What is the busiest or peak tourist season in Morocco?

The peak is easy to predict because it tracks the perfect weather: spring and autumn are when Morocco is most comfortable, so they're when the most people come. Roughly April and May, then late September through October, are the high points — the medinas of Marrakech and Fes are at their most crowded, the desert camps run full, and the marquee sights have real queues. Layered on top of those weather peaks are the holiday spikes: Christmas and New Year, and the Easter and European school-holiday breaks, which concentrate demand into specific weeks regardless of the season.

What being there in peak actually feels like is worth describing honestly. The great sights — Bahia Palace, the Fes tanneries, the Saadian Tombs — get busy, and you'll queue and jostle for the photo. The best riads book out months in advance and charge their top rates, with little room to negotiate. Popular tours fill, restaurants need reserving, and the famous viewpoints have other people's tripods in them. None of that ruins a trip — Morocco is wonderful in peak — but you should arrive expecting company and pace yourself around it.

The practical consequence is that peak season punishes the unprepared and rewards the organised. If you want to travel in April, May, October, or over a holiday week, the single most important thing is to book early — three to six months out for anything good, and earlier still for the very best riads or for Christmas and New Year. Leave it late and you'll either pay a steep premium for whatever's left or find your preferred dates and places simply gone.

If the crowds and prices give you pause, my standard nudge is to slide your dates to the shoulders — November, early December, late February, early March — where you keep most of the good weather but shed much of the crush and cost. And if you're locked into peak by school holidays, go anyway, just plan around the busy hours: hit the headline sights at opening time, eat early or late, and build in calmer corners of the country where the crowds thin out. Done well, even peak-season Morocco feels far less hectic than the numbers suggest.