The routes below are the ones we run most often, in the order that makes geographic sense. They assume a private vehicle, which is how the south has to be done, and they leave time in each place rather than counting it as "visited".
Four days: one city, properly
With four days, the honest advice is to stay put. Marrakech gives you the medina, the palaces, the gardens, a cooking session and a half-day in the Atlas foothills, with free afternoons throughout. Fes gives you the medieval city, the crafts and a day out to Volubilis.
What four days does not give you is the desert. Merzouga is a full day's drive from Marrakech; going and coming back inside four days means two days in a car for one night on the sand.
Seven days: Marrakech to the Sahara
This is the classic Moroccan route and it works well. Two days in Marrakech, then the Tizi n'Tichka crossing to Ait Ben Haddou with a night there, Ouarzazate and the Dades or Todra gorge, then two nights at Merzouga for a sunset, a sunrise and a full day in the desert, before returning north or west.
- Days 1–2: Marrakech medina, palaces and gardens
- Day 3: Tizi n'Tichka, Ait Ben Haddou, night facing the ksar
- Day 4: Ouarzazate, Draa or Dades valley
- Days 5–6: Merzouga — camel trek, camp, sunrise, 4x4 circuit
- Day 7: Ziz Valley and onward to Fes, or back to Marrakech
Ten days: add Fes
Ten days lets you run the seven-day route in one direction and finish in Fes rather than doubling back. That saves a long drive and adds three days in the best-preserved medieval city in the Arab world, with a day out to Volubilis and Meknes.
It also opens the alternative: skip Fes and give the extra days to the Atlantic — Essaouira for the port and the wind, and time on the coast.
Fourteen days: north to south
Two weeks is enough to do the country properly in one direction. Land in Tangier or Casablanca, take in Chefchaouen and the Rif, then Fes, then south through the Middle Atlas to the Ziz Valley and Merzouga, west through the kasbah valleys to Ait Ben Haddou, over the Atlas to Marrakech, and out to Essaouira for the last two nights.
The key is not doubling back. Flying into one city and out of another turns a fourteen-day loop into a fourteen-day line, and gains you roughly two full days.
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