Some of my favourite snaps from my trip to Morocco in May 2023. My itinerary was as follows:
Marrakech – 3 days
I flew from Gatwick to Marrakech (Easyjet, 3h30m). Upon arrival to Marrakech, it took me 90 minutes from touchdown to exit the airport, yep, NINETY MINUTES. The customs process in Marrakech airport is arduous at best, they want to know the ins and outs of your trip, why, who, what, where, when and sure enough, my bag was the last off the plane, too.
Marrakech is, broadly split into two main areas that you’re going to care about: the old town (the “Medina”) and the new town (“Gueliz”). Now, I’m going to ruffle some feathers here, but I’ve had enough experience of Morocco to say this – Marrakech is AWFUL and in the year that has followed I am yet to meet anybody that’s liked it. The new town is, aptly named the “Vegas of Africa”, there’s nothing Moroccan about it, so you’re not missing anything. Head into the Medina for that traditional slice of Morocco and away you go, but, Morocco has far better cities, so I implore you, avoid the place. In short; Marrakech has sold its soul to get every dirham it can get and you’ll have far more fun elsewhere. After a few days, I headed to Marrakech’s train station and for about £20 got on a train to Rabat, which took about 3-4 hours in total.
Rabat – 1 day
Rabat is the capital of Morocco, and you’ve probably never heard of it. When it comes to Morocco, everybody talks about Marrakech or Casablanca – the odd person will mention Agadir or Taghazout or Tangier, but Rabat is, wrongly, overlooked. The capital is on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, situated in-between Tangier and Casablanca. Rabat has the perfect mix of modern day amenities (Dunkin’ Donuts anybody?) and classic Arabic architecture (see the gallery below). I was a bit behind schedule, so I didn’t see a huge amount of Rabat, but I’m determined to go back. After 24h in Rabat, I made my way onwards to Chefchaouen.
Chefchaouen – 1 day
Once you get away from Morocco’s west coast, things start to change quite drastically. There’s a bullet train and an expressway that runs up and down the west coast but once you start heading in-land, it’s all buses and single-track roads. I took the train from Rabat to Tangier (1h30m) followed by a bus with CTM to Chefchaouen which takes about 3h. Once you get off the bus, you will be at the bottom of a VERY steep hill (Avenue Maghreb Arabe) and there’s not a blue building in sight, I thought I had been conned or gone the wrong way! Chefchaouen is often called “The Blue City” or “The Blue Pearl” (see gallery below) and it is really a sight to behold. But you need to make your way to the old medina, it’s about a 20 minute walk from the bus station and it’s 65m of elevation over the course of a kilometre, that’s some serious climbing if you’ve got luggage! The closest gate to the medina is called Bab El Ain and when you walk through, everything changes, every square inch of that city is painted in a different shade of blue.
Fes – 2 days
After 24 hours I made my way from Chefchaouen to Fes by CTM bus again (4-5 hours). Be warned, it’s a boring route, nothing to see and you’re almost guaranteed to stop half way at a service station with severely hiked up prices (still cheap by home standards though). Fes is big, real big, and the second-most populous city in Morocco (after Casablanca and ahead of Marrakech). But don’t be concerned, Fes is a wholly different experience to Marrakech. I often say, Marrakech is where people go when they want to say they’ve been to Morocco but want to eat in fancy restaurants, pose for Instagram and never step foot outside their five-star resort, whilst Fes is for people that actually want to experience Morocco. Fes is packed full of incredible architecture, archaeological sites and the Medina is stunning. No trip to Morocco is complete without a stop in Fes.
Merzouga – 2 days
You’ll see a lot of trips advertising 2-3 day excursions to the desert and back, normally starting from either Fes or Morocco, but there isn’t (AFAIK) one that starts in one and finishes in the other. I designed my trip to go around the must-see places in Morocco in a clockwise circle, so I decided to hire a car in Fes and drop it to Marrakech a few days later. Driving in Morocco is not as bad as people think – yes, it’s a bit nuts and the roads aren’t great and the police are even worse, but it’s fine. I departed Fes early morning and headed south to Merzouga, with a couple of stops it takes about 10 hours. Make sure you drive through Ifrane, it’s like a little Swiss village, followed by a stop at the Cedar Forest that is packed full of friendly little monkeys (“Barbary Apes”) and there will be plenty of “sellers” on-hand to sell you some nuts to feed them, get there early to avoid the crowds. Later that afternoon I made it to the desert and parked up at Nomad Palace Hotel, before being picked up in a 4×4 to go to my desert camp. I stayed at Ali & Sara’s Desert Palace and it was a true highlight of my trip, highly recommended.
Ouarzazate – 1 day
After this, I headed west to Ouarzazate and took some scenic detours on the way; Ait Benhaddou (Game of Thrones filming location), Todra Gorge and Dades Gorge. Ouarzazate itself, in my humble opinion, is nothing special, but worth a stop; it’s often referred to as the Hollywood of Africa and has connections for many famous films/shows such as; Game of Thrones, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy and Gladiator.
After this I travelled back to Marrakech and flew to Malaga to travel around Spain.
