Marrakech is where most Morocco trips begin, and for practical reasons it earns that position. The airport is large and well-connected, the riads are some of the most atmospheric accommodation in North Africa, and the Djemaa el-Fna square — chaotic, theatrical, performing constantly until well past midnight — is a genuine spectacle that photographs badly and experiences well. The souks radiating from it are real working markets rather than tourist recreations, even if the pressure on visitors has increased significantly with the growth of mass tourism.

The honest trade-off: Marrakech is also the Moroccan city that solo travelers — particularly solo women — consistently describe as the most relentless. The medina can feel like a constant negotiation in a way that Fes, with its more labyrinthine layout and longstanding academic culture, often does not. That said, Marrakech remains worth three days. The Saadian Tombs are extraordinary early in the morning. The Ben Youssef Medersa — a fourteenth-century Islamic college with carved stucco and zellige covering every surface — takes about an hour to do properly. Two to three days is right. Less than that and you are sprinting; more and the repetition starts to wear.

Fes el-Bali is a labyrinth of more than 9,000 alleyways and home to the University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 AD and considered the world’s oldest continuously operating university. That context matters when you are walking through it: this is not a preserved heritage site that the city has grown around — it is a living city where the medieval urban fabric has simply never been replaced because there was no reason to replace it. Donkeys still carry goods through streets too narrow for cars. Tanneries still operate using processes that are centuries old.

Fes rewards longer stays and slower movement more than almost any other city in Morocco. Two days is the minimum to get past the surface; three is better; four starts to reveal the quieter quarters most visitors never find. A local guide for the first morning in the medina is genuinely worth the cost — not because you will get lost without one, though you will, but because the historical context they provide makes the visual density meaningful rather than simply overwhelming. The Merenid Tombs on the hill above the city offer one of the most arresting views in Morocco — the medina laid out below at sunset, at scale, all at once.

The Sahara is the experience that most first-time Morocco visitors describe as the highlight when they return home. The Erg Chebbi dunes near Merzouga are the main destination — accessible from Fes in a long day’s drive or from Marrakech by organised tour. Riding into the dunes at dusk, sleeping in a desert camp, and waking before sunrise to walk to the top of a dune alone is genuinely unlike anything else in North Africa or, for most visitors, anything they have done anywhere.

The trade-off is the camps themselves, and it is a real one. The “luxury desert camp” category has expanded enormously, and quality varies wildly. The most photographed camps are often the most crowded — a marketed private desert experience that involves several hundred other tourists watching the same sunset from the same ridge loses something between brochure and reality. Budget three days minimum from either gateway city — one day of travel to reach Merzouga, one full day and night in the desert, one day of travel back.

The High Atlas provides the most natural day trip from Marrakech and, for those doing the southern circuit, the road between them. The Tizi n’Tichka mountain pass climbs to 2,260 metres before dropping toward the Draa Valley — it is one of the best drives in North Africa, particularly in spring when the High Atlas still holds snow on the upper ridges. The village of Imlil, at the base of Mount Toubkal (North Africa’s highest peak at 4,167 metres), makes a compelling half-day even without trekking.

Aït Ben Haddou sits on that same southern route and deserves more than a cursory stop. The UNESCO-listed ksar — a fortified mud-brick village — has appeared in more than 20 film and television productions, but earns its visit regardless. The lower section gets crowded with tour groups; climbing to the top of the fortification takes twenty minutes and leaves most people behind. Two hours is enough for the ksar itself; half a day if you want to walk the surrounding landscape.

Chefchaouen is the blue city of the Rif Mountains and one of the most photographed places in Morocco. The blue-washed medina is real, genuinely beautiful, and worth seeing — particularly in the very early morning before the day-tripper buses arrive from Tangier and the narrow staircases fill with people waiting for the same shot. The setting is extraordinary: the Rif Mountains behind the city, the Oued Laou valley below it, and the quality of the light in the late afternoon give Chefchaouen a visual atmosphere that the photographs consistently undersell.

However, the city sits in the north of Morocco, and the north does not loop naturally with the southern circuit that most first trips follow. Including Chefchaouen requires either an overnight journey from Fes — which works well — or treating the north as a separate itinerary anchored in Tangier. The city is small enough that one to two nights covers it thoroughly. If your itinerary allows for Fes plus two extra days, Chefchaouen is one of the best uses of them. If you are choosing between it and the Sahara, take the Sahara.