MULTI-DAY MOROCCO TOUR
14 Days Grand Morocco Journey
A private 14-day Morocco itinerary with two nights in the Sahara Desert, covering Marrakech, Fes, Chefchaouen, Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira.
DURATION
14 Days / 13 Nights
ROUTE
Marrakech Round Trip (Grand Journey)
GROUP SIZE
2-16 People
TYPE
Private Multi-Day Tour
Tour Overview
This 14-day private tour is our grand journey through Morocco, giving you extra time in the Sahara Desert with two nights under the stars, alongside a full circuit of Marrakech, Fes, Chefchaouen, the Atlantic coast cities of Rabat and Casablanca, and a relaxed finish in Essaouira.
Traveling in a private vehicle with your own driver-guide, this itinerary combines an extended Morocco Desert Tours experience with the imperial cities, the north, and the coast, making it one of our richest Morocco multi day tours for travelers with two weeks to spare.
Tour Highlights
- Explore Marrakech’s medina, palaces and souks
- Cross the High Atlas Mountains via the Tizi n’Tichka pass
- Visit the UNESCO-listed kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou
- Two nights in a private Sahara Desert camp at Merzouga
- Visit Khamlia village and its Gnawa musical tradition
- 4x4 excursion into the remote dunes and sandboarding
- Discover Fes el Bali, the world’s largest car-free urban area
- Wander the blue streets of Chefchaouen
- See the Hassan II Mosque and Kasbah of the Udayas
- Relax on the Atlantic coast in Essaouira
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Marrakech
Your driver-guide welcomes you at Marrakech Menara Airport and transfers you to your riad in the medina, Marrakech’s historic walled old town. Founded in 1070 by the Almoravid dynasty, Marrakech has served for nearly a thousand years as a crossroads between the Sahara, the Atlas Mountains, and the Mediterranean world.
Depending on your arrival time, your first afternoon can be as active or as relaxed as you like. Many travelers choose a gentle introduction: a stroll to Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main square, to get a first look at its snake charmers, orange-juice stalls, and henna artists before the evening crowds arrive, followed by a quiet dinner on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Koutoubia Mosque.
This first evening is a good opportunity to rest after your flight and settle into the rhythm of Moroccan travel, with a full guided day in Marrakech to follow tomorrow and thirteen more days of desert, mountains, cities, and coast ahead.
Day 2: Marrakech Guided City Tour
A full day is dedicated to exploring Marrakech with your guide, starting at the Koutoubia Mosque, whose twelfth-century minaret became the architectural template for the Giralda in Seville and the Hassan Tower in Rabat. From there you continue to the Bahia Palace and the Saadian Tombs, a royal necropolis rediscovered in 1917 after being sealed for centuries.
Many itineraries also include the Majorelle Garden, a striking cobalt-blue garden estate restored by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, filled with cacti, bamboo groves, and a small Berber museum.
The afternoon leads into the souks before finishing at Jemaa el-Fnaa as it transforms after dark into an open-air spectacle of food stalls, musicians, and storytellers, a UNESCO-recognized tradition unlike anywhere else in Morocco.
Day 3: Marrakech to Ait Ben Haddou & the Dades Valley
Today you leave Marrakech and begin the mountain crossing that defines much of southern Morocco: the Tizi n’Tichka pass, climbing to over 2,200 metres through the High Atlas. The road winds past Berber villages built from packed earth and stone and terraced almond orchards.
Midway through the crossing you stop at Ait Ben Haddou, a fortified ksar that has guarded the caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech since at least the eleventh century, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose cinematic silhouette has made it a filming location for Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Game of Thrones.
Continuing east through Ouarzazate, you enter the Dades Valley, often called the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs, where you overnight in a kasbah-style guesthouse as the surrounding cliffs glow deep orange at sunset.
Day 4: Dades to Merzouga via Todra Gorges (Desert Night 1)
Before continuing east, you detour into the Todra Gorges, where sheer limestone walls rise up to 300 metres above a narrow river bed, one of Morocco’s most dramatic natural sites and a magnet for rock climbers worldwide.
