A first week in Morocco: Marrakesh, the Atlas and the coast
A week that fits without rushing — what to do in Marrakesh, how far the mountains and the desert really are, and the one thing about the currency to sort out on arrival.
onesim team
Morocco had a record 19.8 million visitors in 2025 and beat it again through 2026, which is worth knowing for one reason: the good riads and the good desert trips now book out weeks ahead in spring and autumn, and they did not used to.
A week is enough for Marrakesh, a proper look at the Atlas and one more place. It is not enough for Marrakesh, Fez, Chefchaouen and the Sahara, however many itineraries tell you otherwise.
Sort the money out first
The dirham is a closed currency: you cannot legally buy it outside Morocco and you are not supposed to take it out. So you arrive with none, which is fine — the airport ATMs work and take foreign cards.
Use bank ATMs rather than the standalone machines in tourist streets, take out a few thousand dirham at a time to spread the fixed fee, and keep small notes. Cards work in hotels, larger restaurants and supermarkets. The souks, taxis, the hammam, tips and everything you actually enjoy are cash.
Days one to three: Marrakesh
The medina is the point. It is also a maze, and the honest advice is to accept being lost for the first afternoon rather than fighting it — the walls mean you can only end up somewhere.
Fixed points worth the ticket: the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs, the Ben Youssef Madrasa after its restoration, and Le Jardin Secret for a courtyard you can sit in. The Majorelle Garden and the Yves Saint Laurent museum are outside the walls in Gueliz and need a booked slot.
Jemaa el-Fna is best at two separate times: mid-morning, when it is a working square, and after dark, when the food stalls go up. Eat at a stall with a crowd of locals and a visible grill rather than the one whose tout was most persistent.
A hammam is not a spa treatment, it is how people wash. The public ones are cheap and basic; the riad ones are expensive and gentle; the mid-range bathhouses are the sweet spot for a first go.
One warning worth repeating: a stranger who tells you the square is "that way", the tannery is "open today only", or that your riad is closed, is working. A polite non, merci and continuing to walk is the whole technique.
Days four and five: the Atlas
An hour and a half from the medina the air changes. Imlil, at the foot of Toubkal, is the usual base for a day walk or a two-day trek with a guide and a mule; the Ourika valley is the easier half-day; Ouirgane and the Tizi n'Test road are the quieter version of both.
This is also where the September 2023 earthquake did its damage. It was concentrated in the rural provinces of Al Haouz, Taroudant and Chichaoua — not in Marrakesh, whose historic sites and riads have been repaired — and those villages live on trekking, guiding and guesthouses. Staying up there is a straightforwardly useful thing to do.
For a day or two in the mountains
- A guide booked through your riad or a village association rather than in the square
- Shoes with grip; the paths are loose stone rather than groomed trail
- Layers — it is ten degrees colder up there, and cold at night year-round
- Cash for the village; there is no card machine
- An offline map downloaded before you leave Marrakesh
Days six and seven: pick one
Essaouira, two and a half hours west, is the easy answer: a walled fishing town on the Atlantic, windy, low-rise, with no touts worth the name and the best seafood in the country. It is a bus ride, and a good place to do nothing.
The Sahara is the harder one. Merzouga, the dunes people picture, is nine to eleven hours' drive each way, over the Tizi n'Tichka pass. Anyone selling it as a day trip is selling you a day in a minibus. Two nights minimum — one in the Dades or Todra gorge, one in a desert camp — or fly to Errachidia and drive the last stretch. Zagora is closer and its dunes are a disappointment by comparison.
Fez is four hours by train and a genuinely different city: older, denser, less used to visitors, with the largest car-free urban area in the world. It deserves two nights, not one.
What does not fit in this week: Chefchaouen, which is eight hours north of Marrakesh, and Tangier, which is further. Those belong to a northern trip — and that one has the high-speed train.
Getting around
Al Boraq, Africa's first high-speed line, runs Tangier–Kenitra–Rabat–Casablanca at up to 320 km/h. It does not reach Marrakesh: the extension is under construction and due before the end of 2029. Marrakesh is served by ordinary ONCF trains, which are comfortable, cheap and slower — about three hours to Casablanca.
For the mountains and the desert, a car with a driver costs less than you would expect and removes the two worst parts of the trip: the mountain passes and parking in Marrakesh.
Practical notes
Friday is the day of the week that changes things: many shops close around midday prayers and couscous is the traditional lunch.
During Ramadan, restaurants outside hotels and tourist areas are closed in daylight and the whole country shifts to the evening, which is a wonderful time to be there if you plan around it.
Modest dress is not required of visitors but is noticed and repaid — shoulders and knees covered in the medina, more so in villages. Alcohol is served in hotels, licensed restaurants and Gueliz, and is not sold in the medina.
