Is Morocco good for a stopover or layover?

Morocco works surprisingly well as a stopover, and a lot of travellers do not realise it until they are routed through Casablanca. Casablanca's Mohammed V airport is the main hub for Royal Air Maroc, which positions Morocco as a natural waypoint between Europe and West Africa, and increasingly on transatlantic routes between Europe and the Americas. The airline has historically offered stopover programmes that let you break the journey in Morocco for little or no extra fare — always worth checking when you book a connecting RAM ticket, because a free extra country is a rare gift.

For a short layover of a few hours, keep it simple and close. Casablanca is not Morocco's most charming city, but it has one unmissable sight: the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest in the world, dramatically set on the Atlantic and — crucially — one of the very few mosques in Morocco open to non-Muslims on guided tours. It is a straightforward taxi from the airport, and you can comfortably see it and grab a seafood lunch on a long connection. Just leave a generous buffer for traffic and re-checking in, and make sure your bags and visa situation allow you to leave the airport.

If your stopover is a day or two, Morocco opens right up because the train network from Casablanca is excellent. Rabat, the calm, walkable capital with its kasbah and Roman-era ruins, is under an hour by train and makes a lovely low-stress overnight. With a bit more time, the high-speed line gets you toward Tangier in the north, or you can ride down to Marrakech in around three hours for a concentrated hit of medina, souk and Jemaa el-Fnaa before flying on. A two-night stopover is genuinely enough for a real first taste of the country.

My honest planning notes: build in airport buffer time, since Casablanca traffic and check-in queues can eat into a tight connection, and confirm whether your nationality needs anything to enter (most Western passport holders get a visa-free stamp on arrival, which makes leaving the airport easy). Do not try to reach the Sahara or do a big loop on a stopover — the distances are too long. Keep it to Casablanca-and-Rabat, or a quick Marrakech dash, and Morocco turns a dull connection into a memorable mini-adventure.