jennifer78

Four moderately active seniors - visiting Italy - then flying to Casablanca Oct. 30 - flying back to Canada Nov. 7th- we have 7 days/8 nights - While we would dearly love to see the desert - am wondering if we should leave that for another trip and try and do - Rabat, Sale, Meknes and Fes - then take a train to Marakesh =and maybe see El Jadida

Is the road trip from the desert to Marrakesh as bad as it looks in on line photos - I am a very skittish passenger
Is the road through BeniMellal from Fez to Marrakesh interesting - or is it better to take the major route back through Casablanca

We are looking at private tour companies - but we rarely if ever use a tour company so am debating if we can do this on our own.
any help would be appreciated

MmePerdu

You can certainly do this trip on your own. Tourism is the #1 industry in Morocco and making it easy for independent travelers is part of what they do well. But miracles don't happen anywhere so with just a week I'd most definitely pare it down to 3 stops and choose those by logistics. For instance, Fes, Meknes, Rabat & Marrakech are all accessible by train. If you went to Fes first, then EITHER Meknes or Rabat, then Marrakech you could fly back to Casablanca for your return flight.

Sale is interesting but not worth the stop unless you choose to stay in Rabat and go over for a walk-around. If you want a coastal town experience, I suggest you drop a city, 2 cities + 1 coastal town. The desert is a time-consuming affair for such a short trip. The road over the mountains in the south was uncomfortable for me, an acrophobic, if that's what you mean by "skittish", precipitous edges with buses gone over the side from time to time. etc. You'll have a very nice week if you don't get carried away with the number of destinations. With travel time between you'll still, even with just 3, have just 2 full days in each place, not much if I've counted right.

progol

My husband and I just got back from a 2 week trip to Morocco; we had a driver and were very, very glad that we did. We loved our trip -- it's a beautiful and diverse country, and visually it blew us away, but we found there is a very aggressive culture everywhere, especially in larger cities, to bring you into shops and to buy and it's intense and overwhelming, and can be very wearing. So having our driver really helped in navigating a lot of places. He did not guide us but is a guide himself so we really had someone who was knowledgeable, but even more, a gem of a human being who went above and beyond to accommodate our interests. We also were able to cover a lot of places in a relatively short period of time. I had worked with an agent primarily so that we would be able to have a driver since I had difficulty finding someone offering only driving services

Typically, the agent wants to book all the accommodations himself; the agent I worked with compromised by agreeing to let me book some of our accommodations independently, and overall, his choices of places were all very good. Yes, you can do the trip alone, but I do think we benefited by having the driver. I highly recommend our driver, Salem Karaoui; his own company is Moroccan Family, which he runs with his brother:
https://moroccan-family.com/about-us/

In 7 nights, you could do the northern circuit or Marrakech and the desert. I would also include a night in Essaouira. I'm not sure what you are worried about on the road between Marrakech and the desert -- it's very, very winding (as someone who suffers from carsickness, I definitely needed something for the drive), but you aren't overlooking a steep drop -- the roads are generally excellent and not a problem to drive. The desert is a wonderful experience; you would definitely want an agent or a driver to go from Marrakech to the desert, with a few stops in between. If you could include it, I think you would enjoy it. Most of the travel agencies do trips to the desert for varying days.

We stayed a night in Rabat after arrival, and we enjoyed the city as it has some interesting sights and is not nearly as intense as the more tourist-centric Fes or Marrakech. The Fes medina is probably the most overwhelming -- yet also most fascinating -- of all. Huge, intense -- but also the place where we "felt" Morocco. In 7 days, in the north, I would concentrate around Fes, and perhaps another town nearby. We did spend 2 nights in the very popular and touristic Chefchaouen, but it is very touristy and I think it has reached the place of being a little too cute for its own good. Still, it is a good option for your trip.

We also enjoyed Essaouira, a beautiful and charming coastal town that is wonderful to wander. We only had one night there but felt it gave us a good taste of the place.



Camels at the edge of the dunes



Street in Ait Benhaddou, a ksar, or fortified village, along the former caravan route

MmePerdu

A guided tour or an independent one is purely a matter of preferred travel style. My first trip to Morocco 20 years ago was with a small group and I realized immediately that I could certainly have done it on my own. I've since been back a number of times, sometimes taking friends, and do it slightly differently each time as one does when returning to a place you love. If you enjoy making your own arrangements in other places, it will be the same in Morocco. If you enjoy public transport as I do (trains, 1st class buses and the occasional private car & driver when it makes sense) I've found arrangements, even spur of the moment, actually easier in Morocco than in many other countries we think of as 1st world because accommodations will often help. The main thing to keep in mind is that the industry is set up for visitors, whether you prefer to strike out on your own or like some hand-holding, whichever you prefer it will all be good. And I've never felt the retail culture to be either intense or overwhelming, just different, often fun. If you don't want to buy, relax, enjoy the show, smile & just move on.

progol

I want to clarify that the initial reason why I wanted a driver was to cover a wide range of places in a relatively short period of time of 2 weeks; I knew that driving on our own (in and out of cities, visiting smaller places) was not going to be viable with public transportation or renting a car independently in the short time we were there, though I know many people do it and we've done it before without problem. The driver was really for convenience. But I will add that, unlike MmePerdu's experience, there is a fairly aggressive culture that can be quite wearing. We are seasoned travelers and this was slightly more than we've experienced elsewhere in having people constantly get in your face to come into a shop and follow you till you respond, not always taking a smile or a no gracefully. We never felt unsafe, however - but it isn't a relaxing environment.

