Your 10 Day Morocco Tour from Casablanca begins the moment you arrive. After meeting your guide or driver, you will have your first look at Morocco’s largest and most modern city. The morning is spent exploring Casablanca’s elegant blend of French colonial architecture and contemporary Moroccan design. The highlight of the day is a visit to the Hassan II Mosque, one of the most magnificent religious buildings in the world and the only mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslim visitors. Its minaret stands 210 meters tall and the mosque itself sits on a promontory above the Atlantic Ocean, a sight that leaves most visitors speechless. After the visit, enjoy a walk along the Corniche seafront before settling into your hotel for the night.

After breakfast, you head north along the Atlantic coast to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Rabat is a city of striking contrasts where ancient and modern sit side by side in perfect balance. You will visit the Kasbah of the Udayas, a blue-and-white fortress perched above the ocean, the Hassan Tower with its unfinished minaret, and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, one of the finest examples of Moroccan craftsmanship anywhere in the country. After lunch in Rabat, you continue east toward Meknes, one of the four imperial cities of Morocco. A short drive from Meknes brings you to Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman ruins in North Africa. Walking among columns and mosaics that are nearly two thousand years old is a deeply moving experience. Overnight in Meknes.

This morning you arrive in Fes, the oldest and most spiritually significant of Morocco’s imperial cities. Fes is a city that needs time, and this tour gives you that time. Your first afternoon is spent getting oriented in the medina of Fes el-Bali, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest car-free urban area on earth. Your guide will take you through the maze of narrow alleyways lined with artisan workshops, spice sellers, leather tanners, and ancient mosques. You will see the famous Chouara tannery, where hides have been dyed in the same stone vats for over a thousand years. The colors of the tannery, seen from the rooftop terraces of the leather shops above, are one of the most photographed sights in Morocco. Overnight in Fes.

A second full day in Fes is one of the things that makes this 10 Day Morocco Tour from Casablanca special. Most shorter tours pass through Fes in half a day, which is simply not enough. Today you go deeper. Visit the Bou Inania Madrasa, a 14th-century theological school whose carved cedarwood and intricate zellige tilework represent the absolute peak of Moroccan Islamic art. Explore the ancient Andalusian quarter, wander through the souks where coppersmiths, weavers, and woodcarvers work exactly as they have for centuries, and sit in a traditional Moroccan cafe for a glass of mint tea. In the evening, you might enjoy a traditional dinner with live Andalusian music at a riad in the medina. Overnight in Fes.

Leaving Fes, the road climbs into the Middle Atlas Mountains and the landscape changes completely. You pass through Ifrane, a town so reminiscent of a Swiss alpine village that it surprises almost every visitor. Continue through cedar forests where Barbary macaques roam freely alongside the road, a wonderful and completely unexpected wildlife encounter. The road continues south past the market town of Azrou and descends toward Midelt, a great lunch stop surrounded by apple orchards and rugged mountain scenery. After lunch, the landscape opens dramatically into the Ziz Valley, a stunning corridor of date palms stretching south along a dry riverbed toward the edge of the Sahara. The drive is one of the most scenic in all of Morocco. Overnight in or near Erfoud.

Today is the day most travelers dream about before the tour begins. After a morning visit to Erfoud, famous for its fossilized marble and traditional crafts, you drive south to Merzouga, where the great orange dunes of Erg Chebbi rise abruptly from the flat desert floor. The dunes here reach over 150 meters in height and stretch for kilometers in every direction. In the late afternoon, you mount your camel and ride into the heart of the dunes just as the sun begins to set. The light at this hour turns the sand every shade of gold, amber, and deep red, and the silence of the desert is total. At the camp, you eat a traditional Berber dinner around a fire, listen to Gnawa music played on hand drums under the stars, and sleep in a comfortable tent. Overnight in a desert camp in Merzouga.

Wake before sunrise to climb the dunes on foot and watch the Sahara come alive with the first light of morning. The colors shift from deep purple to pale gold to brilliant orange in the space of a few minutes, and the experience of standing in the silence of the desert at dawn is one that most travelers describe as the most memorable moment of their entire trip. After breakfast at the camp and a chance to explore the desert surroundings, you head northwest through Rissani and Tinghir toward Todra Gorge. The gorge is a narrow canyon where walls of polished limestone tower nearly 300 meters on either side. Walk the canyon floor, listen to the river running through the rock, and take in the sheer scale of the place. Continue to the Dades Valley for dinner and overnight.

The drive west from Dades Valley along the famous Road of a Thousand Kasbahs is one of the great scenic tours of Morocco. This ancient caravan route follows the course of the Draa River through an almost unbroken line of fortified earthen villages, palm oases, and rose fields. You pass through the Skoura Palmery, a lush and beautiful area of date palms scattered with old kasbahs, and through the Valley of Roses near Kalaat M’Gouna, where vast fields of pink Damascus roses are harvested every spring to make rose water and essential oils. Stop to smell the roses and, if you visit in May, experience the famous rose harvest festival. By the afternoon you arrive in Ouarzazate, the gateway to the south, where you can visit the famous Taourirt Kasbah and the Atlas Film Studios, one of the largest film studios in the world. Overnight in Ouarzazate.

This morning you visit Ait Ben Haddou, the crown jewel of southern Morocco and one of the most spectacular sights in all of Africa. This ancient ksar, a fortified village of mud-brick towers and walls rising above the dried riverbed, has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has appeared in dozens of international films including Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Mummy. Crossing the shallow river on foot and climbing through the narrow streets to the top of the hill for a panoramic view over the valley is an experience that defines the meaning of the word historic. After your time at Ait Ben Haddou, the road climbs into the High Atlas Mountains, crossing the spectacular Tizi n’Tichka pass at over 2,200 meters. The views from the pass over the snow-capped ridges and plunging valleys are extraordinary. You descend toward Marrakech through Berber villages and olive groves, arriving in the city in the evening. Overnight in Marrakech.

Your final day of the 10 Day Morocco Tour from Casablanca is spent in one of the most vibrant and unforgettable cities in the world. Marrakech rewards those who slow down and pay attention, and a full day here gives you time to do exactly that. Your guide takes you through the historic medina to visit the Bahia Palace, a 19th-century masterpiece of Moroccan architecture with ornate carved ceilings, tiled courtyards, and lush gardens. You will also see the Saadian Tombs, a beautifully decorated royal necropolis that was sealed for centuries and only rediscovered in 1917. The afternoon is free for you to explore the souks on your own, browse for leather goods, spices, lanterns, carpets, and ceramics, and eventually make your way to the great Jemaa el-Fna square as the sun goes down. As the square fills with storytellers, musicians, acrobats, and food stalls, you will understand why UNESCO has declared this extraordinary gathering place an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Your tour ends here, with Marrakech at its most magical.