My husband and I will be spending 16 days mid-end of September. Does anyone know of a private guide/driver who can take us around? Also anyone familiar with the weather in September? Lastly, any recommendations for itineraries?
Posted by
Washington DC
27593 posts
Weather varies within Morocco. Check each city you might visit on wunderground.com. It has day-by-day historical temperature stats going back years, as well as monthly averages.
Cities I enjoyed include Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. Fes was my favorite--great crafts and (decades ago) less touristy than Marrakech. Fes and Marrakech are both multi-day destinations as far as I'm concerned.
The drive over the Tizi-n-Test Pass from Marrakech to Taroudant is very dramatic.
I've read that the coastal city of Essaouira is nice but haven't been there.
Casablanca is a modern city without the atmosphere you're looking for. Plan as little time there as possible unless your research reveals something of special interest to you (like a museum).
Get a good guidebook and read about your options. Make a list that will give a variety of experiences, being sure to visit spots both north and south of the Atlas Mountains. Then figure out how much time it will take to move from city to city. It won't be fast. I don't know how easy it will be to find a guide/driver to take you around the country (if that's what you're looking for), but that would be the fastest way to travel other than flying, and I don't know how many internal flights are available. You can use ViaMichelin.com to get estimates of driving times.
Posted by
Pacific Northwest
2668 posts
I just came back from Egypt and used Egypt and Beyond Travel to set up a private tour around Egypt. They do Morocco as well. They'll set up anything you want and offer suggestions as you plan. I really liked the company. They took extraordinarily good care of us, their staff was great and they were very professional.
Posted by
23 posts
My husband and I were in Morocco in September 2015 for 2 weeks. The weather was perfect. We never needed a car, and found transportation easy to get to and from cities...busses and trains. We flew from Seville Spain into Marrakesh on a cheap flight on Ryan air or Easy Jet and were there for 3 days. We stayed in the medina at a riad. Our host arranged a tour of the medina. All guides are state sanctioned and even if you tell them you are not buying...you will be lead to various vendors to buy. Just enjoy the experience, smile and be polite, but you don't have to buy. One of our best experiences was a walking tour of Berber villages. We hired Jamel from Berber adventures. He was wonderful...sent his taxi driver to get us in Marrakesh and off we went into the desert. There are a few levels of adventures you can sign up for, we did a mid level walking one hiking through small villages and stopping at two to have tea with one family and the lunch with another. It's nice to bring cash to give them....a small token for us and hugely appreciated by them.
From Marrakesh we took trains to explore Rabat, then Meknes, then Fes, before returning to Marrakesh for a brief stay and then a bus on to Essaouira. We stayed in the medinas in each town, renting a room in riads. In hindsight, we might have chosen to not stay in every medina, as it was a constant bombardment of the senses! It would have been nice to have a respite from that occasionally. We decided against going to Casablanca, from suggestions we received from others. Each town had it's own flavor and we were pleased with our choices. Essaouira was our vacation within our vacation. It is easy to navigate through the medina as it is an open air market. Everywhere we went there were always hordes of men waiting to carry your bags or give you tours. Some are very aggressive, but just politely push on. In the medinas, some young men wait in anticiaption of you becoming lost, and they are at the ready to help you. Just be prepared for that, and it is very easy to get lost. Most riads or hotels will pick you up at the train station or make arrangements. We were cautioned not to eat anything that wasn't cooked and stick with bottled water. We got shots and had meds prescribed to us before we left from home. Even with these precautions, my husband did get sick the last week we were there. I was lucky and can only figure out it may have been a banana he ate. The places we wish we had time for was the atlas mountains. Apparently they are beautiful and quite the vacation spot for Moroccans. Many Moroccans say they avoid Marrakesh. It can be crazy there for sure. I would be happy to answer any more questions you might have.