Mark and I do a lot of independent travel. We enjoy the freedom and flexibility that goes with ‘doing our own thing’. However, this type of travel can be exhausting! When we completed our two-month trip around southern India, we felt like we needed a holiday! Sometimes, we prefer to join a tour. It’s great not to have to worry about where we’re staying each night or how to get there. We can just enjoy the experience.
What follows is a review of Intrepid’s amazing ‘Morocco Encompassed’ tour that we’ve just completed.
If you would rather visit Morocco independently, check out this comprehensive 10-day itinerary.
In this article
Essentials
- Name of Tour – Morocco Encompassed (Code XMSQC)
- Operator – Intrepid
- Countries Visited – Morocco
- Crew – 1 Intrepid tour leader, 1 driver who was with us for 5 days plus local guides
- Number of Passengers – maximum 16
- Duration – 18 days
- Itinerary – Day 1 Casablanca, Day 2 Rabat/Moulay Idriss, Day 3 Volubilis/Fez, Day 4 Fez, Day 5/6 Chefchaouen, Day 7 Tangier, Day 8/9 Marrakech, Day 10 Aroumd, Day 11 Ait Benhaddou, Day 12 Zagora, Day 13 Sahara Camp, Day 14 Taroudant, Day 15/16 Essaouira, Day 17/18 Marrakech
- Cost – from $1515 US
What Happened Before our Morocco Encompassed Tour
We booked our trip directly with Intrepid on this occasion, but we could just as easily have booked through TourRadar, a platform which offers tours from many operators and which often has better offers than booking direct.
Our pre-departure information from Intrepid was second to none. They provide detailed trip notes including advice on visas and suggestions on what to take with you. Their customer service team are very good if you have any queries before you go.
We wanted to add on a few days in Casablanca before the start of our tour and also in Marrakech at the end. We enquired with Intrepid as to the cost of extra nights in the hotels used on the trip. They were very quick with their response and handled the bookings efficiently.
What Happened During our Morocco Encompassed Tour
Meet and Greet
Our ‘meet and greet’ took place in the restaurant of the joining hotel at 6pm on day one of the tour. It was a chance for us to meet our guide, Hamid, and our fellow travellers. Because the ‘Morocco Encompassed’ tour is made up of two other trips (one covering northern Morocco and the other travelling to the south), Hamid didn’t know at this stage if he would be with us for the duration. Also, the make-up of our group would change at the mid-way point. As it transpired, Hamid did indeed stay with us for the entire eighteen days and, of the fifteen passengers on the first leg (2 Americans, 3 Canadians, 6 Australians, 2 New Zealanders, and us), six of us continued for the whole thing.
Hamid was engaging, friendly and informative with a great sense of humour. His five years of experience in the job shone through; he immediately put us all at our ease and answered any concerns we had. He gave us all the details we needed to get the most out of the trip without overloading us. We all left the meeting feeling excited about what was to come. Several of us went to a local restaurant and had dinner together, beginning to form friendships that I’m sure will endure.
We had a second ‘meet and greet’ at the end of the first half of the trip. By then, those of us who were continuing had got to know each other and Hamid very well. It could have been awkward for the ‘newbies’! Hamid, however, did a great job of integrating them into our group. We continued happily into phase two joined by a family of four from New Zealand, a German couple and a Canadian lady.
A nice touch when you do an Intrepid tour is that you are given an attractive canvas bag at the welcome meeting, part of the company’s green ethos. Hamid gave us a bag each for each leg of the trip so we came away with four of them which we used both on this trip and our subsequent tour around West Africa.
Transport
Our transport on the tour was, mainly, a comfortable private minibus, although, in line with Intrepid’s policy to give guests a local experience, we did also travel by train, taxi, public bus and 4WD.
We had some long driving days on the minibus which some of the group found difficult, but any discomfort was more than made up for by the amazing views and the chance to stop whenever we saw something interesting – like lots of goats in a tree, for example! It was also important that we changed seats each day so that nobody was stuck with always sitting at the back – not the most comfortable seats when driving along rough roads!
One journey that none of our group was looking forward to was the overnight train from Tangier to Marrakech. In the event, it was not as bad as we had feared, though sleep was a little hard to come by! We were put into groups of four to share a sleeper compartment. The bunks were reasonably comfortable, but the carriage was so hot that it made for a sticky night. Trying to get cleaned up in the morning in a bathroom with no water was interesting. Luckily, I never go anywhere without a pack of wet wipes!
Accommodation
We stayed in a variety of different accommodation during our trip. All were of a decent standard and some were real gems that we would definitely choose to stay in again if we return to Morocco.
Hotels
For ten nights of our trip, we stayed in hotels.
