What are the must-do things on a first Morocco trip?

First-timers always overload the plan, so I narrow it to the non-negotiables. Number one is a desert night. Even if you only have a single overnight, the drive over the Atlas, the camel ride into Erg Chebbi at Merzouga, and waking for sunrise over the dunes will be the photo on your wall a year later. I would cut almost anything else before I cut the Sahara from a first trip.

Number two is a medina, and you should let yourself get lost in it. In Marrakech that means the souks fanning out from Jemaa el-Fna, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, and the Bahia Palace. In Fes it means the world’s largest car-free old city — the Chouara tanneries, the medersas, the artisan quarters. A first trip without an hour of being genuinely, happily lost in narrow lanes has missed the point of Morocco.

Number three is a kasbah at golden hour, and Ait Benhaddou is the one. Crossing the river to climb the fortified ksar as the mud walls turn gold is the single most cinematic thing most people do here, and it sits perfectly on the route between Marrakech and the desert. Pair it with the Atlas pass over Tizi n’Tichka and you get the dramatic landscape day every first trip needs.

Then I add the smaller rituals that make it feel like Morocco and not just sightseeing: a traditional hammam scrub, mint tea poured from height on a rooftop at sunset, and one day that is not a city — a half-day Atlas walk above Imlil, or the breezy Atlantic at Essaouira. Do all of that across seven to ten days and you will leave having actually experienced the country, not just ticked monuments.