Medina, Mountains and OceanWithout a Single Long Drive
This is our flagship eight day journey and the one we recommend to most first time visitors, because it delivers three completely different versions of Morocco without ever putting you in a car for more than three hours. Marrakech for the medina, the Agafay and the High Atlas for the landscape and the silence, and Essaouira on the Atlantic to finish. Every night is within three hours of the last one.
It exists because of a problem we kept running into. People want the desert and they also want a relaxed holiday, and in eight days you cannot honestly have both, because the Sahara is a ten hour drive each way. The Agafay solves it. Forty minutes from Marrakech, a stone desert of rolling hills with the Atlas standing white behind it, where a luxury camp gives you the silence, the stars and the dinner under the sky without two days in a vehicle.
If the great dunes of Erg Chebbi are what you came for, our Luxury Sahara Desert Escape is built around them instead and takes seven days to do it properly. This Luxury Morocco Tour is for people who would rather have three atmospheres and an easy pace than one landscape and four hundred kilometres of driving.
Three Moroccosin Seven Nights
Marrakech twice, so you never repack for the sake of it, with the mountains and the coast in between. The longest single drive is two and a half hours and most are under one.
Six Reasons This IsOur Most Booked Journey
It is the itinerary we send people who tell us they have eight days, want to see the real country, and do not want to spend three of those days in a car.
The Agafay Instead of the Sahara
Forty minutes from Marrakech, a stone desert of bare rolling hills with the snow line of the High Atlas standing behind it. A luxury camp there gives you the silence, the stars and dinner under the open sky, and you are back in the medina by eleven the next morning rather than at hour six of a return drive.
Two Nights in Marrakech, Then One More
The medina rewards being met twice. Two nights at the start for the monuments and the souks, and a final night at the end when you already know the streets and can simply enjoy them. Your luggage stays at the riad throughout, so you travel light to the mountains and the coast.
The Ourika and a Real Atlas Village
An hour from the city the air drops several degrees, the noise stops and the walnut trees start. You walk to a Berber village with a guide from the valley, have lunch in a family house, and sleep in a lodge with a fire and a terrace over the river.
Essaouira for the Last Two Nights
Two and a half hours west, twelve degrees cooler, and built inside Portuguese ramparts on the Atlantic with a medina laid out as a grid rather than a maze. Two nights here with nothing scheduled is what turns a busy itinerary into a holiday.
Guides Who Do Not Take Commission
Every guide on this journey is on a fixed day rate and earns nothing from any shop you enter. It sounds like a small thing and it changes the entire character of an afternoon in the souks, because nobody is steering you anywhere.
A Hammam Placed Where You Want It
The private hammam is scheduled for the evening you come back from the Atlas, which is the day your legs will thank you rather than the day you arrive jetlagged. Black soap, kessa scrub, rhassoul clay and argan oil, booked so that your party is alone in the building.
Eight Days,Three Different Countries
Written the way we run it, with the real houses and honest timings. Open any day to see what happens and where you sleep.
Your driver meets you inside the terminal at Menara and twenty minutes later you are walking the last fifty metres to the riad, because no car reaches most medina doors and a porter takes the bags. The house is a restored courtyard riad with a heated plunge pool, a hammam and a roof terrace facing the Koutoubia minaret.
The rest of the day is deliberately empty so you arrive properly. Swim, take tea on the roof, and if you have energy walk the fifteen minutes to the Jemaa el Fnaa at dusk, which is the hour the square changes completely as the food stalls are assembled. Dinner is yours and we will have held a table if you asked.
A full day with a private guide, starting early while the medina is still cool. The Saadian tombs, sealed behind a wall from 1603 until a French aerial survey found them in 1917, lined with Carrara marble and gold leaf. The ruined Badi palace, stripped to its walls by a later sultan and now full of storks. The Bahia with its painted cedar ceilings, and the Ben Youssef madrasa, the finest interior in the city.
Lunch in a courtyard restaurant in the medina, then the souks in the afternoon with a guide who takes no commission. You go to the dyers, the blacksmiths and the woodworkers rather than the four shops that pay a percentage, and if you want a rug your guide will translate and then step out of the negotiation.