Our joining hotel in Casablanca was clean and comfortable and served a very good breakfast. It was conveniently located very close to the central station meaning that we had just a short walk to catch our train to Rabat when we left the city.
In Fes, our hotel was located in the new town (so-called because it is only 700 years old!), a twenty-minute drive to the medina. We spent two nights here. The hotel was fine if a bit nondescript – to be honest, I’m struggling to recall it as I write this a few weeks after being there! I do remember that there was an off-licence across the road, a rarity in Morocco and a welcome sight for some members of our group!
The next hotel we stayed in was in Chefchaouen, the blue city. This was much more memorable! The Dar Echaouen is a typical Moroccan building with rich sand-coloured walls and vibrant blue paintwork. It has a glorious garden filled with comfortable sofas and vibrant, fragrant blooms. The rooms are very pretty and super-comfortable. Ours had an amazing view over the swimming pool and the city beyond. The buffet breakfast was delicious and the pool was a very welcome relief from the heat of downtown Chefchaouen. We spent a very enjoyable two nights here.
In Marrakech, our hotel was very comfortable with a small plunge pool and a restaurant that served incredible, if a little expensive, food! By the time we reached here, we were all a little tired of couscous and tagine, delicious though they are, and we were grateful to be able to choose fish or steak or lamb or pasta – anything but couscous! We spent two nights here at the mid-point of the tour and returned for a further night at the end.
We stayed in two other hotels – in Ait Benhaddou and Zagora. Both were very nice and had swimming pools and clean, spacious rooms.
Guesthouse
We spent one night in a family-owned chambre d’hotes in the holy city of Moulay Idris. This was a real highlight. Intrepid supports local businesses wherever possible and this guesthouse is one of the success stories. Hamid explained that when Intrepid first began taking groups to Moulay Idris, this was just a restaurant where they would have a meal before leaving the town to stay somewhere else. Over the years, the family, with Intrepid’s help, have extended and now have several ensuite rooms built in the Berber style around an interior courtyard. The accommodation is rustic but very comfortable. There is a roof terrace with stunning views over the city, the perfect spot to enjoy our complimentary mint tea on arrival.
Our hosts, Mohammed and Rashida, were very friendly and welcoming. Before dinner, we all crammed into Rashida’s tiny kitchen to learn how to cook couscous properly – it involves much more than pouring boiling water over it! The meal that followed was an absolute feast: olives, ratatouille and bread to start, home-made soup, couscous with vegetables, meatballs in tomato sauce with omelette, roast spiced chicken, and fresh melon and grapes to finish. Delicious!!
Sleeper Train
As I’ve already mentioned, we spent one night of our trip on the sleeper train from Tangier to Marrakech. All I can say is that it wasn’t as bad as some of our number had feared!
Gite
In the High Atlas Mountains, we stayed in a stone-built gite in the village of Aroumd. Here, the accommodation is in shared dorms, but because we were the only guests and because our group was quite small, we were allocated individual rooms and just had to share the bathrooms – no great hardship! The food we were served here was delicious. The only downside was that the gite was really cold. It is located at altitude and consequently, the temperature was considerably lower than anywhere else we went.
Campsite
We spent one night at a campsite in the Sahara Desert. This was another trip highlight. The ‘tents’ were very comfortable with proper beds to sleep on and electric lights. The staff prepared us a fabulous meal and afterwards, we sang songs and danced around the campfire! Some of our group chose to pull their beds out of their tents and sleep under the stars. A truly memorable experience!
Riads
The first riad we stayed in was a former palace near Taroudant. The rooms had echoes of former grandeur but were somewhat decaying – I could describe them as ‘shabby chic’ if I were being generous! The grounds and swimming pool, though, were stunning, as was the dining room, complete with chandeliers. The weather was warm enough, however, for us to enjoy our meals al fresco. We felt very privileged to be dining in such opulent surroundings.
We also spent two nights in a riad in Essaouira. This was a traditionally-built riad with the three storeys of rooms located around an inner courtyard. It was beautifully decorated with elaborate carpets, lush plants and fine pottery.
Food
We ate unbelievably well on this trip!! Moroccan food is incredible!! We feasted on tagines, tasty stews, dried fruits, Berber omelettes, pastillas, fresh salads, dips, and Moroccan doughnuts.
As well as dining in restaurants, we also had the opportunity to eat in people’s homes which gave us a real insight into how Moroccans live and how important food is to family life and the nation’s culture. I’ve already talked about the amazing dinner we had at the family-run guesthouse in Moulay Idris. For breakfast the next morning, Rashida prepared delicious crispy pancakes served with apricots and honey followed by home-baked crusty bread with eggs and olives. What a fantastic way to start the day!
