One Week from Fes: An Offbeat Itinerary
A full week using Fes as a base fits all five real gateway trips without lying about any of them: Meknes and Volubilis, Ifrane and Azrou’s macaques, and Sefrou and Bhalil across the first three days, a genuine Chefchaouen overnight across days four and five, and a compressed 2-day, 1-night Sahara run to close it out. This extends the 5-day itinerary with the Sahara added on; see the 6-day itinerary instead if you would rather spend the extra day on a fuller 3-day Sahara run and skip Chefchaouen.
Book these before you go: a riad room in Fes el-Bali , a Meknes and Volubilis day tour , a Middle Atlas day tour , a Chefchaouen room , and a 2-day Sahara tour , the last of which genuinely sells out in peak season desert-camp capacity.
| Day | Focus | Travel time from Fes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Meknes, Volubilis, Moulay Idriss | ~1h to Meknes by train; +30-40min on to Volubilis/Moulay Idriss |
| 2 | Ifrane, Azrou cedar forest (Barbary macaques) | ~1.5-2h each way |
| 3 | Sefrou, Bhalil cave houses | ~30-40min each way |
| 4 | Depart for Chefchaouen, overnight | ~4h21min-4h45min each way by CTM bus |
| 5 | Chefchaouen morning, return to Fes | same 4.5-hour return leg |
| 6 | Depart for Merzouga via Ifrane, Azrou, Ziz Valley; desert camp | ~7-9h out |
| 7 | Sunrise over the dunes, full drive back to Fes | ~7-9h back, same day |
Day 1: Meknes, Volubilis, and Moulay Idriss
The ONCF train covers Fes to Meknes in 45 minutes to an hour for roughly 18-26 MAD. Give Meknes’ own medina and the Bab Mansour gate an hour before moving on, then charter a grand taxi to cover Volubilis and Moulay Idriss together, roughly 400-500 MAD for the full car.
Volubilis costs 70 MAD, no advance booking, open 8am-6pm (5pm in winter); the Archaeological Site of Volubilis has held UNESCO status since 1997, and a licensed guide at the gate runs 200-300 MAD per group for around 90 minutes. Moulay Idriss, 3km further on, is a living pilgrimage town, once closed to non-Muslim overnight stays and now fully open, that a rushed tour will cut first. Book the day as one guided tour rather than stitching train and taxi legs together.
Day 2: Ifrane and the Azrou cedar forest
Ifrane, roughly 1.5-2 hours from Fes, is an alpine-chalet town nicknamed Little Switzerland, cold enough for real snow some winters. Azrou’s cedar forest, a short drive on, holds a resident troop of Barbary macaques, close to a guaranteed sighting rather than a stroke of luck. Book a Middle Atlas day tour if the mountain roads don’t appeal solo. Check current Fez destination and Meknes destination pages for opening hours before you commit to exact dates.
Day 3: Sefrou and Bhalil
Sefrou sits about 30km, 35-40 minutes, from Fes, a walled medina with its own Mellah and a pace noticeably quieter than Fes el-Bali. Its Cherry Festival , three days every June, has carried UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status since 2012. Bhalil, 5km further on, adds cave houses cut into the hillside that are still lived in, not preserved as a museum piece. A grand taxi or private guide covers both towns in half a day; neither needs advance booking the way the bigger trips do.
Do most Fes visitors skip Sefrou and Bhalil?
Yes, and that is the point of including them. Sefrou draws a fraction of the tour traffic that Meknes and Volubilis get, so its medina and Mellah feel lived-in rather than staged, and Bhalil rarely makes it onto a first-time Fes itinerary at all.
Day 4: Depart for Chefchaouen
CTM buses run Fes to Chefchaouen roughly every 4 hours, the ride itself 4 hours 21 minutes to 4 hours 45 minutes each way for about 110-140 MAD ($11-14); check current times on ctm.ma . An early departure gets you into a Chefchaouen riad by mid-afternoon, leaving the evening free for the blue-washed medina before the day-tripping crowds arrive.
Why does this itinerary spend two full days on Chefchaouen?
Because the honest alternative is a 12-hour round-trip bus tour that spends close to 9 hours in transit for roughly 3 hours in the medina, which is not a real visit to Chefchaouen. Two days costs one more than a rushed single-day version and turns a bus errand into an actual trip.
Day 5: Chefchaouen and the return to Fes
Walk the medina again before the day-trip buses arrive, then take an afternoon CTM departure back to Fes, landing by evening in time for a full night’s sleep before the desert leg starts early the next morning.
Day 6: Depart for Merzouga and the desert camp
Merzouga sits 7-9+ hours from Fes by road, routed through Ifrane, Azrou, Midelt, and the Ziz Valley. Leave at first light; you reach Erg Chebbi’s dunes in the late afternoon for a camel trek into camp, dinner around a fire, and a night under a sky with none of Fes’ light pollution. Book a 2-day Sahara tour from Fes , the compressed round-trip version built for exactly this kind of week.
Day 7: Sunrise over the dunes and the full drive back
Watch sunrise from the dunes by camel or on foot, then the drive back to Fes runs the same 7-9+ hours in one push, a genuinely long final day. It is the trade-off of the 2-day Sahara version: one desert night instead of two, in exchange for fitting the whole loop, Meknes to Chefchaouen to Merzouga, into a single week based out of Fes.
Carry MAD cash for the entire week; the dirham is a closed currency, obtainable only inside Morocco, and grand taxis, rural stalls, and desert-route towns alike mostly skip card machines.