What is the best region in Morocco for hiking and trekking?

If you want to hike in Morocco, the High Atlas is the answer, and it is not especially close. The range rises steeply just south of Marrakech, which makes it gloriously accessible — you can be at a trailhead in Imlil within ninety minutes of the city. From there the options fan out across every fitness level. Easy valley walks through Berber villages and walnut groves, day hikes up to mountain refuges, and for the ambitious, the two-day push up Mount Toubkal at 4,167 metres, the highest summit in North Africa.

I love the Atlas for hiking because the culture is part of the trail, not separate from it. You walk between villages where mules still do the heavy carrying, you stop for mint tea with a Berber family, you sleep in a gîte or a refuge rather than camping cold. The scenery shifts fast — terraced fields give way to bare rock and snow on the high passes. Spring (April–May) and autumn (September–October) are the sweet spots; summer is hot at low altitude, and winter brings real snow that needs proper gear and a guide.

Toubkal is the trophy, and it is non-technical in good conditions — no ropes, just a long, steep, oxygen-thin slog. But people underestimate it. Altitude, scree, and pre-dawn starts catch out the unprepared, and in winter it genuinely needs crampons, an ice axe, and a mountain guide who knows the avalanche picture. If you are fit and acclimatise sensibly, it is one of the most satisfying summits anywhere. If you are not a confident mountain walker, the lower valley routes are spectacular and ask far less of you.

For something wilder, look beyond Toubkal. The M'Goun massif east of the main range offers multi-day treks through gorges and high plateaus with a fraction of the foot traffic — my pick for trekkers who want solitude. The Rif mountains behind Chefchaouen give greener, gentler walking with that blue-city base. And the Anti-Atlas and the desert fringes offer stark, rocky day hikes. But for the combination of access, infrastructure, scenery, and that headline summit, the High Atlas wins, and it is where I send almost everyone who comes to walk.