What's the classic one-week (7-day) Morocco loop?

Seven days is the most popular length for a first Morocco trip, and there's a reason it has a 'classic' shape: it's just enough time to combine the imperial-city magic, the great Sahara and a third landscape without living entirely in the car. The version I run most often is a clean Marrakech loop. You spend your first two days falling for Marrakech — the medina and souks, Jemaa el-Fnaa at dusk, the Bahia Palace and Saadian Tombs, the Majorelle Garden, a hammam and long dinners — so the city gets the time it deserves rather than a rushed half-day.

Days three to five are the heart of the week: the three-day desert journey. Over the High Atlas via the Tizi n'Tichka, a stop at Aït Benhaddou's golden kasbah and Ouarzazate, down through the Dades Valley, the Todra Gorge and the palm oases, and out to Merzouga to ride camels into the Erg Chebbi dunes for a night in a desert camp under the stars. This loop is the part nearly everyone remembers most — the silence, the sunrise over the sand — and a week gives you room to do it properly rather than as a dash.

That leaves days six and seven for a contrasting finish, and this is where you choose your own ending. You can give them to the Atlas Mountains — a trek or a gentle valley day around Imlil with a Berber lunch — or head to the coast at Essaouira for sea air, ramparts and seafood. Either rounds the week into a beautifully varied arc: city, mountains, desert and (optionally) ocean, all in seven days.

Now the question everyone asks: can you add Fes? You can — some week-long trips run Marrakech to the desert and then up to Fes, flying out from there one-way — but be honest with yourself that it makes the week busier, with longer transfers and less downtime. If seeing both imperial capitals matters more than relaxing, the one-way Marrakech-to-Fes version works. If you'd rather savour fewer places, the Marrakech loop with desert plus Atlas-or-coast is the calmer, classic week, and it's the one I gently recommend for a first visit.