From the gorges, the road continues through increasingly arid pre-Saharan landscape until you reach Merzouga, on the edge of the Erg Chebbi dune sea. In the late afternoon you trade your vehicle for a camel and set off into the dunes with a local Berber guide, watching the sand shift from gold to orange to deep crimson as the sun sets.
You spend your first night at a private desert camp among the dunes, in traditional Berber-style tents with proper beds. Dinner is cooked over an open fire, with traditional drumming afterward under one of the darkest, clearest night skies in Morocco.
Day 5: A Full Day in the Sahara (Desert Night 2)
Unlike shorter desert tours, this itinerary gives you a full second day to properly explore the Sahara rather than rushing back out the next morning. After breakfast at camp, a 4×4 excursion takes you deeper into the dune field, reaching remote corners of the Erg Chebbi that camel treks rarely cover, with stops for sandboarding down the steeper dune faces.
In the afternoon, your guide can take you to Khamlia, a small village south of Merzouga settled by descendants of sub-Saharan migrants, known for its Gnawa musical tradition, a hypnotic style built around iron castanets and deep bass rhythms with spiritual roots. A short, informal performance here is a genuine cultural highlight rarely included on standard desert tours.
You return to the dunes for a second sunset and a second night at camp, this time with a much deeper sense of the desert’s scale and rhythm than a single overnight allows.
Day 6: Sahara Sunrise & the Road to Fes
On your final desert morning, many guests rise before dawn to climb a nearby dune and watch the sunrise, as first light turns the dunes from deep rose to gold. After breakfast at camp, you ride back to Merzouga and reunite with your driver for the day’s journey north.
The route follows the Ziz Valley, where a ribbon of date palm oasis winds through a stark, rocky landscape below the Ziz Gorges, before climbing through the Middle Atlas via Midelt.
By evening you arrive in Fes, Morocco’s spiritual and cultural capital, and settle into a riad within or near the medina walls, with a full day of guided exploration to follow tomorrow.
Day 7: Fes Guided City Tour
Fes el Bali, founded in the ninth century, is considered the best-preserved medieval city in the Arab world and remains the largest car-free urban area on earth, its estimated 9,000 alleyways navigable only on foot or by donkey.
You will visit the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University, founded in 859 and recognized as the oldest continuously operating institution of higher learning in the world, along with the Bou Inania Madrasa, celebrated for its cedar carving and zellige tilework.
No visit to Fes is complete without the Chouara Tannery, where leather has been dyed by hand since the eleventh century, before the afternoon continues through the souks, where metalworkers and weavers each occupy their own historic quarter.
Day 8: Fes to Chefchaouen via Volubilis & Meknes
Leaving Fes, you head toward Meknes, the smallest of Morocco’s four imperial cities, built up dramatically in the seventeenth century by Sultan Moulay Ismail. You visit the monumental Bab Mansour gate and the sultan’s vast former granaries and stables.
Just outside Meknes lie the Roman ruins of Volubilis, once the westernmost outpost of the Roman Empire in Africa, where remarkably preserved mosaics still cover the floors of former merchants’ villas.
From Volubilis, the road climbs into the Rif Mountains toward Chefchaouen, Morocco’s famous blue-washed mountain town, where you arrive in the late afternoon with time to begin exploring before dinner.
Day 9: Chefchaouen, the Blue Pearl of Morocco
A full day is spent in Chefchaouen, founded in 1471 as a small Andalusian and Rif Berber fortress town, famous for the blue-washed walls that give the medina its dreamlike, painterly appearance.
Your guide leads you through the compact medina, past the Kasbah and its small ethnographic museum, the main square of Plaza Uta el-Hammam, and artisan shops selling wool textiles and local goat cheese.
An evening walk up toward the Spanish Mosque on a hillside above town offers sweeping views back over the blue rooftops at sunset, a fitting close to a day in Morocco’s most photogenic town.
