7-Day Casablanca, Rabat, Chefchaouen & Sahara Tour
A private 7-day tour from Casablanca that adds Rabat's monuments and the blue-painted streets of Chefchaouen to the route north, before continuing through Volubilis, Meknes and Fes to a night in the Merzouga dunes, and returning via the Dades Valley to Marrakech.
Duration
7 days / 6 nights
Departure
Casablanca
Destination
Rabat, Chefchaouen, Fes, Merzouga, Erg Chebbi, Todra Gorge, Dades Valley, Ouarzazate, Ait Ben Haddou, Marrakech
From
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Adding the blue city to the northern route
Our 6-day Fes & Sahara tour runs a fairly direct line from Casablanca to Fes. This 7-day version detours through Rabat and Chefchaouen first, which is why it’s the itinerary we recommend most often for a first one-week trip to Morocco — it adds real variety to the early days without cutting into the desert portion of the trip that most travelers are building the whole route around.
Rabat as a short stop, not a full day
Rabat gets a morning rather than an overnight, since its main sites — the Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, and the Kasbah of the Oudayas — can be covered thoroughly in a few hours. That leaves the early afternoon free for the scenic but slower drive up into the Rif Mountains to Chefchaouen, where the pace changes noticeably once you reach the blue-washed streets.
From blue medina to golden dunes
The contrast between Chefchaouen’s cool blue alleyways and the heat of the Sahara a few days later is part of what makes this route popular — few itineraries anywhere pack in two settings that look so different from each other within the same week. The middle section — Volubilis, Meknes, and a full day in Fes — matches our 6-day tour exactly, so if Chefchaouen isn’t a priority for you, that shorter itinerary covers the same imperial cities and desert night in one less day.
What a week on this route actually feels like
Expect roughly half the days to include several hours of driving and the other half to be built around a specific stop — a city, a medina, or the desert camp. The longest driving stretches are day two (Casablanca to Chefchaouen via Rabat) and day five (Fes to Merzouga), both of which include built-in breaks so the drive itself becomes part of the sightseeing rather than downtime between it.
Deciding between this and a longer loop
If your return flight leaves from Casablanca rather than Marrakech, our 8-day round-trip tour follows this exact itinerary with one additional day added to drive back north at the end. It’s worth deciding on your departure airport before booking, since it changes which of these two very similar routes makes more sense.
Tour Highlights
●Rabat's Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, and the Kasbah of the Oudayas
●A walk through Chefchaouen's blue-painted medina, tucked into the Rif Mountains
●Roman ruins at Volubilis and the monumental Bab Mansour gate of Meknes
●A guided morning in the Fes medina, including the centuries-old Chouara tanneries
●A crossing of the Middle Atlas cedar forests around Azrou, home to wild Barbary macaques
●One night in a Sahara camp at Erg Chebbi with a sunset camel trek and music at the fire
●The narrow rock walls of the Todra and Dades gorges on the return leg
●The fortified kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou before the High Atlas crossing into Marrakech
Full Itinerary
Day 1
Arrival in Casablanca
Casablanca rarely gets more than a drive-through on other operators' itineraries, so this trip starts with an actual half-day here instead. The centerpiece is the Hassan II Mosque, one of the few mosques in Morocco that non-Muslim visitors are permitted to enter, with a retractable roof and glass floor panels in the prayer hall that look straight down onto the ocean below. A walk through Mohammed V Square and a stretch of the Corniche rounds out the afternoon before an early dinner ahead of tomorrow's drive to Rabat. Overnight in a Casablanca hotel.
Day 2
Casablanca to Chefchaouen via Rabat
Morning drive to Rabat, which only became Morocco's political capital in 1912 under the French protectorate despite its much older history. A stop at the unfinished Hassan Tower and the neighboring Mausoleum of Mohammed V, guarded by mounted royal cavalry in red-and-white ceremonial dress, is followed by a walk through the whitewashed Kasbah of the Oudayas, where the blue-and-white streets predate Chefchaouen's by centuries. From there, the road climbs into the Rif Mountains for the final approach into Chefchaouen, arriving with time to explore the edges of the blue medina before dinner.
Day 3
Chefchaouen to Fes via Volubilis and Meknes
Chefchaouen doesn't need more than a morning to see well, so there's time to wander without a fixed plan before checking out and heading south. The first stop, Volubilis, was once the westernmost outpost of the Roman Empire, and its best-preserved mosaic depicts the Labors of Hercules across a floor that's survived roughly 1,800 years largely intact. Meknes follows for the monumental Bab Mansour gate, its facade covered in green and white zellige tilework, before the final push into Fes for the evening.
