Is Morocco all desert?

This is probably the single biggest misconception I correct, and it's an easy one to hold because the Sahara dominates the postcards. The reality is that Morocco is one of the most geographically varied countries I know. In a single trip you can stand on an Atlantic surf beach, climb through cedar forest, cross a snow-dusted mountain pass, walk a Roman ruin, lose yourself in a medieval medina, and only then reach the dunes. The desert is a spectacular chapter, but it is a chapter, not the whole book.

Start with the mountains, because they shock people most. The High Atlas rises just south of Marrakech to Mount Toubkal at 4,167 metres — there's enough snow that Morocco has a ski resort at Oukaïmeden. Below the peaks you get Berber villages, walnut groves, river valleys, and the dramatic Dadès and Todra gorges. Then there's the coast: well over a thousand kilometres of it, from the windswept surf town of Essaouira to the warm Mediterranean near Al Hoceima. Green, blue, and white are as much Morocco's colours as gold.

There's also the cultural landscape that has nothing to do with sand. The imperial cities — Fes, Marrakech, Meknes, Rabat — are dense, ancient, and utterly distinct from the desert romance. Fes el-Bali is the largest car-free urban area on earth. Chefchaouen is a blue-painted mountain town in the green Rif. Volubilis is a field of Roman mosaics. None of this fits the 'endless dunes' picture, and most travellers tell me afterwards that the cities and mountains surprised them as much as the Sahara did.

The practical upshot, and a thing I'm always honest about: the Sahara is not five minutes from Marrakech. Erg Chebbi is a nine-to-ten-hour drive away, which is exactly why a good itinerary threads the mountains, gorges, and kasbahs in along the way rather than treating them as filler. Embrace the variety instead of fighting it — the contrast between a snowy Atlas pass and a golden dune at sunset, sometimes in the same week, is the real Morocco, and it's far richer than the desert myth.