Morocco Overland (Fixed Departure)

Nine nights from Marrakech to Casablanca, self-driven in convoy with crew support, across the length of Morocco.

One way from the south to the north is a better shape than a loop here, because Morocco changes character completely over that distance: Atlas, desert, cedar forest and then the Rif.

Marrakech opens it, then the mountain passes over the Atlas and down to Merzouga at the edge of the Erg Chebbi dunes, where the sand rises a hundred and fifty metres and the desert begins in earnest. Ifrane follows in the Middle Atlas, a town built by the French in the 1930s to look like an alpine resort, with cedar forest around it and snow in winter. Chefchaouen comes next in the Rif, where the old town is painted in blue from the walls to the steps and the streets form a maze worth getting lost in, then the coastal roads to Casablanca. The full day-by-day itinerary was not available on the operator’s page.

The format is a self-drive convoy with crew support around the clock, and the operator’s page indicates a specific fleet vehicle option that was not fully captured; the detailed inclusions were not itemised and are worth confirming at booking, and 5 per cent GST and 2 per cent TCS are added to the trip cost. The price shown is per person. Spring and autumn are the seasons, since the desert in July and August is brutal and the Atlas passes can close in winter. Ten days is enough to cross the country without any single day becoming a slog, and the convoy format takes the navigation out of a country where the signage is inconsistent.