Morocco 🇲🇦

10 Days in Morocco: Rabat, Marrakech, Merzouga & Fes

RABAT

Hotel (2 nights): Riad Amaris 10 Rue Lalla Hanou in Rabat, walking distance to the Medina, $70/night (free breakfast)

Day 1: Arrival in Rabat 1pm - public bus to the medina, walked to the riad (hotel) to drop bag and explore the city while I waited for Toy to arrive on a later flight. He landed at 10:30pm, taxi to a restaurant near the Medina where I was waiting, ordered tea with fancy Moroccan pour (pictured above), wandered the Medina and tried snails (also pictured above).

Day 2: ancient ruins of Chellah, Hassan Tower, Mausoleum of Mohammed V, took the metro to the walled city of Salé, across the river Bou Regreg, Old Market, giant cemetary of Rabat, Kasbah Des Oudaias (great sunset view)

Day 3: Woke up and enjoyed the complimentary breakfast, then headed to the train station to go to Marrakech. We bought an ONCF 1st Class ticket for $20 per person, so we had a nice long bench-seat with a table and a friendly Moroccan girl sitting across from us. The train was comfortable and took about 5 hours to arrive in Marrakech.

MARRAKECH

Hotel (3 nights): Riad Le Coq Fou near the Medina with an incredible free full breakfast on the gorgeous rooftop terrace and spa services $57/night

Day 3 (continued): Madrassa Ben Youssef, Souk Semmarine, Jemaa el-Fna

Day 4: Badii Palace, Mellah, Bahia Palace

Day 5: Gueliz, Jardin Majorelle

Booked our 3 Day (2 night) Desert Tour from Marrakech to Merzouga/Erg Chebbi Sand Dunes to Fes with a private driver ($800 total) through our riad. Similar Viator trip (in reverse) found HERE. There are a wide variety of very reasonable trip combinations on Viator.

OURZAZATE / MERZOUGA / ERG CHEBBI

Day 6: Our private driver arrived early at our riad for the Desert Tour

• Tizi n Tichka Pass in the High Atlas Mountains, a road that climbs up to 7400 feet above sea level through small villages and continuously changing landscape colors

• Ouarzazate, Morocco’s Little Hollywood, including the Kasbah of Taourirt (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Atlas Studios (the largest movie studio in Africa), Ait Ben Haddou (used in scenes in The Gladiator, Babel, Lawrence of Arabia, The Last Temptation of Christ, Jewel of the Nile, etc).

• Dades Valley and Todra River Gorge

Dades Valley Riad (1 night) - dinner and breakfast (everything included in the tour price)

Day 7: Merzouga

• A huge oasis in the desert with palm trees where we met the group we’d be traveling with, as well as the guides and camels to carry us across the sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi.

• Enjoyed a gorgeous sunset on camels and reached the desert camp, after an hour, where we had dinner, evening entertainment under the stars, and spent the night in a Berber tent.

Berber Camp (1 night) - dinner and breakfast (everything included in the tour price)

Day 8: Rode camels back to a hotel where they allowed us to shower (amazing after a dusty 24+ hours on camels through the desert!) and clean up for the last day of the tour.

• Drove out of the Sahara Desert, past Berber villages and across the Middle Atlas Mountains where we saw monkeys and arrived at the Azrou Cedar Forest and stopped for lunch.

• We continued on to Ifrane, a winter ski resort built by the French in the 1930s to resemble a Swiss village and finally arrived at our destination, Fes.

FES

Hotel (2 nights): Riad El Yacout free update to deluxe room $92/night

Day 9: Fes

• Fes Medina - oldest (9th Century) and largest in North Africa

• Explored the souks

• Hammam (photo above, right) - a MUST do when you visit Morocco is to experience a hammam. There are more extravagant hammams in Marrakech, but one may say it's more intimate, authentic and wallet-friendly in Fes.

• Rooftop dinner (photo above, center) - one of my favorite things about Morocco are the gorgeous rooftops. Every riad we stayed in had a beautiful rooftop space and most of our dinners were eaten in rooftop restaurants.

Day 10: Enjoyed another incredible breakfast at the riad and headed to the train station to journey back to Rabat for our return flight home.

RABAT

Hotel (1 night): Riad Amaris 10 Rue Lalla Hanou in Rabat $70/night

Day 11: Woke up and headed to the airport for the journey home after an awesome trip!

PACKING SUGGESTIONS

• Check The Weather Channel for the time of year that you will be traveling

• Travel light: use a Samsonite Underseat Carry-On or backpack and packing cubes

• Bring a crossbody bag, travel wallet, portable charger, toiletry bag and European travel adapter (and this small travel adapter)

READ BEFORE YOU GO

• Morocco Guide: 10 Things to Know Before You Go

• Moroccan Street Food: 10 Things You’ll Want to Try

GETTING THERE

We booked our flights separately (only hours apart and Toy missed the deal), so we were on different outbound flights, but the same return flight. We flew Delta/Air France from Minneapolis to Paris (8 hours) and on to Rabat (2.5 hours). My round-trip ticket was $520 and Toy's was $820.

BUDGET (2 people)

Flight: $1340 ($520 Shelly + $820 Toy)

Hotels: $566

3 Day Tour: $800 (includes excursions, meals, 2 nights accommodation and private transportation/guide)

Transport: $40 ($40 train Rabat-Marrakech, didn't track train Fes-Rabat)

TOTAL: $2746

For information on traveling on points, read Getting Started with Credit Card Points.