on the edge of the dune for a 1.5 hour sunset trek into the heart of the desert. Dinner at desert camp. Gnawa Music . Milky Way over Erg Chebbi at full zero light pollution intensity. This is the emotional centrepiece of the entire Morocco desert tour from Casablanca, the moment that makes the long Day 4 drive not just worthwhile but inevitable.

Day 5

Merzouga Desert to Dades Gorge via Todra Gorge

Your guide will wake you up at 5:15 AM on Day 5 to see the Sahara sunrise. You scramble up a dune in the cool of the pre-dawn silence to see the sky turn from deep black through indigo to gold. The Erg Chebbi dunes glow silver-blue in the dark before dawn, copper, then flame-orange as the sun rises over the eastern horizon. This sunrise, seen from 50 metres above the desert floor on a sand ridge with 360° views and complete silence, is often cited by guests as the single most powerful travel moment of their entire Morocco trip. After breakfast at camp, the camel trek will bring you back to Merzouga by 8:30am.

The whole of the morning of Day 5 is desert. Optional activities with Over Morocco Tours include sandboarding down the steep faces of the dunes (boards provided, no experience necessary, minimum age approx. 8 years); quad biking across the flat, stony plain at the base of the dunes (a 1-hour circuit with helmets – genuinely exciting!); or a 4×4 visit to a nomadic Berber family – our single most culturally significant optional activity, visiting families who still maintain seasonal camps in the Erg Chebbi area and giving an insight into desert life that no camp experience can ever fully replicate.

We leave Merzouga around midday, and the road heads west across pre-Saharan valley country. The Todra Gorge is a slot canyon dug out by the Todra River from 300-metre limestone walls, narrowing to a mere 10 metres at its narrowest point. It’s a 30-minute walk and a dramatic geological counterpoint to the open desert of the morning. The cold running water, the vertical pink-and-orange rock and the quality of the afternoon light filtering down through the narrow canyon ceiling create an extraordinary sensory shift from the heat and sand of Erg Chebbi. Arrive Dades Gorge in the evening. Dinner and overnight at a guesthouse at the gorge entrance, where carved rose-red rock walls can be seen from the dining terrace.

Day 6

Dades Gorge to Marrakech via Ait Ben Haddou & High Atlas

Day 6: The last great day of driving on the 7 day Morocco tour from Casablanca, with an arc of 310 km from the pre-Saharan valley to Marrakech, passing through more visual diversity per km than almost any road in Africa. After breakfast we will leave at 8.00 am.

Morning walk into the upper Dades Gorge, 20 minutes along the riverbed to the narrowest section, where the canyon walls close to within 4 meters and the sky above becomes a thin ribbon of blue. Depart west through the Rose Valley of Kelaa M’Gouna. The valley produces some 4,000 tonnes of Damask roses each year, supplying much of the world’s rose water and rose oil for the perfume industry. During bloom season (late April to mid-May) the valley is fragrant for 10 km in all directions and the hillsides pink-red with rose gardens. During the off-season for the bloom, the rose processing co-ops and the souk of Kelaa M’Gouna offer artisan rosewater, rose jam and rose-oil products sold directly by the families that make them.

Ouarzazate known internationally as “the Hollywood of Morocco” — is the production base for Atlas Studios, which has hosted large-budget films including Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, The Living Daylights, Babel, and multiple Game of Thrones episodes. A brief stop at the studio exterior and the adjacent Taourirt Kasbah (a 19th-century fortified palace of the Glaoui clan, partially restored) before continuing to Ait Ben Haddou the UNESCO-listed earthen ksar that has appeared in more international film productions than any site outside of Hollywood’s studio backlots. Your guide walks you through the ksar the same route taken by Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator, though your guide will point out the specific towers used as the entrance to Zucchabar.

After lunch in the village the road climbs gradually up into the High Atlas through the most spectacular mountain scenery of the whole Casablanca to Marrakech via Sahara circuit. The Tizi n’Tichka pass, at 2,260 metres the highest paved road pass in North Africa, gives you a panoramic view south over the whole pre-Saharan plateau you have just crossed in the last three days. From here you descend to Marrakech in some 2.5 hours through ever more fertile agricultural valleys. In the evening we arrive in Marrakech and drop you at your hotel, in the new city or in the medina within the walls, as you prefer.

Day 7

Marrakech — Cultural Wonders & Return Transfers

The final day of the Morocco desert tour from Casablanca is in Marrakech and after six days of relentless activity, the city’s energy feels like a party, not an obligation. Marrakech is the most visited city in Africa by international visitors . Its Djemaa el-Fna square, a Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage site, is the most extraordinary public space in Morocco: 18,000 square metres of permanent spectacle where snake charmers, Gnawa musicians, henna artists, storytellers, acrobats and food stall vendors have gathered every day since the 11th century. Come nightfall, the square becomes a unique open-air dining experience, with over 100 food stalls.

The Majorelle Garden, created between 1923 and 1962 by French painter Jacques Majorelle and later bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, is Africa’s most visited private garden — 2.5 acres of cobalt-blue pavilions and pools ringed with 300 species of plants from five continents. Next door, the Berber Museum in the original Majorelle studio is home to one of the most important collections of Amazigh (Berber) jewellery, textiles and objects in the world – a fitting cultural capstone to a circuit that has taken you through Berber villages, Berber guides and a Berber desert camp over the past six days.

The afternoon and evening are yours to enjoy a traditional hammam (Moroccan steam bath with full body exfoliation, a physical necessity after a week’s travel in the desert and mountains), shop the souks of the medina or just sit with a mint tea on a Djemaa el-Fna terrace café and watch the square below. Over Morocco Tours can organize airport transfer, train tickets onward or riad to riad transfer at the end of Day 7 depending on your onward plans.