What's a good wellness and spa-focused Morocco itinerary?

When someone asks me for a wellness trip, I stop them planning Morocco like a sightseeing sprint and instead design around rest. My favourite seven-day version starts soft in Marrakech: two nights in a riad with its own spa, where day one is nothing more ambitious than a long traditional hammam — black soap, the kessa-glove scrub, a rinse, then an argan-oil massage that leaves you boneless. I tell people to do absolutely nothing afterwards except lie on the rooftop with mint tea. Day two we add a single gentle outing, the Majorelle and Secret Gardens, then back for a second, lighter treatment. The rule is one treatment a day and never rushing.

On day three we climb out of the heat into the High Atlas around Imlil, and this is where the trip really exhales. I put guests in an eco-lodge with valley views, and the next three days run on mountain time: morning yoga or stretching on a terrace, a slow guided walk to a Berber village or a waterfall, a long lunch, an afternoon nap nobody apologises for. The altitude, the silence and the cool, pine-clean air do more for jet-lagged, burnt-out travellers than any treatment. Evenings are early — a tagine, a fire, a sky absurdly full of stars, and bed by ten.

For the last leg, days six and seven, I bring everyone down to the Atlantic at Essaouira, because the wind-cooled, salt-laced air is its own therapy and the pace there is famously unhurried. I book a thalassotherapy or seaweed-wrap session, leave a whole morning free to wander the blue-and-white ramparts and the fishing port, and reserve an afternoon for either a beach walk or, if anyone fancies it, a beginner's surf or a horse ride along the sand. There's no medina marathon here; the town is small and forgiving, and you sleep with the windows open and the gulls.

Two honest notes I always give. First, build in true buffer — wellness trips fail when people stack a treatment, a tour and a long drive into one day, so I keep driving to half-days and never more than one 'activity' alongside one spa session. Second, manage expectations on the spa hammam versus the public one: the riad and resort hammams are serene, private and English-spoken, while the neighbourhood hammam is communal, raucous and wonderful but not relaxing in the bubble-bath sense. Do the public one once for the culture and the spa ones for the calm. Tell us your treatment wishlist and we'll thread the bookings together so you simply float between them.