What is the biggest regret travellers have about their Morocco trip?

I have debriefed a lot of travellers, and the single most common regret is remarkably consistent: "we drove too much." It is not the heat, not the haggling, not the food — it is the hours lost to the road because the itinerary tried to do too much. Morocco’s distances and winding mountain and desert roads catch people out, and a plan that looked ambitious and exciting on paper becomes, in practice, a series of long transfers with the country flashing past the window. This is the regret to design against above all others.

The closely related regret is rushing the desert. People understandably want the Sahara, but they squeeze it into too few days, end up doing a punishing dash, and arrive at the dunes too tired and too briefly to feel the magic. The travellers who gave the desert a proper overnight talk about it for years; the ones who rushed it often say it was the part they most wish they had done differently. If you are going to do the Sahara, do it slowly or save it for next time.

After those two, the regrets cluster around pace and slowing down. People wish they had built in a rest day, lingered longer in a place they loved, spent an afternoon by the riad pool instead of cramming one more sight, or simply had time to wander without an agenda. Almost no one comes home wishing they had packed in more destinations. The regret is nearly always about having raced, rarely about having missed a particular town — because there is always more Morocco than any one trip can hold.

My honest takeaway, and the reason I am so insistent about pacing: these regrets are entirely avoidable at the planning stage. Cut the over-ambitious leg, give the desert its night, leave a gap for rest, and total your drive hours before you commit. The happiest travellers I send off are the ones who let me talk them out of a stop or two. Do less, savour more — and verify your drive times honestly, because that is where the regret begins.