Two weeks is where the arithmetic stops fighting you. The difference between fourteen days and ten is not four more places — it is two nights almost everywhere, which is the real quality difference on a long route. You unpack once per stop instead of every morning, and you see each place twice: once arriving, once in the light you did not expect.
Casablanca in, Marrakech out
This runs anticlockwise, starting in Casablanca and finishing in Marrakech, which is the shape that fits most long-haul flights — and it means the trip ends in the city with the best onward connections and the most to do if your flight is late in the day. Arriving into Casablanca also gives you a soft first day: a hotel, a walk by the Hassan II Mosque, and sleep, rather than a six-hour transfer on no rest.
What fourteen days adds
Four things the ten-day circuit cannot hold. A second free day in Fes, which is the city that most rewards it. A night in the High Atlas at Imlil, below Mount Toubkal at 4,167 m, where the air changes and the villages are built in terraces up the valley sides. A night on the Atlantic at Essaouira, UNESCO-listed since 2001. And two nights in the Erg Chebbi dunes instead of one, with a whole free day in the desert.
The circuit itself
Up the coast to Rabat, UNESCO-inscribed in 2012. Into the Rif for two nights at Chefchaouen. Volubilis, the Roman provincial capital, UNESCO-listed since 1997, and imperial Meknes. Three nights in Fes, one of them guided. Down the Ziz Valley to Merzouga. Back through the Todra Gorge, the Dades Valley and Aït Ben Haddou. Then Marrakech, the mountains, the coast.
Best For the Following Travellers
Travellers with a genuine fortnight, and anyone who has looked at a ten-day itinerary and thought it looked exhausting. It is. This one is not. Our fourteen-day itinerary guide explains the anticlockwise argument, and the fifteen-day guide covers what one more day would change.
Which length is right for you
Our guide to how many days you need in Morocco lays out every length from one day to fifteen. The shorter versions of this circuit are the 7-day loop and the 5-day one-way route; the longer ones are the 12-day tour, the 14-day grand tour and the 15-day slower circuit. Fourteen days is the point at which two nights almost everywhere becomes possible, and that is the real quality difference on a long route — you unpack once per stop instead of every morning.
The individual components, if you would rather book them separately: the 4-day Merzouga tour, the 3-day northern route, the Imlil day trip, the Essaouira day trip and the Marrakech medina day tour.
Practical notes
The Imlil night is in a mountain guesthouse at about 1,740 metres and the valley walk is a couple of hours on village paths — Mount Toubkal itself, at 4,167 metres, is a two-day ascent and is not part of this tour. The Hassan II Mosque interior is open to non-Muslim visitors on guided tours only and that ticket is not included. Worth reading before you travel: our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit the Moroccan Sahara, the tested Sahara packing list, what a night in a desert camp is actually like, the Fes medina guide and the Marrakech medina guide.
Aperçu
Two weeks is where the arithmetic stops fighting you. The difference between fourteen days and ten is not four more places — it is two nights almost everywhere, which is the real quality difference on a long route. You unpack once per stop instead of every morning, and you see each place twice: once arriving, once in the light you did not expect.
Casablanca in, Marrakech out
This runs anticlockwise, starting in Casablanca and finishing in Marrakech, which is the shape that fits most long-haul flights — and it means the trip ends in the city with the best onward connections and the most to do if your flight is late in the day. Arriving into Casablanca also gives you a soft first day: a hotel, a walk by the Hassan II Mosque, and sleep, rather than a six-hour transfer on no rest.
What fourteen days adds
Four things the ten-day circuit cannot hold. A second free day in Fes, which is the city that most rewards it. A night in the High Atlas at Imlil, below Mount Toubkal at 4,167 m, where the air changes and the villages are built in terraces up the valley sides. A night on the Atlantic at Essaouira, UNESCO-listed since 2001. And two nights in the Erg Chebbi dunes instead of one, with a whole free day in the desert.
The circuit itself
Up the coast to Rabat, UNESCO-inscribed in 2012. Into the Rif for two nights at Chefchaouen. Volubilis, the Roman provincial capital, UNESCO-listed since 1997, and imperial Meknes. Three nights in Fes, one of them guided. Down the Ziz Valley to Merzouga. Back through the Todra Gorge, the Dades Valley and Aït Ben Haddou. Then Marrakech, the mountains, the coast.
Who this suits
Travellers with a genuine fortnight, and anyone who has looked at a ten-day itinerary and thought it looked exhausting. It is. This one is not. Our fourteen-day itinerary guide explains the anticlockwise argument, and the fifteen-day guide covers what one more day would change.
Which length is right for you
Our guide to how many days you need in Morocco lays out every length from one day to fifteen. The shorter versions of this circuit are the 7-day loop and the 5-day one-way route; the longer ones are the 12-day tour, the 14-day grand tour and the 15-day slower circuit. Fourteen days is the point at which two nights almost everywhere becomes possible, and that is the real quality difference on a long route — you unpack once per stop instead of every morning.
The individual components, if you would rather book them separately: the 4-day Merzouga tour, the 3-day northern route, the Imlil day trip, the Essaouira day trip and the Marrakech medina day tour.
Practical notes
The Imlil night is in a mountain guesthouse at about 1,740 metres and the valley walk is a couple of hours on village paths — Mount Toubkal itself, at 4,167 metres, is a two-day ascent and is not part of this tour. The Hassan II Mosque interior is open to non-Muslim visitors on guided tours only and that ticket is not included. Worth reading before you travel: our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit the Moroccan Sahara, the tested Sahara packing list, what a night in a desert camp is actually like, the Fes medina guide and the Marrakech medina guide.
Points forts
- Two nights almost everywhere: Chefchaouen, Fes, Merzouga, Marrakech
- Casablanca in, Marrakech out — the shape that fits long-haul flights
- A night in the High Atlas at Imlil, below Mount Toubkal at 4,167 m
- A night on the Atlantic at Essaouira, UNESCO-listed since 2001
- Guided days in both the Fes and the Marrakech medinas
- Two nights in the Erg Chebbi dunes with a whole free desert day
- Volubilis, Meknes and Rabat; the Todra Gorge and Ait Ben Haddou
