Section 1 – Marrakech, the High Atlas and the Dadès Gorge

18 – 22 April 2027 · 5 nights · ±360 km

We meet in Marrakech and spend the first two nights in a traditional riad inside the medina. A riad is a traditional Moroccan house built around a central courtyard or garden — plain walls on the street side, and a quiet, shaded oasis inside. Ours is within walking distance of the souks and the restaurants around the Jemaa el-Fnaa. Two nights there gets everyone over the flight and gives you time to get properly lost in the markets before we start driving.

On the third day we collect the motorhomes on the northern side of the city, get everyone comfortable with their van, and overnight on a campsite in Marrakech. Then we head south over the High Atlas Mountains — all switchbacks and Berber villages clinging to the slopes, with a completely different world on the far side. Ouarzazate, on the edge of the desert, is our first overnight outside the city.

The next day is a short one east to Boumalne Dadès, then up into the Dadès Gorge itself, where the road climbs through red rock and palmeries. It is one of the quietest nights of the tour and one of the best.

Section 2 – Todgha, the Erg Chebbi dunes and the Ziz Valley

23 – 25 April 2027 · 3 nights · ±360 km

Back down the gorge and on to the Todgha Gorge — a limestone slot three hundred metres deep that you can drive right into — and the Barrage Toudgha at the head of it. From there we head down to Merzouga, hard against the Erg Chebbi dunes. We arrive in the afternoon and sleep in the vans on the edge of the sand.

The following day is deliberately free — a shopping and pottering day. Late that afternoon, around 5pm, anyone who wants to rides camels out into the dunes for the overnight desert camp, coming back into Merzouga around 9am the next morning for a shower before we leave. The camel excursion is arranged there and paid direct, and the vans keep their pitch either way, so if you would rather sleep in your own bed you lose nothing.

On the 25th we run north-west up the Ziz Valley, past the Source Bleue de Meski and along one of the great palm-grove canyons in Morocco, to a small campsite in the palms below the Ziz Canyon lookout. This is a new stop for 2027 — it breaks what used to be one very long day between the dunes and Fès, and it is a lovely place to sit still for a night.

Section 3 – Over the Middle Atlas to Fès and Chefchaouen

26 – 29 April 2027 · 4 nights · ±630 km

An early start north, crossing the Middle Atlas through cedar forest and the improbably alpine town of Ifrane before dropping into Fès. It is the longest single drive of the tour and the scenery changes completely — desert to snow line to farmland in one day.

Two nights at Fès. The first day is for supplies, shopping and getting the laundry done; the second is the Medina. Fès el-Bali is the largest car-free urban area in the world — the medieval Chouara tanneries, where leather is still dyed by hand in stone vats; the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque and university, founded in 859 and regarded as the oldest continuously operating university in the world; and a street plan that has not changed since the ninth century. It is overwhelming in the best possible way.

From Fès we run north, dropping in at Volubilis — the best-preserved Roman city in Morocco, a thriving Roman provincial town from the 1st to the 3rd century AD, with the mosaics still lying where they were laid — then up into Chefchaouen. Two nights in the blue city. Photographs of Chefchaouen do it no justice at all; you have to walk it.

Section 4 – The Atlantic: Mohammedia, Casablanca and Essaouira

30 April – 4 May 2027 · 5 nights · ±830 km

Down out of the Rif to Mohammedia, on the beach just north of Casablanca. From there we take a day trip into Casablanca for the Hassan II Mosque — one of the largest mosques in the world, built right on the edge of the Atlantic. Its minaret rises 210 metres: just short of Joburg’s Carlton Centre (223 m), and about 60 metres lower than the Hillbrow Tower (269 m), the tallest structure in South Africa. Inside is mosaic work that took six thousand artisans five years to finish. You do not understand it from a photograph. You have to stand next to it.

Then the long coastal run south, stopping at El Jadida to walk the Portuguese cistern and fortress, and on to the argan and olive country just inland of Essaouira. Three nights here for 2027, up from two — because nobody has ever wanted to leave on time.

The day trip is into Essaouira: a walled Portuguese port, blue fishing boats, ramparts you can walk, sardines grilled straight off the harbour, and the best light on the whole tour.

Section 5 – Agadir and back over the Atlas to Marrakech

5 – 6 May 2027 · 2 nights · ±520 km

South, hugging the coastline, with a detour down to Imsouane — a fishing village with one of the longest right-hand point breaks in Africa — before rejoining the road to Agadir. We stay on the coast just north of the city.

The last leg turns inland, back across the plain to Marrakech. We refuel the vans, hand them back the next morning, and that is the tour. Most guests stay on a night or two in Marrakech, or fly straight up into Europe — it is only two or three hours away.

What this tour asks of you

This is not a 4×4 tour. We use Moroccan motorhomes on good Moroccan roads, the mountain passes are tarred, and the motorhome does the heavy lifting on comfort — you never pitch a tent and you never go without a hot shower. What it does ask is a willingness to be somewhere genuinely foreign: five calls to prayer a day, a language you do not speak, a currency you do not know, and markets where haggling is expected and thoroughly enjoyed. Come for that, and Morocco will spoil you.