Morocco Family Travel Guide

The Marrakech medina is overwhelming for young children and there is no shame in that. Alleys barely wide enough for two people, mopeds coming through them at speed, donkey carts, no street signs, and a level of sensory input that flattens most adults by hour two. Children under about six find it frightening rather than exciting. Older ones love it.

The Palmeraie and the Hivernage are the family compromise in Marrakech. A resort with a pool and a garden, fifteen or twenty minutes from the square by taxi. You go into the medina in the late afternoon, eat, and leave. Everyone sleeps.

Essaouira is the calm alternative and it is underrated. Two and a half hours from Marrakech on a good road. Atlantic wind, a walkable whitewashed medina about a tenth the intensity of Marrakech, a huge beach, camel rides on the sand, fresh fish grilled at the port. Families with children under eight are often happier basing here entirely.

The Atlas foothills are an hour from the airport and feel like another country. Imlil and the Ourika valley. Walking, mule rides, cool air in summer, kasbah hotels with pools looking at real mountains. This is my favorite place to put a family that wants Morocco without a crowd.

What a riad gives you. Character, a courtyard your kids can be loud in, breakfast on the roof, a host who will arrange everything, and a location deep inside the old city. Prices are often startlingly reasonable for a whole family.

What it costs you. Stairs, and lots of them, usually steep with open sides. Rooms that open onto a shared courtyard, so noise carries and a toddler bedtime is public. Rarely a pool, and if there is one it is a cold plunge. No elevator, and a taxi cannot reach the door, so you walk the last five or ten minutes with your bags.

My rule of thumb. Under five, book the hotel with the pool. Five to ten, split the trip, two nights in a riad and the rest somewhere with a garden. Over ten, book the riad and enjoy it, they will remember the roof terrace far longer than a pool.

Ask two questions before booking any riad. How many steps from the nearest vehicle access, and does the room you are being sold have a door that closes onto a corridor rather than straight onto the courtyard. Those two answers predict almost everything.

Marrakech to Merzouga is nine to ten hours each way. Over the Tizi n’Tichka pass, which is beautiful and full of switchbacks, then across hammada desert that is flat and brown for hours. The standard tour sells it as three days and two nights. That is two very long driving days for one night on the sand.

The pass makes people carsick. Not sometimes. Regularly. If anyone in your family is prone to it, medicate before you leave, not when it starts.

Zagora is closer and it is not the same. Zagora is around seven hours from Marrakech and the dunes there are small. Merzouga is where the enormous erg is. If you want the photograph, you have to do the distance. If you cannot face it, fly Marrakech to Errachidia or Ouarzazate and drive the shorter leg.

Is it worth it with kids. Yes, from about eight. A camel at sunset, sandboarding down a dune, drummers around a fire, and a sky with no light pollution in it. Children who are old enough to sit out a long drive get one of the best nights of their childhood. Under eight, do the Agafay stony desert an hour from Marrakech instead and be honest with yourself that it is a substitute.

Dress modestly outside the resort. Shoulders and knees covered for everyone, including kids over about ten. It is respect, and it cuts the attention in the medina by half.

Right hand for eating and giving. The left is considered unclean. Kids get a pass, adults do not.

Accept the tea. Mint tea is hospitality. Declining it is a small rudeness. Three glasses is the tradition, one is fine.

Haggle, and smile while you do it. Start at a third of the asking price in the souks, meet around half. It is a conversation, not a fight. Walking away is part of it.

Non Muslims do not enter working mosques. Except the Hassan II in Casablanca, which has tours. Photograph from outside and do not push it.

Self driving is fine outside the cities. Roads are good, signage is in Arabic and French, and the countryside is easy. City driving is not fine. Park the car and use taxis in Marrakech and Fes. Police checkpoints are frequent, routine and polite. Slow down, smile, carry your documents.

A car with a driver costs little more than a rental. Roughly a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a day for a vehicle, fuel and a driver who knows where the good lunch stop is. For a family covering distance this is the easy answer and it removes the checkpoint and parking questions entirely.

The train is excellent and the high speed line is a real surprise. Al Boraq runs Tangier to Casablanca in a bit over two hours at two hundred miles an hour. Regular ONCF trains link Casablanca, Rabat, Fes and Marrakech comfortably and cheaply. There is no train to Essaouira or the desert.

