What are the most common mistakes when planning a Morocco trip?

After years of redesigning trips that other people planned, I see the same mistakes again and again, and almost all of them come from one root cause: distances on a Morocco map are deceptive. The country looks compact, but the roads wind over mountain passes and across desert plateaus, so a "short hop" between two dots can be a five- or six-hour drive. People plan as if they are in a small European country, then spend their holiday in a vehicle. The single most common regret I hear is "we drove too much" — it comes up more than any other.

The second classic error is trying to see everything. Marrakech, Fes, the desert, Chefchaouen, the coast, the Atlas, all in a week — it sounds thorough on paper and feels frantic in reality. You arrive somewhere at dusk, sleep, and leave at dawn, collecting photo stops instead of experiences. The travellers who come home happiest are almost always the ones who did less: three or four places given proper time, rather than eight places glimpsed through a windscreen. Depth beats breadth here, every time.

Then there are the quieter mistakes. People treat the Sahara as a tick-box day trip when the desert really needs at least one full night out at the dunes to deliver its magic. They over-index on the big-name medinas and skip the in-between — a night in the Dades or Todra gorges, a slow afternoon in an Atlas village — which is often where the trip comes alive. And many under-budget time for getting lost, haggling, long lunches and the general unhurried rhythm that makes Morocco, Morocco.

My honest planning advice: start by being realistic about driving time, then deliberately cut your list. Pick a sensible loop, give the desert a proper overnight, and leave at least one genuine rest day with nothing scheduled. If you are unsure whether your plan is too packed, it almost certainly is — share it with someone who knows the ground and let them tell you honestly. Verify current drive times and road conditions before you lock in dates, as they shift with season and roadworks.