What's a good itinerary for teens / older kids?

Teenagers switch off the moment a trip becomes a museum march, so I build their itinerary around doing things and experiences worth filming. We start in Marrakech but skip the heavy sightseeing — instead it's a quad-bike or buggy ride through the palm groves and Agafay rocks on the edge of the city, a street-food tour of Jemaa el-Fnaa where they get dared into trying snails and fresh juice, and a haggling challenge in the souks where I give them a small budget and let them negotiate. Give a teenager a mission and the medina becomes a game, not a chore.

On day three we head into the High Atlas for an active mountain day. Depending on the group that's a guided mountain-bike descent, a half-day trek to a Berber village with a mule carrying the gear, or a via-ferrata and zip-line session at one of the adventure spots near Marrakech. The cooler air, the physical challenge, and the bragging rights of reaching a viewpoint under their own steam all land well with this age group, and a kasbah lodge with a pool sorts the afternoon.

The Sahara is the undisputed winner for teens, so I give it two nights at Erg Chebbi rather than a rushed one. There's sandboarding down the big dunes, a proper camel trek, quad biking across the flats, a 4x4 visit to a village for Gnawa drumming they can join in with, and a desert camp where the evening is all music round the fire and a phone-killing sky full of stars. The novelty of sleeping in the dunes is the kind of thing they'll still be talking about years later — and yes, the sunrise photos are extraordinary.

We finish at Taghazout on the Atlantic for surfing, which is tailor-made for teenagers — group lessons, beach hangs, smoothie cafés, and a relaxed surf-town vibe where they can have a bit of independence. Two or three nights of dawn waves and sunset beach time is the perfect high-energy wind-down. Across eight or nine days, by anchoring each region with an activity instead of a guided lecture, you get teenagers who are genuinely engaged rather than glued to their screens — which any parent will tell you is the real victory.