DAY 1: TANGIER → CHEFCHAOUEN

Your private driver meets you at Tangier airport, port, or your hotel. The road heads south and east into the Rif Mountains, climbing through forested hillsides until the blue rooftops of Chefchaouen come into view.

Chefchaouen is unlike anywhere else in Morocco — its medina a labyrinth of alleyways painted in every shade of blue and indigo, hung with flower pots and flooded with soft mountain light. Check in to your riad and spend the afternoon and evening wandering freely, browsing the artisan souks, and absorbing the extraordinary atmosphere of this mountain gem.

DAY 2: CHEFCHAOUEN → FES

After breakfast, a final morning stroll through Chefchaouen’s quietest blue lanes before departing for Fes. The drive south takes you through the Rif Mountains and across the rolling plains of northern Morocco.

Arriving in Fes in the afternoon, you check in to your riad in or near the ancient medina. Founded over 1,200 years ago, Fes is the spiritual and intellectual heart of Morocco — its medina one of the world’s most complex and captivating urban environments. The evening is perfect for a first walk along the edges of the old city.

DAY 3: FES → IFRANE → MIDDLE ATLAS MOUNTAINS → ZIZ VALLEY → MERZOUGA DESERT

One of the tour’s most rewarding days. Departing Fes early, your private guide leads you south through the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas. The alpine town of Ifrane — often called Morocco’s “Little Switzerland” — makes for a pleasant stop, while the cedar forest near Azrou may reward you with a sighting of wild Barbary macaques in the trees.

Descending from the mountains, the Ziz Valley unfolds in a long green corridor of date palms tracing the river southward through increasingly arid terrain. By late afternoon the dunes of Erg Chebbi appear — a vast wall of orange sand rising dramatically from the flat desert floor.

You arrive in time for a golden-hour camel ride into the heart of the dunes, watching the sun sink in brilliant colour. At your luxury desert camp, a traditional Moroccan dinner is served under the open sky, followed by an evening of live Berber drumming around the campfire. Your private tent with en-suite bathroom awaits beneath a sky blazing with stars.

DAY 4: MERZOUGA DESERT → RISSANI → TODRA GORGE → DADES VALLEY

An early rise for the desert sunrise, then breakfast at the camp before departing west. The historic market town of Rissani — ancestral seat of Morocco’s ruling Alaouite dynasty — offers a vivid first stop, especially on market days.

From Rissani, the road continues to Tinghir and the extraordinary Todra Gorge, where sheer limestone walls rise over 300 metres on either side of a cool mountain stream — one of Morocco’s most spectacular natural environments. The afternoon drive continues through pre-Saharan oases to the Dades Valley, where your hotel is set among dramatic canyon scenery for the night.

DAY 5: DADES VALLEY → OUARZAZATE → AIT BEN HADDOU → HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS → MARRAKECH

The final day draws together the great heritage and landscape highlights of Morocco’s south. The drive west passes through the Valley of Roses and into Ouarzazate — Africa’s cinematic capital — before arriving at the Kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of extraordinary earthen towers that has featured in some of the world’s most iconic film and television productions.

After exploring the kasbah, the road climbs back through the High Atlas Mountains via the Tizi n’Tichka Pass — with sweeping views across ridgelines and Berber villages — before the long descent into Marrakech, where you are dropped at your hotel or riad in the evening.