Guide, 15 €
The road book
Ten day trips from Marrakech, costed, timed, and what goes wrong on each
For each trip: the real distance, the honest driving time (not the calculator's), the price shared, private and in your own car with fuel worked out, the right season, the departure hour, and the specific trap. Three geography errors that circulate everywhere are corrected here.
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- Price
- 15 €one payment
- Length
- 3 991words, about 18 min to read
- Researched
- 08/26every figure carries its date
- Format
- Webreadable on a phone, updated free
What is inside
Contents
- Three geography errorsAgafay, Ouzoud, Imlil: what everyone copies wrong
- How to read driving timesWhy calculators are 30 to 60% out
- Ourika and Setti FatmaAnd the safety rule nobody writes down
- EssaouiraTen hours door to door, five of them driving
- AgafayIt is not the Sahara, and that needs saying
- OuzoudThe monkeys really do steal
- Ait Ben Haddou and OuarzazateWhy the day trip makes no sense
- Imlil and ToubkalThe mule that is not compulsory
- OukaimedenA ski resort with no snow nine months a year
- Zat, Amizmiz, Takerkoust, OuirganeThe four quiet days out
- Driving in MoroccoSpeeds, fines, checkpoints, and the night rule
- Working out the fuelWhat each return trip actually costs
Who it is for
Who this helps
- A stay of a week or more
- Anyone hiring a car
- Families who want to avoid a wasted twelve hour day
- Anyone torn between a guided tour and going alone
This guide does not replace a stay with us and commits you to nothing. We wrote it because the material existed, it cost us work, and giving all of it away would have been foolish.
Extract
The first chapter, in full
Read it before buying. If this level of detail is no use to you, do not buy.
Ten day trips out of Marrakech, each one with the real distance, an honest driving time, the price in a group, private and in your own car, the right season, the departure hour and the specific trap.
Fuel is worked out on 6 litres per 100 kilometres, diesel at 14.87 dirhams a litre on 17 August 2026, plus 15 to 25% in the mountains. None of these ten trips uses a paying motorway section: tolls come to zero.
Three geography errors that everyone copies
Before the individual entries, three corrections. They circulate everywhere, agency websites included, and they cost time and money.
Agafay is south west of Marrakech, on the Amizmiz and Guemassa road. If you are staying south east of the city, Agafay takes you further away by 10 to 15 kilometres rather than closer.
Ouzoud is reached by the eastern exit, the N8 towards Demnate and Azilal. A false itinerary does the rounds: "Marrakech, Tahannaout, Asni, Demnate, Ouzoud". Tahannaout and Asni are in the opposite direction.
Imlil is reached by the R203, which leaves to the south west. It is not the Ourika road, and the short cut some people imagine between the two valleys does not exist by car.
What genuinely gets closer when you stay south east: Ourika, Setti Fatma and Oukaimeden, with a saving of 9 to 11 kilometres, and to a lesser extent Ouarzazate and Ait Ben Haddou, 5 to 8 kilometres.
How to read the driving times
Route calculators give times 30 to 60% shorter than guides written by people who have actually driven the road, and the gap widens in the mountains. They model neither the slow lorries in the hairpins, nor the flocks, nor the children at the roadside, nor the roadworks.
Always put the top of the range in your plan. A day built on the calculator's time ends in the dark, and you do not drive at night in Morocco.
The rest
There are 11 chapters left, with the prices, the mechanics and the addresses.
Available shortly
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