Day 4
Fes Medina
A local guide is less a convenience than a necessity in Fes el-Bali, where the lack of any grid pattern has genuinely stranded plenty of independent visitors. The route usually opens at the Chouara tanneries, viewed from a leather-shop terrace where you'll likely be handed a sprig of mint to hold against the smell, before continuing to the Al Quaraouiyine mosque and university quarter and finishing in the covered souks, where the trade in any given alley — spices, textiles, metalwork — hasn't changed much in centuries.
Day 5
Fes to Merzouga via the Middle Atlas
This is the day the trip crosses three distinct climate zones before dinner: the cool pine air of Ifrane, the cedar forests around Azrou where troops of wild Barbary macaques still gather along the roadside, and the increasingly bare, rocky plains past Midelt that signal the Sahara isn't far off. By the time the Ziz Valley's palm groves come into view, the temperature has usually climbed back into summer territory. In Merzouga, swap the vehicle for a camel and ride into the Erg Chebbi dunes as the light turns orange.
Day 6
Merzouga to the Dades Valley
Almost everyone who stays at the camp makes the short pre-dawn climb up a nearby dune for sunrise, since the alternative is sleeping through the best part of the desert. Camel back to the village, breakfast, then west through the Todra Gorge, where the canyon walls climb several hundred meters on either side while the road below narrows to barely two lanes, before an overnight in the Dades Valley — known as the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs for the earthen fortresses dotted along it.
Day 7
Dades Valley to Marrakech
Skoura's dense palm groves are worth a slow drive-through rather than a quick pass, with old kasbahs half-hidden among the trees on either side. Ouarzazate comes next, its film studios responsible for a surprising share of the desert scenes in movies set anywhere from ancient Rome to the Middle East, and then Ait Ben Haddou, whose fortified earthen ksar has featured in several of those same productions. The final stretch climbs the Tizi n'Tichka pass, Morocco's highest paved mountain road, before dropping into Marrakech by late afternoon.
What's Included
✓Private, air-conditioned vehicle for the whole route, with fuel and driver costs covered
✓English-speaking driver throughout
✓One night in Casablanca, one in Chefchaouen, and one in a riad in Fes
✓One night in a desert camp at Merzouga, including camel trek
✓One night in a hotel or riad in the Dades Valley area
✓A local guide for the Fes medina walk
✓Dinner and breakfast at the desert camp and in the Dades Valley
✓Bottled water in the vehicle each day
✓Pick-up in Casablanca and drop-off in Marrakech
What's Not Included
✕International or domestic flights
✕Lunches and most dinners outside the camp and Dades Valley
✕Entrance fees to monuments (roughly €36 per person across the whole route)
✕Tips for your driver and camp staff
Accommodation
One night each in Casablanca, Chefchaouen, and Fes, plus one night in the Merzouga desert camp and one in the Dades Valley, are included. Hotel and riad categories (standard, comfort, or luxury) can be adjusted when you book, and the desert night can be upgraded to a private en-suite tent if you'd prefer not to share facilities.
Important Information
Chefchaouen is a detour from the direct Casablanca-Fes road, adding roughly half a day of driving compared with our 6-day route — most travelers find it worth the extra distance for the contrast it adds to the trip.
The Fes medina walk uses a licensed local guide rather than just your driver, since the layout is genuinely easy to get lost in without one.
Chefchaouen sits at a higher elevation in the Rif Mountains and can be noticeably cooler than the rest of the route, especially in the evening — pack accordingly even in warmer months.
This is one of our most requested first-time itineraries; if it's your first trip to Morocco and you're unsure how much time to allocate to the north versus the desert, this balance tends to work well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Chefchaouen worth adding to a Casablanca-Sahara tour?+
It's the most common addition travelers make to this route, since the blue medina looks nothing like anywhere else on the itinerary. It does add driving time, so if your schedule is tight our 6-day version skips it in favor of a more direct run to Fes.
Do we get a local guide anywhere besides Fes?+
Fes is the one stop where we always include a local guide, since the medina is genuinely easy to get lost in. Chefchaouen and Rabat are compact enough to explore comfortably with your driver or on your own, with recommendations along the way.
How does this compare to your 6- and 8-day Casablanca tours?+
This 7-day version sits between the two: it adds Rabat and Chefchaouen to our 6-day Fes & Sahara route, but ends in Marrakech rather than looping back to Casablanca like our 8-day round trip. If your flight departs from Casablanca rather than Marrakech, the 8-day version follows this same path with a return leg added.
Is this a good first Morocco itinerary?+
Yes — this is one of our most booked routes for first-time visitors, since it balances the northern imperial cities, the blue city of Chefchaouen, and a full Sahara night without stretching past a week.
Book This Tour
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A relaxed 6-day loop from Casablanca through Fes and the Sahara to Marrakech, with a full first day to settle into Casablanca before the road trip begins.
