How do I plan a Morocco trip from Spain?

Spain is the easiest jumping-off point in Europe for Morocco simply because of geography — on a clear day you can see the Moroccan coast from Tarifa. That proximity opens two completely different ways to travel, and which one I recommend depends entirely on how many days you have. With a long weekend, I send Spanish guests across the Strait by ferry for a Tangier or Chefchaouen escape. With a week or more, we fly deeper into the country for Marrakech, the Atlas and the Sahara.

The ferry route is genuinely delightful and underused. From Tarifa the fast catamaran reaches Tangier city in about an hour; from Algeciras you sail to Tanger Med, the larger port a little outside the city. You can walk on as a foot passenger or bring a car. This makes a 2–3 day northern Morocco trip from Andalusia entirely realistic — I detail exactly that in our Tangier 2-day itinerary, which pairs the medina, the Kasbah and a day trip to blue-washed Chefchaouen.

If your sights are set on the classic Morocco — the red city, the dunes, the kasbah road — then flying is the move. Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Seville, Valencia and Bilbao all have direct flights to Marrakech, Casablanca, Fes and beyond, mostly on Ryanair, Vueling, Royal Air Maroc and Iberia, and the hop is only one and a half to two and a half hours. For a first proper visit I recommend our 7-day route; with closer to ten days we add Fes and the imperial cities.

A few Spain-specific pointers from experience: Spanish is widely understood across northern Morocco thanks to the historical ties, so you'll feel at home around Tangier and Tetouan. Your Spanish health card doesn't cover you in Morocco, so take travel insurance. And the dirham is a closed currency — withdraw it on arrival rather than hunting for it in Spain. Whether you sail or fly, Morocco is close enough that the journey barely costs you a day.