What is Morocco like during the European summer holidays in July and August?

July and August are the European school-holiday peak, and Morocco splits sharply in two during them — so the honest answer depends entirely on where you go. Inland, it is hot, seriously hot. Marrakech, Fes, Meknes and the desert regularly push past 40°C in the afternoons, and the Sahara can hit the high 40s, which is genuinely punishing for sightseeing. The result is that the interior actually thins out of foreign tourists in high summer, and — counter-intuitively — riad prices in Marrakech and Fes often drop to some of their lowest of the year to tempt people in. You can find real bargains in the imperial cities in August, if you can handle the temperature.

The coast tells the opposite story. The Atlantic shore — Essaouira above all, plus Agadir, Asilah and the northern beaches — stays blissfully temperate thanks to the sea breeze, often 25–27°C while Marrakech bakes three hours inland. This is where everyone goes in summer: European holidaymakers, and crucially Moroccan families too, since August is the domestic holiday month when city dwellers decamp to the beach. So coastal towns are lively, busy and at their most expensive and fully booked of the year. Essaouira and the surf coast are wonderful in summer, but you must reserve well ahead and expect peak rates.

If you do come inland in high summer — and plenty do, especially on a fixed school-holiday window — it's all about rhythm. You sightsee hard in the early morning and again from late afternoon, retreat to a shaded courtyard, a pool or air conditioning through the searing midday hours, and live more in the cooler evenings, which is incidentally how Moroccans themselves handle the heat. A riad with a plunge pool stops being a luxury and becomes essential. The desert overnight trips still run, but reputable operators shift the camel rides to the cooler dawn and dusk edges of the day.

My advice for July–August: lean coastal. A summer trip built around Essaouira and the Atlantic, with maybe a dawn-and-dusk dash through Marrakech, gives you a fantastic, breezy holiday and sidesteps the worst of the heat. If your heart is set on the desert and the imperial cities, it's still possible with disciplined scheduling and good air conditioning, and you'll be rewarded with low inland prices and thin crowds at the monuments — just go in clear-eyed about the temperature.