Day 10: Chefchaouen to Rabat & Casablanca
Leaving the mountains behind, you descend toward the Atlantic coast, arriving first in Rabat, Morocco’s political capital and a UNESCO World Heritage city. Your guide takes you to the Kasbah of the Udayas, a fortified twelfth-century citadel with narrow blue-and-white lanes, followed by the Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V.
From Rabat, it is a short drive south to Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city and economic capital, known for its Art Deco architecture and modern, cosmopolitan character.
You settle into your hotel in Casablanca, with a visit to the Hassan II Mosque to look forward to before continuing toward the coast tomorrow.
Day 11: Casablanca to Essaouira via the Atlantic Coast
Your morning begins with the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world and the only one in Morocco open to non-Muslim visitors on a guided tour, built on a promontory over the Atlantic with a 210-metre minaret and hand-carved cedar, marble, and zellige tilework.
From Casablanca, you travel south along the coast toward Essaouira, a UNESCO World Heritage fortified port city with a whitewashed medina, blue shutters, and sea-facing ramparts.
On arrival, your guide leads a walking tour through the medina, the working fishing port, and the Skala de la Ville ramparts, before you settle in for the evening in this laid-back Atlantic town.
Day 12: Free Day in Essaouira
Your day in Essaouira is left free, giving you a genuine chance to slow down after eleven days of touring. The town is compact and easy to explore independently, with a relaxed, artistic atmosphere quite different from Marrakech or Fes.
Popular options include browsing the medina’s art galleries and woodworking workshops, where craftsmen carve thuya wood into boxes and furniture, or trying windsurfing and kitesurfing thanks to Essaouira’s reliable Atlantic trade winds.
Others simply enjoy a relaxed seafood lunch at the port, where grilled fish is served fresh just steps from the fishing boats.
Day 13: Essaouira to Marrakech
Leaving Essaouira, you travel back to Marrakech, roughly two and a half hours through argan tree forests unique to this part of Morocco, where local goats can sometimes be seen climbing into the branches to feed.
Arriving back in Marrakech in the afternoon, you have a free evening to revisit any parts of the medina you enjoyed most, pick up last-minute souvenirs in the souks, or simply relax at your riad before your final day.
This is a natural moment to reflect on the full arc of the journey, from the souks of Marrakech and two nights in the Sahara to the medieval alleys of Fes, the blue streets of Chefchaouen, and the Atlantic coast.
Day 14: Departure from Marrakech
On your final morning, depending on your flight time, your guide can take you for a last stroll through the medina or to any sites you may have missed earlier in the tour, whether a final visit to the souks or a quiet coffee overlooking the Koutoubia Mosque.
Your driver transfers you to Marrakech Menara Airport in good time for your onward flight, bringing to a close a grand, fourteen-day journey across Morocco’s desert, mountains, imperial cities, north, and Atlantic coast.
What’s Included
- 13 nights accommodation (riads and kasbah-style guesthouses)
- 2 nights in a private Sahara Desert camp
- Private transportation in an air-conditioned vehicle
- Professional English-speaking driver-guide throughout
- Camel trek and 4x4 excursion in the Erg Chebbi dunes
- Visit to Khamlia village and Gnawa music tradition
- Guided tours of Marrakech, Fes, Chefchaouen, Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira
- Entrance to Volubilis archaeological site
- Daily breakfast
- All accommodation taxes and fees
What’s Not Included
- International flights
- Lunches and dinners (except at the desert camp)
- Entrance fees to monuments not listed above
- Travel insurance
- Personal expenses and souvenirs
- Tips for your driver-guide and camp staff
Good to Know Before You Go
- This is a private tour, so your start date, pace, and overnight stops can be tailored to your preferences.
- Comfortable walking shoes are essential for the medinas of Marrakech, Fes, Chefchaouen and Essaouira, all with uneven, hilly, cobbled streets.
- Desert nights can be cold even in summer, so pack a warm layer for the two evenings at the Sahara camp.
- For more on the route, see our Morocco Desert Tours and other multi-day Morocco tours.
- This itinerary can also be arranged starting from Tangier or Casablanca on request.
Frequently Asked Questions
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