MmePerdu

I suspect our experiences have been similar but maybe our personalities are different. It's only wearing if one is susceptible to it. My advice in such instances is to know it's coming sooner or later, maintain your good humor and say to yourself, like Alfred E, Neuman, "What, me worry?".

xcountry

Agreed.

jennifer78

thank you all for your responses - we certainly need all the advise we can get to make our visit to Morocco as good as we can manage it

we are looking at staying first night in Rabat, 3 in Fez 3 in Marrakesh and last night close to Casablanca airport
our time seems too short to get to the desert for an overnight - might save that for our next trip

MmePerdu

I like the plan. I prefer Rabat to Meknes. You can take a train from the airport to Rabat, though you might ask your Rabat accommodation to arrange a pickup to make it even easier. I'm a big fan of Essaouira on the coast west of Marrakech so you might consider 1 overnight. It'll shorten your time in Marrakech but add an entirely different experience after 3 cities. Again, your Marrakech accommodation can arrange private transport though, having it done it multiple times both ways, I actually prefer the bus. Either way, there's a rest stop midway, food & toilets. It could also be done as a day trip (2-3 hours each way) but I like the evening experience and fresh seafood restaurants so giving it a night would be better, I think. In any case, whatever the details, it sounds like a very nice introduction to a most interesting destination.

progol

I agree - it sounds like a good plan and we found Rabat a good place for our first night. I also would recommend a visit to Essaouira if you can carve out one night from Marrakech - after the intensity off the 2 main cities, it would be a nice change. It is close to 3 hours each way so it would be a long day trip or a nice overnight. We stayed one night and really enjoyed it.

yestravel

I think your plan of Rabat, Fes, Marrakech is a good one. I agree that Essaouira is a nice relaxed beachtown and it would make an interesting contrast to what you plan if you don’t mind the extra travel.

We just returned from a one month trip to Morocco mostly on our own which is generally how we travel. I completely agree with Progol on the aggressiveness of the culture. We found it very tiring and often annoying. Easy to say to ignore it or whatever, but that was not always so easy. Never bothered by anyone when we were with locals.

Have a great trip! Morocco has some beautiful sights.

yestravel

Don't know why my photos are so large -- sorry about that! Morocco is a photographers delight.

jennifer78

Thank you for your reply - and I loved the photograph - we travel as two couples and each of us has a camera - we are excited about this trip and the beautiful sights. thank you again

yestravel

Like in many countries people do not want their pictures taken & sometimes of their wares either. On our first day in Marrakech my husband was getting a hair cut. I wandered across the alley and went to take a photo of a case of pastries--no people would be in the photo. The man immediately angrily shook his finger at me & said NO as he motioned to the camera. Our guide in Fes said that the artisans don't mind and that was the case as we walked with him. But there is plenty to photograph without the people and whatever else it is that it is ok to be photgraphed.

progol

Hi, yestravel, the photos need to be resized in order for it to be smaller. I have begun to resize my too-large photos (that's why the ones on top are much smaller). I'm at work but will look to see later what the resized photos are.

jennifer78, it is very visually stimulating! My husband looked at our photos at the end of the trip and said, "The trip was about color!" I'm working now to sort the 1,000+ photos we've taken! There are so many beautiful ones!

jennifer78

thank you - yes we are all very used to local cultures and traditions - and the care that must be, and should be, taken around taking personal photographs - thank you

yestravel

[QUOTE=progol;16733277]Hi, yestravel, the photos need to be resized in order for it to be smaller. I have begun to resize my too-large photos (that's why the ones on top are much smaller). I'm at work but will look to see later what the resized photos are.

Thanks, progol.

xcountry

Photos of any kind can be a sensitive issue. Our 4x4 ran into some hilarious problems in the Jordanian desert. The guides did not want us taking photos of the problems as they knew what a bad picture or two can do to their business when posted on the Internet.

progol

We found that in Morocco, people were unusually uncomfortable with having photos taken. I certainly appreciate that taking photos of people can be intrusive (both my husband and I were photographers by trade), but our experience is that people are significantly more angry at even the perception that they might be photographed. We asked our driver, and he said that people believe that we are going to get rich by publishing their photos. Now I don't necessarily believe this, but having been to other countries where I've had less of a negative or hostile reaction when I take a photo, it's clear to me that there is something that is especially uncomfortable with having photos taken. And believe me, I generally ask people by (nonverbally) if it's okay by showing them the camera and smiling at them. In other countries (and in the US) most people say yes, and when they shake their head "No", I smile and thank them and move on. In Morocco, even this gesture often got a stronger reaction. Not all the time - I do have photos of people! But surprisingly more often than not. So just saying....

yestravel

Interesting about money expected at Police check points/road blocks. We did drive ourselves for a week of our month in Morocco. We went through many roadblocks and were never even stopped by the police. Just waved on through. However when we were with the drivers we hired, they were sometimes stopped and had to show credentials. Actually self driving in Morocco was fine. It was one of the best portions of our trip.