Things to do in Morocco: 34 experiences worth the trip

Half a dayFree

Covered lanes where each trade keeps its own street, from spices and dyes to the metalworkers of Souk Haddadine and their lanterns.

One night, two or three days from MarrakechBook ahead

Ride a camel into the dunes in the late afternoon, sleep in a tented camp and wake to the dunes at dawn.

A meal, or half a day with a cooking classNo booking needed

Chicken with preserved lemon or lamb with prunes, slow-cooked over charcoal, then a visit to the potteries where the pots are thrown.

A full day, better a nightFree

Whitewashed houses with powder-blue walls, doors and steps against the Rif mountains, walked early, before the day-trip coaches arrive.

An hour around sunsetFree

At sunset the minarets of Fes el-Bali answer one another across the valley, slightly out of step; hear it from a terrace.

A lesson of a few hours, or a week's surf campBook ahead

Learn to surf on the sandy beach breaks south of Taghazout, a fishing village turned one of North Africa's best-known surf towns.

An evening and the next morningFree

A fortified earthen village whose mud-brick walls change colour with the light; watch its last hour of sun from across the river.

1 to 2 hoursBook ahead

Sweat in the warm rooms, then get scrubbed hard with a kessa glove until the dead skin rolls off: Morocco's weekly hammam ritual.

Half a day from TinghirFree

Walk the narrows of the Todra Gorge, as little as 10 metres wide between smooth rock walls up to 160 metres high.

An hour at sunsetFree

Mint tea poured from a height on a roof terrace above Essaouira's sea walls, as the gulls circle the fishing boats coming in.

An eveningFree

As the sun sets the food stalls go up in rows and Jemaa el-Fna fills with smoke and noise until late.

2 to 3 hours for the loopNo booking needed

Climb out of the Todra Gorge on a half-day loop over a saddle and back, past a small Berber encampment.

About 1 hour for the tourBook ahead

Morocco's largest mosque, built partly over the sea, and one of the very few in the country that non-Muslims can enter.

30 minutes on a terraceFree

Look down on a honeycomb of stone vats where hides are still soaked and dyed by hand, as they have been for centuries.

2 hours on site, a day with MeknesNo booking needed

Roman mosaics still in place on the floors of rich houses, among them a chariot race driven by animals in the House of Venus.

1 to 2 hoursNo booking needed

Slide down the steep lee faces of dunes up to about 150 metres high, slow and soft, then the view from the crest.

1 to 2 hoursFree

Climb the lanes of earthen houses and towers to the ruined granary on top, over the Ounila valley and the old caravan road.

1 hour, 2 with the museumsTimed entry

A painter's garden around a studio in deep cobalt Majorelle blue, restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé; book the first entry.

A full day from MarrakechNo booking needed

Waterfalls dropping in tiers about 110 metres into a gorge, with a path down through olive groves to the pools at the bottom.

About an hourFree

Walk a two-level rampart lined with old cannons, facing the Atlantic and the rocks below, then drop into lanes where woodworkers carve thuya.

About 1 hourNo booking needed

Cedar ceilings, zellij and stucco in a vizier's palace that shows how Morocco's elite lived at the end of the 19th century.

Half a day to a full dayNo booking needed

Green pools and waterfalls where the Farda river cuts through limestone, and a natural rock arch high over the river.

Four days in JuneBook ahead

Four June days when Gnawa master musicians share open-air stages in Essaouira with jazz, pop and world musicians, many concerts free.

30 to 45 minutesFree

Quiet zellij-floored courtyards lead to a patio of twelve marble columns, in one of the few Moroccan shrines open to non-Muslims.

30 to 45 minutesNo booking needed

The tomb room of the richest Saadian sultan, carved cedar, stucco and marble columns around the graves, seen from the doorway.

1 to 2 hours with the kasbahFree

White and blue lanes on a cliff over the Atlantic, a sunken garden of orange trees, then mint tea over the river to Salé.

About 1 hour with the mausoleumFree

Column stumps and an unfinished minaret meant to be the world's largest, abandoned when the caliph died in 1199.

1 to 2 hoursNo booking needed

Walk among temples, palaces and whole street fronts left standing in the desert by past film productions.

Half a dayFree

Each summer invited artists paint new murals on the white walls of a small Atlantic medina, then the sea air slowly fades them.

45 to 60 minutes in the air, about 4 hours in allBook ahead

Drift at sunrise above villages, palm groves and the stony plain outside Marrakech, with the High Atlas on the horizon on a clear morning.

An hour or twoFree

Simple terraces stepping down a cliff above the Strait of Gibraltar, a glass of mint tea, and ships passing with Spain across the water.

About 1 hourNo booking needed

A long pool, zellij, carved stucco and cedar in the courtyard, and upstairs the tiny student cells that show how cramped student life was.

2 days from ImlilBook ahead

North Africa's highest mountain, 4,167 metres, climbed in two days from Imlil with a night in a stone refuge.

Half a dayNo booking needed

Follow the spine of a vast car-free medina downhill from the blue-tiled gate, stopping at two richly decorated madrasas open to everyone.