On the evening we were taking the night train to Marrakech, we went to the home of a friend of Hamid for dinner. We sat on plush upholstered bench seats and dined on harrira, a spicy tomato and chickpea soup, zingy lemon chicken with rice, vegetable tagine with couscous, and fresh melon served with homemade pastries.
We enjoyed some wonderful regional specialities throughout our trip, too – creamy, home-made goat’s cheese served with spicy fig chutney in Chefchaouen, rabbit stew with prunes in the High Atlas Mountains, sweet chicken pastillas in Fes, date ice cream in Zagora, and barbecued camel burgers in a smoke-filled cabin in Meknes.
One of our most memorable meals was in Essaouira. Making the most of being in this famous fishing town, we gave Hamid some money to shop for us in the fish market. He took our ‘catch’ to be prepared at a local restaurant. Here, we enjoyed a feast of fresh fish and seafood – sole, sea bream, sardines, shrimps, calamari, huge prawns, and other local fish we couldn’t identify. The platters just kept on coming! The fish was all barbecued and served with Moroccan salad and fresh crusty bread. Dessert was simply segments of juicy orange. So delicious!!
There were also a couple of occasions on long drive days when we eschewed restaurants and bought provisions from a supermarket instead, finding a picnic spot en route to enjoy our lunch.
Itinerary
The itinerary for our trip was very well put together. It was so varied, giving us every opportunity to learn about the culture, the history, the people, the cuisine, the music, and the traditions of Morocco. We covered an awful lot of ground and saw and did so much in eighteen days and yet we never felt overwhelmed. There always seemed to be time to reflect on what we’d seen or simply relax in a garden or by a pool.
There were some long driving days, but these were broken up with stops for coffee or to take photos – and the scenery was spectacular!
Highlights
In a trip packed with interesting experiences, it’s hard to choose the best. However, for me, there were two highlights:
Moulay Idris
The holy city of Moulay Idris was closed to non-Muslims until 2005 and still attracts fewer visitors than the more well-known places in Morocco. In fact, once evening came, we appeared to be the only tourists in town. We enjoyed a guided walk through the picturesque streets, tasted bread straight from the public oven, and watched the sunset as we listened to the call to prayer sung from three different minarets. It was a truly special moment, enhanced by Mohammed and Rashid’s hospitality at their guesthouse (see above).
Camping in the Sahara
Spending the night in the Sahara Desert was a real highlight. Just sitting on the top of a dune and watching the sunset was incredible. Then, the guys working in the camp cooked us the best tagine we had in our entire trip and, later, they entertained us with Berber songs around the campfire. The next morning, we were up at dawn to see the sunrise. A once in a lifetime experience.
Lowlights
There really wasn’t anything we didn’t like. Morocco is a magnet for tourists so, if there was a downside to the trip, it would be the number of visitors everywhere! We could hardly move in the beautiful blue city of Chefchaouen for tourists. We had the same problem in the medina in Fes and the markets of Marrakech. Perhaps, it would have been less crowded if we’d visited in the depths of winter? We can hardly complain about the tourists, though, can we? Not when we ourselves were swelling the numbers!!
What did we Think of the Tour?
We loved it!!
Intrepid more than delivered in terms of organisation and logistics – we would definitely book with them again. Their representative on the ground, Hamid, was the best guide we have ever had anywhere in the world!
We thought the trip represented very good value for money, too. Had we travelled independently, it would have cost us a lot more and we would have missed out on so much local insight.
READ MY COMPLETE MOROCCO TRAVEL GUIDE
WATCH THESE AMAZING VIDEOS!!
I had the pleasure of meeting travel documentary maker, Karl Watson, during Traverse 19 in Trento. He was very generous in giving me some useful photography tips.
In September 2019, in conjunction with Intrepid, he organised his first small group trip to Morocco. Our very own Hamid was the guide! Karl has produced two videos documenting his experience. They are incredible pieces of work. Check them out to see Hamid at work and to get a better idea of what you’ll see if you book an Intrepid tour to Morocco.
If these films don’t convince you to put Morocco at the top of your bucket list, nothing will!!
READ MORE ABOUT MOROCCO!!
Check out my Morocco colouring books!
Unlike most colouring books on the market, mine, suitable for both adults and older children, are full of line images created from photos I have taken on my travels. This means that they are highly detailed. They are not line drawings where you can colour between every line. The pictures invite you to be creative. Apply a colour wash with watercolour. Use coloured pencils to create texture. Blend colours together. Add detail with a fine ink pen. The choice is yours! Create your own work of art! When you’re happy, remove it from the book. Stick it on the fridge as a reminder of a place you’ve already been to or somewhere that’s on your bucket list. You could even get it framed. Display it on the wall for people to admire.
Here is a selection of my Morocco titles:
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