What are the best day trips from Imlil?

Imlil is a trekking village, not a sightseeing town, so here the "day trips" are walks — and that’s exactly why people love basing here. The gentlest and most rewarding is the loop up to Aroumd (Around), the largest Berber village in the valley, about 45 minutes on foot up a stony track. It sits on a moraine above a wide floodplain of walnut and cherry orchards, with Toubkal’s ridge filling the sky behind it. Have a tea on a rooftop, watch the village go about its day, and you’ve had a perfect morning without any real effort.

For something with more altitude but no technical climbing, walk up the Toubkal trail as far as Sidi Chamharouch — roughly three hours up, gaining real height, to a whitewashed shrine perched by a waterfall where a boulder marks a holy site that non-Muslims aren’t allowed to cross. Mule trains pass you carrying supplies to the refuges higher up. You turn around there, descend in the cool of the afternoon, and you’ve tasted the high mountains without committing to the summit.

Closer to base, the short climb to Tamatert and the col above Imlil gives big views for an hour’s walk, and the Kasbah du Toubkal — the famous lodge above the village, used in Scorsese’s Kundun — makes a lovely lunch or tea stop with the best terrace panorama in the valley. These are the outings I give people on an acclimatisation day or when they just want to soak up the High Atlas at a Berber pace.

The big one, of course, is Mount Toubkal itself — at 4,167 metres the highest peak in North Africa. That’s genuinely a two-day trek with a night at the refuge, not a day trip, and you need a guide, proper gear and a head for altitude. But many guests do a satisfying day on its lower flanks and leave the summit for a future return. Honestly, the magic of Imlil is that you can do almost nothing strenuous and still walk through some of the most beautiful mountain country in Morocco.