We finish at the Jardin Majorelle and the Yves Saint Laurent museum next door, booked for the last entry slot when the garden empties and the cobalt blue is at its best.
A late morning departure with just an overnight bag, leaving the cases at the riad. Forty minutes west of the city the buildings stop and the Agafay begins, a desert of bare grey hills that rolls all the way to the foot of the High Atlas, which stands along the whole southern horizon and is snow capped from December to April.
Your camp is a permanent luxury camp with tented suites that have real beds, rugs, an ensuite bathroom with hot water and a private terrace. The afternoon is free for the pool, or for a walk out into the hills, or for a mountain bike or a quad if you want something to do. We do not schedule anything.
Dinner is served outside under the sky. The Agafay is far enough from the city lights that the stars are really dense, and there is usually a fire and a drummer, and it ends whenever you want it to.
Breakfast on the sand, then east and south into the High Atlas. The Ourika is a river valley that climbs from the plain into the mountains in an hour, and the change is abrupt: the temperature falls, walnut and cherry trees appear along the water and the villages turn to flat roofed earth houses stacked up the slope.
You walk for two to three hours with a guide from the valley on the paths between villages, which are gentle and used daily rather than a trekking circuit. Lunch is in a family house on a terrace above the river, cooked by the household, and it will take an hour because they start it when you arrive.
Your lodge is further up the valley, with a terrace over the water and a fire in the evening from October onward. It is an hour from Marrakech and it feels like a different country.
Down out of the mountains, around Marrakech and west across the plain into the argan forest, a landscape that exists nowhere else on earth and where goats truly climb the trees to eat the fruit. We stop at a women’s argan cooperative where the oil is still cracked and pressed by hand and the entire margin stays with the members.
The air changes about twenty minutes before you see the sea. Essaouira was laid out in the eighteenth century by a French architect on the bones of a Portuguese fortress, which is why the medina is a grid rather than a maze, and the whole town is whitewashed and blue shuttered and permanently windy.
Your riad is inside the ramparts with a terrace over the rooftops. The thing to do on the first evening is the harbour at six, when the blue boats come in, the gulls go mad and the whole town seems to be standing on the sea wall.
We leave this day deliberately empty. By the sixth day of any itinerary what people actually need is a day without a car and without a guide, and Essaouira rewards that better than anywhere in Morocco. The medina can be learned in a morning, the art galleries are honestly good, and the fish grills on the port are the best eight euro lunch in the country.
If you want something arranged, the options we book most often are an hour on horseback or camelback along the beach towards the ruins at Diabat, a private sailing trip out past the Purple Isles, or a session with one of the gnawa musicians the town is known for. All of it optional, all of it bookable the night before.
The ramparts at sunset are free and are the best thing in the town. Dinner wherever you like, and we will hold a table if you want one.
A relaxed morning and a departure after breakfast, back across the argan country to Marrakech, arriving early afternoon. Your luggage and your room are waiting, because you never checked out.
The afternoon is the hammam, booked as a private hire so your party is alone in the building. Black soap, a kessa scrub, rhassoul clay through the hair and a full argan oil massage, then an hour lying down with mint tea. Do not plan anything for ninety minutes afterwards, because you will not want to move.
The final dinner is served privately on the riad roof terrace, with the medina below and the Koutoubia lit in the distance. It is the one arranged dinner of the trip and it is placed here for a reason.
A last morning built around your flight. If you leave late we can add two hours in the souks with your guide for anything you did not buy the first time, or a final swim and a long breakfast on the roof. If you leave early, a quiet car to Menara.
Anything too large to carry, a rug or a lamp or a set of ceramics, we will have arranged shipping for before you leave. Your driver takes you to the airport and walks you as far as the terminal doors.
Four Places,Each Completely Different
A medina riad, a tented suite in a stone desert, a mountain lodge and a riad on the Atlantic. The variety is the point, and the fact that you sleep at the Marrakech riad three times means you unpack once for the whole journey.
A restored courtyard house inside the medina with a heated plunge pool, a hammam on site and a roof terrace facing the Koutoubia. Fifteen minutes on foot from the Jemaa el Fnaa and silent once the door closes. We ask for an upper floor room with its own terrace.
