L'Ma Lodge

Marrakesh, Mountains & Ocean

Classic Beach + 1 more + 2 more

A classic Moroccan trio: Marrakesh, the Atlas Mountains & Essaouira.

11 days

from £2,455 pp

Northern Circuit of Morocco

Foodie Culture & History + 1 more + 2 more

A journey around Morocco's lesser-visited northern highlights.

10 days

from £3,620 pp

Journey to the Sahara

Off-the-beaten-track Adventure

Luxury desert camps, Berber culture, and endless landscapes.

10 days

from £3,550 pp

Morocco with Teenagers

Family Adventure + 2 more + 3 more

The best of Morocco, designed for all ages.

10 days

from £2,640 pp

Go Local in Morocco

Go Local Off-the-beaten-track + 2 more + 3 more

Experience the real Morocco with 11 days of authentic experiences.

11 days

from £3,470 pp

Morocco Family Break

Family Beach + 1 more + 2 more

A family adventure through the best of Morocco.

9 days

from £2,135 pp

Quirky excursions

View all excursions in Morocco

Telouet and the Glaoui Valley

The Ounila Valley linking Telouet and Ait Ben Haddou was the heartland of the Glaoui clan, a local tribe used by the French to pacify the south of Morocco and who came to be hugely powerful as a consequence. Madani and T’hami El Glaoui were both born in Telouet and enough remains of the vast kasbah complex they built there to give you an idea of the scale of their ambition and egos. A dirt road leads south along the Ounila Valley past endless crumbling kasbahs and fortified villages; seeing their ruin today it’s hard to imagine that this is where half of Morocco was effectively ruled from. You emerge from the picturesque valley past the Kasbah of Tamdhakht, a nice appetizer before the main course of Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou.

Atlas Film Studios

As the legion of restored kasbahs with starring roles in Hollywood movies attests, Ouarzazate is the hub of the Moroccan film industry, and many great and famous films and series have been shot here, from Lawrence of Arabia to Game Of Thrones. The Atlas Film Studio is one of the key studios, the largest in the world, and still containing sets from some of its most famous shoots. Official tours are run, walking you through Egyptian temples, Tibetan palaces, Arabian fortresses – all rendered in exquisite detail, so much so that it’s almost a shock to walk behind the sets and realise it’s all fake!

Dades Valley & Todra Gorge

Carving away from the main road and up into the mountains of the High Atlas, the Dades Gorge runs through knobbly, striated bands of rock that have been carved and smoothed by centuries of wind and water. Villages cling to steep hillsides, usually presided over by a crumbling kasbah, and palm plantations and orchards tenaciously colonise any flat space. As you press deeper into the gorge you reach the most famous section, a furiously zigzagging stretch of hairpins. For those with the time and a love of dramatic scenery, heading over here and linking up with the Todra Gorge to drive back down to the main road is incredibly rewarding. Rising in a similar part of the Atlas to the Dades, the Todra river carves its way out of the mountains via a spectacular gorge and then flows eastwards towards the Sahara. Near the Todra Gorge, the village of Tineghir is sculpted along the edge of the valley with views out over the plantations and fields of the valley floor; it’s a mixture of more modern buildings (still to an identifiably traditional design) and older kasbahs, a pleasing prospect. Tineghir is one of the better options for exploring the region and breaking the journey to and from the sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi.

Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou

With more film credits than most Oscar winners, stretching back as far as Lawrence Of Arabia in 1962, and right up to the present day with Son Of God and Game Of Thrones, Ait Ben Haddou is one of the most iconic destinations in Morocco. The gorgeous red-mud pisé walls of this ksar (fortified village) and kasbah (fort) seem to rise organically out of the hillside, leading down to a palm-fringed river bed. Thanks to a UNESCO grant, the ksar is now inhabited again, meaning that the endless cycle of repairing the walls after each rainy season has been taken up again. Ait Ben Haddou looks as wonderful as ever and wandering through the narrow streets is genuinely like walking back in time.