Marrakech to Fes by Road: The Most Spectacular Drive in Africa

Why This Is One of the World's Great Road Journeys

The direct Marrakech–Fes highway takes 6 hours and is almost entirely unremarkable. The scenic overland route — crossing the High Atlas, dipping into the Saharan south, and climbing back through the Middle Atlas — takes 3 days and crosses three completely different Moroccos.

This is not a road trip you rush. Every stop along the route is a destination in its own right.

Day 1 — Marrakech → Tizi n'Tichka → Aït Ben Haddou → Ouarzazate

The High Atlas Pass (Tizi n'Tichka, 2,260 m) The first 90 minutes from Marrakech ascend the High Atlas via one of Morocco's most dramatic mountain roads. The Tizi n'Tichka pass sits at 2,260 m — high enough for snow in winter — and offers sweeping views back towards the Haouz plain and south towards the pre-Saharan desert.

Aït Ben Haddou UNESCO World Heritage Ksar, 30 km north of Ouarzazate. This extraordinary fortified mud-brick village has appeared in more Hollywood films than almost any location on earth — Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy. Allow 2 hours to walk through the ksar and climb to the granary at the top.

Ouarzazate The self-styled "door of the desert" — a pleasant small city with a large kasbah and several riad hotels. Overnight here. It is also Morocco's film capital, and if you have an afternoon spare our Ouarzazate and Ouallywood guide covers the studios and which sets you can actually walk onto.

Day 2 — Ouarzazate → Draa Valley → Todra Gorge → Midelt

Draa Valley Palmery The road south from Ouarzazate follows the Draa River through 200 km of date palm groves, ancient ksour (fortified villages), and pre-Saharan hammada. This is southern Morocco at its most cinematic. Stop at Agdz and Zagora for tea and a walk through the market.

Todra Gorge Enormous 300 m red limestone walls squeezed to just 10 metres apart at the gorge floor. The late afternoon light turns the canyon walls orange. Rock climbers come from across Europe for the walls; for everyone else, a 30-minute walk through the gorge is sufficient and extraordinary.

Midelt A small town in the high plain between the High and Middle Atlas, surrounded by cedar forest. A useful overnight stop and genuinely pleasant in autumn when the apple orchards around the town are in season.

Day 3 — Midelt → Ifrane → Azrou Cedar Forest → Fes

Ifrane — Morocco's Alpine Village An unexpected colonial-era mountain town built in the 1930s that looks unmistakably Swiss — red-pitched roofs, neat parks, a ski resort. At 1,665 m it is dramatically cooler than the surrounding lowlands. The stone lion sculpture in the town centre is the most photographed object in Ifrane.

Azrou Cedar Forest A few kilometres from Ifrane, the ancient cedar forest of Azrou is the best place in Morocco to encounter wild Barbary macaques — the only wild primates in Africa north of the Sahara. They come to the roadside and will take fruit from your hand, which makes for a memorable stop but is worth some perspective: the species has gone from an estimated 20,000-plus individuals in the 1970s to a fraction of that today, and it has been listed as Endangered since 2008, with these Middle Atlas cedar forests holding one of its last strongholds. Note: do not feed them anything processed — beyond the obvious harm, wild macaques that become dependent on roadside handouts are part of why the population's natural foraging behaviour has been disrupted in exactly these forests.

Fes el-Bali Arrive in Fes by late afternoon. Check in to a riad inside or near the medina walls. Fes el-Bali is one of the world's largest car-free urban areas and the most complete surviving medieval city on earth. Give yourself a full day here: the Chouara tanneries, Al-Qarawiyyin, the Medersa Bou Inania, and the thousand-year-old souks.

Al-Qarawiyyin deserves more than a passing mention. Founded in 859 as a mosque and centre of learning by Fatima al-Fihri — a Tunisian-born woman using her own inheritance to fund an 18-year construction project — it holds the Guinness World Record and UNESCO recognition as the oldest continually operating institution of higher learning anywhere on Earth, predating Europe's oldest universities by centuries. Over the following thousand years its library and lecture halls drew scholars whose names now belong to the wider history of ideas, including the philosopher Averroes and the physician-philosopher Maimonides; one account even credits Gerbert of Aurillac, a scholar who studied here before eventually becoming Pope Sylvester II, with helping carry Arabic numerals into medieval Europe. Much of the complex remains a working mosque and library rather than a museum, so access for non-Muslim visitors is limited — but simply standing outside it, in a city that has been continuously producing scholarship since the 9th century, is a different thing than reading about it.

How many days for the imperial cities

The route above is one way north. If the imperial cities are the point of the trip, the useful questions are how long each one needs, which ones deserve a night, and how far apart they are. These are the times our own drivers plan on.

And what that adds up to:

The 5-day loop from Marrakech is the gentlest of these: no day has more than about 7 hours on the road, and Fes gets a full day on foot.

Practical Notes

Driving yourself vs. guided tour The route is driveable in a standard car except immediately after heavy snowfall on the Tichka pass in winter. That said, navigating southern Morocco without a local guide means missing a great deal of context — the history of every ksar, the right place to stop for lunch, shortcuts through the palmery. Our 3-day guided tour covers the full route with a private 4x4 and experienced guide.

Where to stay

• Ouarzazate: La Maison Arabe des Roses, Riad Dar Zitoune
• Todra/Midelt: Kasbah Aït Ben Moro or Hôtel Ayour
• Fes: Riad Laaroussa, Riad Dar Roumana (book at least 3 months in advance in peak season)

What to budget Riad rooms in Ouarzazate and Midelt: €45–90/night. Fes riads: €75–185/night. The full 3-day guided tour (private 4x4, English-speaking guide, 2 nights riad accommodation, breakfast daily) is €572 per person for two, falling to €446 each for four.

If you are weighing this against the train, or wondering which parts of Morocco the railway actually reaches, see getting around Morocco — trains, buses, grands taxis and where each stops being useful.