A permanent camp in the stone desert with tented suites that have real beds, rugs, an ensuite bathroom with hot water and a private terrace facing the High Atlas. Forty minutes from Marrakech and dark enough at night for a proper sky.
A small lodge above the river an hour from the city but four hundred metres higher, with a terrace over the water, a fire in the evening from October and a kitchen that cooks what the valley grows.
A riad inside the Portuguese ramparts with a terrace over the white rooftops and the ocean beyond, five minutes from the harbour and the fish grills. Cool, windy and the correct place to spend the last two nights.
Every property above is the one we book first. If your dates are full we name the exact alternative in writing before you pay anything, always at the same standard or better.
What This JourneyActually Costs
We quote every journey individually because the number moves with your dates, the size of your party and the standard of room. What follows is the honest range rather than a headline figure designed to get you on the phone.
The biggest single lever is how many of you travel, because a private driver and vehicle cost the same for two people as for six. October, November, March and April are the peak months and add around fifteen percent.
Send us your dates and we come back within 24 hours with a fully costed itinerary, named properties and no obligation whatsoever.
Typical guide price
Included in the price
- Seven nights in the four places described above, in the room category we specify
- Private vehicle and English or French speaking driver throughout
- A full day with a licensed private guide in Marrakech, with no shop commission
- A mountain guide and a family lunch in the Ourika valley
- Full board at the Agafay camp and in the Atlas, breakfast everywhere else
- A privately hired hammam, scrub and argan oil massage for your party
- A private dinner on your riad terrace on the final night
- All entrance fees, airport transfers, fuel, tolls and parking
Not included
- International flights and travel insurance
- Lunches and dinners other than those listed above
- Optional activities in Essaouira such as sailing or horses
- Purchases in souks and workshops
- Tips for your driver and guides, at your discretion
What to ExpectBefore You Commit
How Much Driving
Very little, which is the point. The longest single drive is two hours forty five from Essaouira back to Marrakech, and most days are under ninety minutes. Nobody spends a full day in the car on this itinerary, and you unpack at the Marrakech riad once for the whole trip.
The Best Months
October to May. Marrakech is comfortable, the Agafay nights are cool and clear, the Atlas is green in spring and snow capped in winter, and Essaouira is mild all year. July and August are hot in Marrakech and the Agafay, though Essaouira stays around twenty four degrees and windy.
Physical Requirements
Easy. The only real walking is two to three hours on valley paths in the Ourika, on gentle ground, and a good deal of standing and strolling in the medinas. Nothing on this trip requires more than average fitness, and the Ourika walk can be shortened on the day.
What to Wear
Morocco is relaxed and there is no dress code, but covering shoulders and knees in medinas and villages makes daily life easier and is appreciated. Bring a warm layer for the Agafay evening in any month and for the Atlas, walking shoes for the Ourika, and one outfit each for a good dinner in Marrakech.
Families and Children
This is the route we recommend most often for families, because nothing is a long drive and the Agafay camp is really exciting for children. We fit child seats, add a connecting room or family tent, and can swap the Ourika walk for a shorter one with a picnic.
Adding the Sahara
If you want the great dunes of Erg Chebbi as well, we add three days and two nights in a camp there between the Atlas and Essaouira, which makes this an eleven day journey. If the dunes are the main reason you are coming, our Luxury Sahara Desert Escape is built around them instead.
Questions We AreAsked Most Often
They Travelled With Us
Mohammed had the talent to make us approach beautiful sites, far from places a little too touristy. He tells us with passion, humor and knowledge about his beautiful country. A true storyteller.
My 2nd trek with Authentic Travel Tour [now Afsou Travels Morocco] and with Mohamed, this time at Toubkal. Mohamed is a great guide, kind, very professional and attentive to all. Everything is perfectly organized and the scenery is beautiful. I recommend 100%.
Many thanks to our wonderful guide Mohamed and all his team for this wonderful week. We will have wonderful memories for a long time thanks to their warm welcome, their dedicated commitment and their kindness.
Three Versions of Moroccoand Nothing but Short Drives
Send us your dates and the number of you travelling and we will come back within 24 hours with a fully costed version of this journey, the exact rooms we would hold and honest advice on what to change.