Moroccan highlights tour
Highlights
Casablanca | Fes | Meknes guided tour | Volubilis | Sahara Desert | Camel trek to Berber camp | Traditional Berber meal and entertainment | Todra Gorge | Visit to Berber cooperative | Ait Benhaddou guided tour | Marrakech guided tour |Description of Moroccan highlights tour
For a good overview of Morocco and its many highlights, it’s difficult to beat this eight-day small group tour. It begins in Casablanca, extravagantly beautiful with its mix of Moorish and art deco architecture, rich in culture and possessing a vibrant foodie scene.A three-hour drive brings you to the medieval city of Fes, where you can see the Hassan II Mosque, among the largest in the world. The tour briefly skips south to Meknes, where you can admire more superb architecture, or imbibe the atmosphere in the medina. After a guided tour of Fes, to see its potent dye pits, tanneries and pottery workshops, you’ll enjoy an unforgettable evening in the Sahara Desert, trekking by camel to a Berber camp for an evening of traditional food and music under the stars.
The Todra Gorge is a truly impressive sight, often referred to as Morocco’s answer to the Grand Canyon. The walls reach over 1000 feet at points, and you’ll have the option of doing a little rock climbing here, or simply exploring on foot, before heading on via a Berber cooperative - an excellent place to pick up some unique gifts.
Ait Benhaddou, with its ancient kasbahs, has provided a setting for countless films including ‘The Living Daylights’ and ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. You’ll tour this UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there will also be time to look around nearby Ouarzazate if you wish - the world’s biggest film studio.
Crossing over the High Atlas mountains, you’ll finish in Marrakech, with time set aside to explore the medina, or pick up some last-minute souvenirs, before you bid farewell to your companions and guides at dinner in the bustling Djemma El Fna square.
Travel Team
If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one we're very happy to help. The Travel Team.
01273 823 700 Calling from outside the UK? rosy@responsibletravel.comCheck dates
Responsible tourism
As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we screen every trip so you can travel knowing your holiday will help support conservation and local people.
WasteAll our travellers are sent detailed pre-departure information upon booking their trip. This includes information on travelling responsibly and minimising their impact on the local environment. A section is devoted to minimising waste whilst travelling. Travellers are encouraged to remove unnecessary packaging from items before leaving home (recycling facilities are often more accessible in home countries) and to use either rechargeable batteries , wind-up or solar-powered electrical items-such as torches, cameras and mobile phones.
At the start of your trip your Tour Leader will also remind the group of the importance of disposing of waste appropriately.
On this trip we spend one night out in the desert in a traditional Berber style camp. This helps to support the local community, in a wider sense-from the camel owners and guides, to the local food suppliers and cooks. This is of course, the ultimate form of low impact accommodation-there are no taps, lights, heating or air conditioning units to leave on and the tents can be packed up and moved on with minimal impact to the local environment. It also helps to create employment in areas where there is little other form of paid work.
Suppliers
Our local Moroccan operator is a key player in the Ait Ouhem Association for Development, a local, community-led organisation in the Atlas Mountains. For every Moroccan tour booked we donate £5 per passenger to help the Association achieve its goals which includes reforestation in the mountains around the village to try and limit further soil erosion.
The Impacts of this Trip
Friends and Neighbours
We are very keen generally, that the income from our trips is dispersed as widely as possible within the local community and goes to small local service providers and not multi-nationals. All the accommodation and restaurants we use on our trip are small locally-run establishments and all our guides are local Moroccans
Local Crafts and Culture
Similarly, we only support local co-operatives for purchasing of local crafts. At Todra Gorge for example, the head of the local carpet making and craft co-operative also shares his knowledge of the Gorge with us and does a short guided walk, before sharing a mint tea with us and talking to us about the co-operative.
Volunteering and Charity
We are proud to be working with the Ait Ouhem Association for Development, a local, community-led organisation in the Atlas Mountains. For every Moroccan tour booked we donate £5 per passenger to help the Association achieve its goals of:
1. Building a dispensary in the village to provide people with at least emergency first aid medical supplies. (The nearest hospital is 70 km away).
2. To provide houses with tap water.
3. Encouraging students of the village to continue their studies through buying necessary materials such as bags, books, books, pens.
4. To plant different trees in the mountains all around the village to stop or at least limit erosion.
5. Creating a textile cooperative for women so that they can earn a living that is otherwise not available to them.
WasteAll our travellers are sent detailed pre-departure information upon booking their trip. This includes information on travelling responsibly and minimising their impact on the local environment. A section is devoted to minimising waste whilst travelling. Travellers are encouraged to remove unnecessary packaging from items before leaving home (recycling facilities are often more accessible in home countries) and to use either rechargeable batteries , wind-up or solar-powered electrical items-such as torches, cameras and mobile phones.
At the start of your trip your Tour Leader will also remind the group of the importance of disposing of waste appropriately.
On this trip we spend one night out in the desert in a traditional Berber style camp. This helps to support the local community, in a wider sense-from the camel owners and guides, to the local food suppliers and cooks. This is of course, the ultimate form of low impact accommodation-there are no taps, lights, heating or air conditioning units to leave on and the tents can be packed up and moved on with minimal impact to the local environment. It also helps to create employment in areas where there is little other form of paid work.
Suppliers
Our local Moroccan operator is a key player in the Ait Ouhem Association for Development, a local, community-led organisation in the Atlas Mountains. For every Moroccan tour booked we donate £5 per passenger to help the Association achieve its goals which includes reforestation in the mountains around the village to try and limit further soil erosion.
The Impacts of this Trip
Friends and Neighbours
We are very keen generally, that the income from our trips is dispersed as widely as possible within the local community and goes to small local service providers and not multi-nationals. All the accommodation and restaurants we use on our trip are small locally-run establishments and all our guides are local Moroccans
Local Crafts and Culture
Similarly, we only support local co-operatives for purchasing of local crafts. At Todra Gorge for example, the head of the local carpet making and craft co-operative also shares his knowledge of the Gorge with us and does a short guided walk, before sharing a mint tea with us and talking to us about the co-operative.
Volunteering and Charity
We are proud to be working with the Ait Ouhem Association for Development, a local, community-led organisation in the Atlas Mountains. For every Moroccan tour booked we donate £5 per passenger to help the Association achieve its goals of:
1. Building a dispensary in the village to provide people with at least emergency first aid medical supplies. (The nearest hospital is 70 km away).
2. To provide houses with tap water.
3. Encouraging students of the village to continue their studies through buying necessary materials such as bags, books, books, pens.
4. To plant different trees in the mountains all around the village to stop or at least limit erosion.
5. Creating a textile cooperative for women so that they can earn a living that is otherwise not available to them.
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