CTM and Supratours buses are the way to Essaouira and Chefchaouen. Air conditioned, assigned seats, book ahead online. Marrakech to Essaouira is about three hours and costs less than lunch.

The dirham is a closed currency. You cannot buy it before you arrive and you are not supposed to take much out. Withdraw at the airport ATM on arrival. Cards work in hotels and restaurants that cater to visitors, and nowhere else. The souk is cash.

No visa for Americans, Canadians, Brits or the EU for stays up to ninety days. Passport valid six months. That is the whole story, which makes Morocco one of the simplest long haul entries there is.

French is more useful than English. Arabic and Amazigh are the languages of the country, French is the language of business and tourism, and English is patchy outside Marrakech. A dozen words of French will change your trip. Your children learning shukran and merci will change it more.

Haggling is expected and it is not hostile. Start around a third, settle near half, and walk away if it stops being fun. If you do not want to buy, do not pick it up. Handling the item is read as the opening bid.

Five days. Marrakech only, in a riad. Souks, the Majorelle garden, a day trip to the Atlas for lunch in a Berber village. Enough with young kids.

Eight days. Marrakech for four, Essaouira on the coast for three. Cool, calm, a beach, camels on the sand. The perfect antidote to the medina.

Ten to twelve days. Marrakech, over the Atlas to the Dades Gorge, the Sahara at Merzouga for a night, back to Fes. A driver for the whole loop.

Fes and the north. Fes to Marrakech is seven hours by train or a short flight. Chefchaouen, the blue town, is a three hour drive from Fes and worth a night.

Marrakech. Four nights. A riad, the souks with a guide, Jardin Majorelle, the square at dusk, an Atlas day trip for lunch in a Berber village.

Essaouira. Three nights. The fishing port, the ramparts, camels on the beach, wind for the kite surfers.

The Sahara at Merzouga. One night in a camp. Camel ride at sunset, dinner under the stars, a dune to climb at dawn.

Fes. Two nights. The medina with a guide, the tanneries from a terrace, the medersas.

Chefchaouen. One night. Every wall is blue. Kids love it, photographers love it, the walk to the Spanish mosque at sunset.

There is no age floor, but there is an itinerary floor. Morocco works with a three year old if you base on the coast or in the mountains and do very little. It does not work with a three year old if you have booked a medina riad and a desert overnight. The country is not the problem, the plan is.

Leave the stroller at home. Cobbles, steps, crowds, alleys. A carrier for the little ones and shoes for everyone else. This is the single most common piece of feedback I get.

Moroccans adore children and it is not performative. Your kids will be given sweets, offered mint tea, invited behind counters. Shopkeepers who would work hard on you will simply be kind to them. It is one of the loveliest things about traveling there as a family.

Skip the snake charmers and the chained monkeys in the square. Photograph either and you will be charged, and the animals are not well kept. Tell the kids beforehand so it is a decision you made together rather than a fight in the middle of Jemaa el Fna.

It snows. The High Atlas holds snow into spring and there is a small ski resort at Oukaimeden. People picture Morocco as uniformly hot desert and then find themselves cold in a mountain guesthouse in March.

Ouarzazate is a film town. Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia and Game of Thrones were all shot around Ait Ben Haddou, and the studios run tours. It is a very easy win with teenagers on the way to the desert.

The hammam is a real experience and it is not a spa. Public ones are steam, black soap and a vigorous scrub from a stranger. Hotel versions are gentler. Older children find it hilarious. Nobody comes out neutral.

Non Muslims cannot enter most mosques. The Hassan II in Casablanca is the famous exception and it is worth building a day around. Elsewhere you admire the minaret from outside, which surprises people who assumed otherwise.

Marrakech. Four nights. A riad with a courtyard, the souks with a guide, Jardin Majorelle, the square at dusk, an Atlas day for lunch in a Berber village.

Essaouira. Three nights. The fishing port, the ramparts, camels on the beach, wind for the kite surfers, seafood grilled at the harbor.

The Sahara. One night in a camp at Merzouga. Camels at sunset, dinner under the stars, a dune to climb at dawn. A long drive or a flight to Errachidia.