What are unusual or offbeat things to do in Morocco?

Most first trips run Marrakech–desert–Fes, and that's a fine spine — but the country gets genuinely interesting the moment you wander off it. My favourite easy detour is Agafay, the stony 'desert' barely 45 minutes from Marrakech. It isn't Saharan sand, and I'm always honest about that, but the rolling lunar hills with the snow-capped Atlas behind them are extraordinary at sunset, and you can do a camp dinner or a quad ride there without committing two days to Merzouga. It's the offbeat desert fix for short trips.

Up in the Atlas foothills, the Ourika Valley and the village of Setti Fatma are a world away from the souks — a green river gorge with a string of seven waterfalls you scramble up between cafés perched over the water. It's busy with Moroccan families at weekends, which is exactly the point: you're sharing a genuinely local day out, not a tourist set-piece. Further north, beyond Chefchaouen's famous blue medina, there's an even quirkier curiosity — the painted village of Akchour and the gorges and 'God's Bridge' rock arch nearby make a brilliant offbeat hiking day.

For something atmospheric and almost empty, I send history lovers to Volubilis at dawn. These Roman ruins near Meknes — mosaics still in the ground, the triumphal arch standing in a sea of wildflowers in spring — are magical with the early light and before the coaches arrive, paired with the holy hilltop town of Moulay Idriss just up the road. And if you want to actually do something rather than just look, staying near or visiting a working women's argan-oil cooperative in the Souss, or learning to cook in a village home rather than a polished riad, turns sightseeing into participation.

One honest word of guidance: 'offbeat' in Morocco usually means a little more driving and a little less polish, so build buffer time and lower your expectations on signage and crowds-management. The reward is real, though. Some of the trips my guests rave about most afterwards aren't the headline sights but these one-valley-over moments — a waterfall lunch, an empty Roman city, a stone-desert sunset — that almost nobody else on their flight home will have seen.