What's a good self-drive road-trip itinerary for Morocco?

A self-drive in Morocco is genuinely rewarding if you pick the right loop, and the southern circuit from Marrakech is the one I recommend first because the roads are sealed, the navigation is simple and the scenery changes every hour. I'd give it ten days. Pick up the car in Marrakech, but I always suggest spending your first night there and driving out fresh the next morning over the Tizi n'Tichka pass — a spectacular, serpentine climb across the High Atlas that is also slow and demands a calm head, so you don't want to tackle it jet-lagged or in the dark.

From there the route almost designs itself. Day two drops you to Aït Benhaddou's golden kasbah for a night, then on to Ouarzazate and east along the 'Road of a Thousand Kasbahs.' I'd sleep in the Dades Valley to walk the rock formations and the gorge's hairpin road, then push to Todra Gorge with its sheer 300-metre walls. Days five and six are the payoff: the long, flat run out to the Erg Chebbi dunes at Merzouga, where you park the car at an auberge and hand yourself over to camel guides for a night in the sand. Then you loop back west, breaking the drive at Skoura's palmery or the Rose Valley.

The honest mechanics matter more than the romance, so let me be blunt. Moroccan tarmac is mostly good and the main routes are well signed, but mountain passes and gorge roads are narrow, winding and slow — your sat-nav's arrival time is fiction, so add a third again to every estimate. Other drivers overtake optimistically, towns have unmarked speed traps and frequent police checkpoints (polite, just slow down and smile), and livestock wander the rural roads. The single firmest rule I give: do not drive after dark. Unlit roads, unlit carts and pedestrians make night driving the one genuine danger, so always arrive before sunset.

A few setup tips and I'll let you loose. Rent through a reputable company with full insurance and a credit-card excess waiver, take photos of every existing scratch at pickup, and carry the rental papers and your passport for checkpoints. An automatic is worth it for the passes if you're not confident with a stick. Fill up whenever you can in the south, as stations thin out. Park in guarded lots (a small tip to the gardien) overnight. Avoid driving inside the big medinas entirely — leave the car at the riad's recommended lot and walk. Do that, and the freedom to pull over for a kasbah, a viewpoint or a roadside tagine is the best thing about the whole trip.