How do I keep kids entertained on long Morocco drives?

Long drives are the genuine challenge of a Morocco family trip — the distances are real, and the famous Marrakech-to-Sahara run is two big days each way over mountain passes. My first and most important piece of advice is to design the itinerary so the drives are never punishing in the first place: choose fewer bases, break each long journey into shorter legs, and accept that "slow" is the right speed with kids. A private driver is worth its weight in gold here, because it lets you stop the moment a child needs to — for the loo, a leg-stretch, a snack or a meltdown — which you simply can't do on a fixed coach.

The secret weapon is frequent, fun stops, and luckily the Moroccan landscape hands you them. Plan the route around natural breaks every hour or two: a kasbah to clamber around (Aït Benhaddou is a hit), a panoramic viewpoint over a gorge, an oasis or a palm grove, a roadside café for mint tea and a run-around, a Berber village, or a quick camel or argan-cooperative photo stop. Turning the drive into a series of mini-adventures, rather than one endless slog, completely changes a child's experience of it. Build these stops into the plan in advance so they actually happen.

Come prepared with offline entertainment, because mobile signal drops out in the mountains and desert. Before you set off, download a stash of films, cartoons, kids' games, audiobooks and music onto tablets and phones, plus offline maps, and bring headphones, a car charger and a power bank. Rotate in some low-tech options too: audiobooks and story podcasts the whole family can listen to, simple travel games, a sticker or activity book, and a small "surprise bag" of new little toys or snacks doled out at intervals works brilliantly to reset a fractious child. Don't blow through all the screen time in the first hour.

Two practical comfort matters. First, motion sickness is common on Morocco's winding mountain roads (the Tizi n'Tichka pass to the desert is famously twisty), so come armed with travel-sickness remedies or wristbands, keep a child looking out at the horizon, ensure good airflow, and have sick bags and wipes within reach just in case. Second, pack a generous supply of water and snacks — fruit, bread, biscuits, the things you know your kids will eat — plus tissues and hand gel, since stops can be spaced out and a hungry, thirsty child is an unhappy one. Dress them in layers for the big temperature swings between coast, mountains and desert.

And lean into the scenery itself as entertainment. Morocco's drives are spectacular — snow-capped Atlas peaks, red kasbahs, palm oases, camels and goats-in-trees — so make a game of it: spot the camels, count the kasbahs, find the goats up the argan trees, photograph the changing landscape (appoint a child as the trip photographer). My honest bottom line: keep drives short, stop often, prepare offline entertainment and snacks, manage motion sickness, and use a private driver for flexibility. Get that right and the journeys become part of the adventure rather than something to endure — which is exactly how we pace our family itineraries.