Luxury Morocco: Imperial Cities, Sahara & Chefchaouen

Day 1-2: Casablanca & Rabat

Land in Casablanca and meet your private driver for the transfer north to Rabat, Morocco’s laid-back capital. Your hotel sits within walking distance of the medina.

Spend your first full day exploring Rabat with a private guide. Walk the blue-and-white streets of the Kasbah of the Udayas, where bougainvillea spills over whitewashed walls and cats doze in the shade.

Visit the Hassan Tower, an unfinished 12th-century minaret, and watch the changing of the guard at the royal palace gates. End at the Chellah, Roman ruins overtaken by storks’ nests and wildflowers, where you can hear the call to prayer echo across ancient columns.

Day 3-4: Chefchaouen - The Blue City

Head north through the Rif Mountains to Chefchaouen, where every building is painted in shades of powder blue, cobalt, and sky. The town clings to the mountainside, its narrow streets climbing steep inclines past doorways painted in deeper indigo and walls adorned with potted geraniums.

Your riad sits in the heart of the medina, with a rooftop terrace overlooking the terracotta roofs and the peaks beyond. Spend your days wandering without a map – every corner reveals another Instagram-worthy alley, another artisan’s workshop selling woven blankets and leather bags. Join a local photographer for a guided shoot through the medina at golden hour, learning which angles capture the light best and which streets remain quieter when the tour groups leave.

Hike up to the Spanish Mosque before sunset. The climb takes 30 minutes, winding through olive groves and past grazing goats, but the view from the top – Chefchaouen’s blue rooftops cascading down the hillside as the call to prayer rises from multiple minarets – is worth every step.

Day 5-6: Fès via Volubilis & Meknes

Leave the mountains behind and travel southeast toward Fès, Morocco’s spiritual and cultural heart. En route, stop at Volubilis, where Roman villas from the 2nd century still display intricate floor mosaics depicting Bacchus, Orpheus, and scenes of daily life.

Walk the Decumanus Maximus, the main street where chariots once rolled, and climb to the Capitoline Temple for views across wheat fields that have been farmed for millennia.

Continue to Meknes, another imperial city often overlooked in favor of its famous neighbors. Stand before the monumental Bab Mansour gate, considered the most beautiful in Morocco, with its green-and-white zellige tilework and carved cedar doors. Pause for lunch near the old medina before pushing on to Fès.

Arrive in Fès by late afternoon and check into your riad, a restored merchant’s house with a central courtyard, fountain, and rooftop terrace overlooking the medina’s sea of rooftops and satellite dishes. Tomorrow, you’ll dive deep into the maze.

Day 7-8: Fès

Fès el-Bali is the world’s largest car-free urban zone and one of the most disorienting medinas in Morocco. With your local guide leading the way, enter through the Blue Gate (Bab Boujloud) and immediately lose all sense of direction as you navigate 9,000 alleyways, some so narrow two people can barely pass.

Visit the Chouara Tannery, where leather has been dyed using medieval methods for over a thousand years. Watch coppersmiths hammer trays by hand in workshops unchanged since the 14th century, and step inside the Al-Attarine Madrasa to see carved cedar, stucco arabesques, and zellige tilework that took artisans years to complete.

Stop for lunch in a rooftop restaurant overlooking the medina, then spend the afternoon visiting the Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts and Crafts or simply getting deliberately lost in the souks.

Day 8-9: Sahara Desert - Erg Chebbi Glamping Under the Stars

Depart Fès early for the long journey southeast to Merzouga, the gateway to the Sahara’s Erg Chebbi dunes. You can fly privately to save time or take the scenic drive through the Middle Atlas cedar forests and the Ziz Valley’s date palm oases. Either way, you arrive by late afternoon as the heat begins to soften.

At the edge of the desert, trade your vehicle for camels and ride into the dunes as the sun drops toward the horizon. The sand shifts from gold to copper to rose, and the only sounds are the camels’ footsteps and the wind sculpting the ridgelines. Your luxury camp sits nestled between towering dunes, with spacious tents featuring proper beds, en-suite bathrooms, Berber rugs, and low seating areas lit by lanterns.

Dinner is served under the stars. Musicians play traditional Gnawa rhythms around the fire, and the Milky Way arcs overhead in crystalline detail you’ve likely never seen before. Sleep in the profound silence of the desert, where the only interruption is the occasional gust of wind against the canvas.

Wake before dawn and climb the nearest dune to watch sunrise turn the sand molten gold. After breakfast, explore the desert by 4×4 or on foot.

Day 10-12: Marrakech

Leave the desert behind and cross the High Atlas Mountains via the dramatic Tizi n’Tichka pass, stopping at kasbahs and roadside villages where women sell fossils and woven textiles. Descend into Marrakech by late afternoon.

Your riad sits in the heart of the medina, with a plunge pool in the courtyard and a rooftop terrace perfect for sundowners. Spend your first evening in Jemaa el-Fna square.

The next morning, rise before dawn for a private hot-air balloon ride over the Palmeraie and Berber villages. Float silently above date palm groves as the Atlas Mountains turn pink in the early light, then land for a Berber breakfast in a field. Return to the city for a guided tour of the Majorelle Garden, Yves Saint Laurent’s electric-blue sanctuary filled with cacti and bamboo.

Spend your final evening shopping the souks for leather slippers, argan oil, and spices, or simply sip mint tea on your riad’s rooftop as the call to prayer echoes across the medina.

Enjoy a final morning at leisure – one last breakfast on the rooftop, a stroll through the Mellah (Jewish quarter), or a coffee in the Gueliz neighborhood’s European-style cafes. Your driver will collect you for a private transfer to Marrakech-Menara Airport.