Is Morocco worth it over a long bank-holiday weekend?

A long bank-holiday weekend is a brilliant use of Morocco, and as someone who plans a lot of these, the single most important piece of advice I give is to keep your ambitions tight. Morocco is genuinely close to Europe — three to four hours' flying from the UK and much of the continent — which is exactly why it works so well for a three- or four-day break. But it's a big, slow-to-cross country once you land, so the mistake I see again and again is people trying to cram the Sahara into a long weekend. Don't. The desert is a long drive each way and needs more time to do well; squeezing it into four days means spending most of them in a vehicle. Save it for a proper week-long trip.

What a long weekend does superbly is a focused city base. Marrakech is the obvious and best choice — fly in Friday, settle into a riad, and you have a full Saturday and Sunday for the medina, the souks, Jemaa el-Fnaa, the gardens, a hammam, and even a half-day into the Atlas foothills, flying home Monday. Fes works beautifully the same way for a deeper, more historic break. And for something coastal and gentler, Essaouira (paired with a Marrakech arrival) or Tangier (a quick hop, easy from the UK) make lovely long-weekend escapes. Pick one anchor and go deep rather than spreading thin.

On crowds and price, the thing to flag is that bank-holiday weekends are, by definition, when lots of other people are travelling too — so flights and riads tend to be in higher demand and pricier over a long-weekend date than on an ordinary weekend, and the best-value flights and riads go early. I always tell people to book a long-weekend trip as far ahead as they can: lock in the flights when they're cheap and reserve the riad promptly. The actual on-the-ground crowds depend more on the broader season than on the bank holiday itself, so a long weekend in low-season November will still feel far quieter than one in peak spring.

My verdict: yes, Morocco is very much worth a long bank-holiday weekend — the short flight makes it one of the most exotic-feeling escapes you can reach in the time. The keys are to commit to one city or coastal base and do it properly, to leave the desert for another trip, and to book your flights and riad early because bank-holiday dates draw a crowd and the prices reflect it. Get those right and you'll come home in four days feeling like you've been a world away.