7-day Sahara desert tour from Casablanca: a full loop through Morocco

This is the one full day dedicated entirely to Marrakech, and there's enough here to fill it. Start at the Majorelle Gardens, a small botanical garden known for its cobalt-blue buildings and the plants that once belonged to Yves Saint Laurent's collection. From there, you'll pass the Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakech's tallest landmark, though like most mosques in Morocco, non-Muslims can only view it from outside.

The Bahia Palace and the Saadian Tombs fill out the rest of the sightseeing, both good examples of the tilework and carved plaster Marrakech is known for. Once the formal visits wrap up, you'll have the afternoon free for the souks and Jemaa el-Fna Square, where the stalls, food carts, and street performers really only make sense once you're standing in the middle of them.

This is the start of the Atlas Mountains tour section of the trip, and it's one of the best driving days of the whole week. The road climbs out of Marrakech and into the High Atlas, switching back on itself repeatedly as it crosses the Tizi n'Tichka Pass above 2,000 meters. Small roadside stalls sell fossils and polished stones at several of the viewpoints, and it's worth stopping at more than one for photos.

Ait Ben Haddou comes next, a fortified village on the UNESCO World Heritage list that has shown up in enough films that parts of it will look familiar even on a first visit. A handful of families still live inside the old walls, though most residents moved across the river to the new village decades ago.

After lunch in Ouarzazate, the route continues through the Valley of Roses toward Dades Valley, where the road narrows and the rock formations turn a deep red in the late afternoon light. You'll spend the night here. This might be the single day people picture most when they imagine a 7-day Sahara desert tour from Casablanca: mountains and kasbahs, before the desert even starts.

The morning drive out of Dades Valley leads to Todgha Gorges, where the canyon walls close in tight enough that you can touch both sides of the road in the narrowest section. It's a popular spot for rock climbers, and even if you're not one, the scale of the place is worth the stop.

From there, the route passes through smaller Berber villages and the town of Erfoud before reaching Merzouga in the afternoon. This is where the Erg Chebbi camel trekking begins. You'll ride out into the dunes as the sun starts to set, then reach camp in time for dinner and music around the fire, under a truly dark sky.

Anyone who wants to see the sunrise over the dunes can wake up early and ride, or take a 4x4, back to the village before breakfast. From Merzouga, the road heads north again, passing Rissani, a town still built around a working market with roots in the old trans-Saharan trade.

The Ziz Valley follows, with palm groves running along the river for long stretches, then Midelt, a reasonable stop for lunch. After Midelt, the route climbs into the Middle Atlas, through cedar forest and past Ifrane, a town whose alpine-style buildings look out of place until you remember how much snow this region gets in winter. You'll reach Fes in the evening.

Fes gets its own full day for a reason: the medina here is one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world, and it takes a local guide to make sense of it. You'll walk through narrow alleys that open suddenly into busy squares, past souks selling everything from spices to metalwork, and the old tanneries, where craftspeople have dyed leather the same way for centuries.

The day also includes the exterior of Al Karaouine, one of the oldest universities in the world, and the gates of the Royal Palace, worth seeing for the brass detailing alone. Fes moves at a different pace than Marrakech, older and quieter in most corners, and it rounds out the cultural side of this Morocco desert adventure well.

The last day is mostly travel. After breakfast, the drive heads back toward Casablanca, timed around your flight or onward plans. Your driver will drop you at your hotel, the airport, or wherever you need to be to close out the trip.

By the time this 7-day Sahara desert tour from Casablanca wraps up, you'll have crossed the Atlas Mountains twice, spent a night in the Sahara, and walked through three of Morocco's most different cities. Not bad for a week.