What is the Tangier to Marrakech overland route like?

Arriving by ferry from Spain into Tangier and making your way down to Marrakech is one of my favourite ways to experience Morocco, because you travel the length of the country from top to bottom and watch it change beneath you. Direct on the modern motorway via Rabat and Casablanca, Tangier to Marrakech is around 580 kilometres and about six hours — perfectly doable in a day if you must, but a waste of everything in between.

The overland version I prefer dips inland first. From Tangier we head to Chefchaouen, the blue mountain town, for a night, then continue to Fes — the spiritual and intellectual heart of Morocco, with its vast medieval medina, the tanneries and the oldest university in the world. Fes deserves two nights at least. On the way you can fold in Meknes, the most underrated imperial city, and the Roman ruins of Volubilis with their astonishingly intact mosaics.

From Fes the journey turns south and the country opens up. The road runs down through the Middle Atlas — Ifrane's improbable alpine streets, the cedar forests around Azrou with their macaques — before descending towards the plains. This middle stretch is where guests feel the transition from the green, Mediterranean-flavoured north into the warmer, drier, more theatrical south that Marrakech embodies.

You roll into Marrakech having effectively read the whole country like a book, north cover to south. Done over four to six days with overnight bases in Chefchaouen, Fes and perhaps a Middle Atlas stop, it is a rich, varied traverse rather than a transfer. And of course you can run it in reverse — many guests fly into Marrakech, do the south, then work north to Tangier and ferry across to Spain to continue their travels.