Two Classic Morocco Itineraries: Imperial Cities & Desert and Berber Adventure

Azdean Elmoustaquim (00:00)
a client says they want to visit Morocco and The question you're left with is always the same Where do I send them?

Casablanca, Rabat, Fes, Marrakech, Chefchaouen or Merzouga. To someone who has never opened a map of Morocco, that's overwhelming. I am your host, Azedine Elmoustaquim. Welcome back to the Destination Morocco podcast. And please help me welcome back Ted to the podcast

Ted Cragg (00:31)
Okay. nice to be here.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (00:32)
Today we're breaking down the two itineraries the vast majority of the clients you'll ever book.

the Imperial series versus the Berber Adventure and Desert Tour.

By the end of this episode you will know exactly which one to recommend

and to which client without ever opening a map.

Ted Cragg (00:55)
Yeah, it's fun with maps. I I love looking at maps. So we're gonna open the maps and and show you where things are. Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (01:01)
Absolutely.

So this is.

Basically, in this episode, are really, really going to make it very clear to a lot of people, travel advisors, that are not really familiar with Morocco, the north side of Morocco, the south side of Morocco. And we have heard the names many, many times. Imperial City Tour, a desert tour, a dune tour, a berber tour, all that stuff we're going to talk about in this episode. So just buckle up and enjoy it. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Ted Cragg (01:34)
Yeah, and I guess

the key with this is that I mean, really for almost anyone who goes to Morocco, I think, certainly people with let's say at least a week and have enough time to cover some ground, it kind of starts with two options you could say. Either they're gonna focus on the imperial cities, which we'll show here in a minute, or maybe more of the cultural side and the desert as well.

Berber Adventure in Desert, as you say here, and which is a little more remote, obviously to go out to the desert, it does take more time. Now, of course, you can add more days, you can combine the two if you really have time, but that starting point of just how you're gonna plan, you know, seeing this country, you've said we've talked about here of course on the show from experience that it kind of starts with one of those two angles and you kind of build it out from there.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (02:20)
So just to give you an example, we're going to start with the Imperial City tools. Now the Imperial City is therefore the current one, which is a Rabat, the capital city. Then the one before it is Meknes.

than the one before it is Marrakesh and then the first one is Fes. So basically the itinerary when it says imperial cities it has to include those four cities or at least most of them. So the one that we look at here you're right that we're going to take an example of eight day itinerary. The reason why eight day because we don't want to be just driving from point A to point B and not really immersing ourselves in any of those destinations. So it's really really critical when you're doing

either of those itineraries, we highly recommend a minimum of seven to eight days. That's the main reason because

Ted Cragg (03:10)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (03:12)
it's a lot of driving, but

You can see it here. arrival and departure really starts from Casablanca. And again, in previous episodes, we've talked about all those six direct flights that we have from the US to Morocco. believe four of them are direct from LA to Casablanca, Miami to Casablanca, New York to Casablanca, DC to Casablanca. So those are direct flights. They arrive early morning between 9 a.m. to 10.30 a.m., which is really, really good.

some time to rest at your hotel and do something or plan something you know mid afternoon late afternoon in the evening as well so just keep that in mind yeah absolutely

Ted Cragg (03:51)
In Casablanca. Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (03:53)
yes so and if you have any questions please let me know tell them I can break up I

Ted Cragg (03:58)
Yeah, sure.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (03:58)
can break down you know we're not going to go into the details what to see and stuff but we just you know from city to city the driving distance

Ted Cragg (04:02)
Right. Yeah. This is more about itinerary, yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (04:06)
absolutely and so forth yeah so

Ted Cragg (04:08)
Mm-hmm.

So yeah, so well you can see everyone watching here, I mean we'll do our best to explain it for sure, but we've got arrows that are pointing in kind of a a clockwise circular direction. And I mean, you can do this obviously in different ways. This does tend to be the standard way, it's the way that we did it three years ago on our tour, we started Casablanca, we went to Rabat and then on from there. So you kinda do this, yeah, s clockwise direction and a circular w route that takes you through all these various stops. So usually the next one is Rabat.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (04:39)
Yeah, the next one is going to be a Rabat. Obviously, you know, it's a little bit of driving, maybe a hundred, one hour and 20 minutes drive from Casablanca. The sightseeing should take about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. And then we drive to, to, to Chefchaouen for maybe three and a half, four hours. And that's where we'll spend the night on, this itinerary basically. So the first, we're going to spend the night in Casablanca because it's been a long flight. Then the next day we'll, we'll do the Casablanca visit, the Rabat and then we'll do Chefchaouen,

we get to see a little bit, and then some of it we leave in the morning. we spend the night in Casablanca, We see a little bit of Chefchaouen in the morning after breakfast, then we go for the Roman city, Volubilis, which in the Berber language means "flower." So the site, it has four major monuments, it will take about an hour and fifteen minutes to see all of them. Then we go to the second imperial city, which is Meknes. And again the site, everything is really walking distance.

But you will have your car driver with you as well, so it takes about an hour to do the the visit. Then for about a 45 minute drive to Fes, and that's what we're going to spend the night. And this is the the other imperial city here in Fes. So On this itinerary you can probably do two nights in Fes and do two nights in Marrakesh the next day we do Fes city tour, which is just an immersive experience in Fes, everything you need to see and do in Fes. And then from there we drive to Marrakesh. Now the drive, you have two options actually. You

can either go through the mountains, a little bit more scenic, and there's a lot of stops along the way. And that could be probably about nine or so hours. So it's going to be an all day, but you're not really driving the whole day. You're making a stop at,

Ted Cragg (06:16)
Hm. Right. Lots of stops.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (06:20)
for example, Ifran, a beautiful, beautiful small town. It's called the "Switzerland of Morocco."

Ted Cragg (06:24)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (06:25)
We make a stop at Azrou to see the, they are called the snow monkeys. They're also called the Macau monkeys. They've been there for, you know, six million years. It's definitely worth the stop. So, and they are thieves by the way.

Ted Cragg (06:37)
Mm-hmm.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (06:37)
So

they're really good. And then along the way we'll do some kind of Berber experience with the locals, just to immerse yourself again with the local culture. and stuff like that. Then we drive to Marrakesh. Then you spend the night in Marrakesh, the next day we do Marrakesh city tour.

And then afterwards we depart for Casablanca. So this is really, really just an overview of an 8-day itinerary, and it gives you in terms of the visual, where your clients are going to be at each day. and so forth. yeah.

Ted Cragg (07:07)
Right. Now again there's

some options there if you from Fez to get to Marrakesh, the faster way is the express way, right? You go back kind of the outskirts of Casablanca and down to Marrakesh, which is

Azdean Elmoustaquim (07:14)
That's right, and I forgot to say that. Yes.

From first to Marrakesh, it's about six six and a half hours. Yeah, it's

Ted Cragg (07:22)
Yeah. Okay.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (07:23)
it's all highway But again, you do make stops along the way So

Ted Cragg (07:27)
Sure.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (07:28)
if you want the quickest routes take the highway if you want the scenic route take the Atlas Mountains for sure

Ted Cragg (07:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and just to you know, context too, like, Volubilis, Meknes and Fez, they're all pretty close together. I mean, off

Azdean Elmoustaquim (07:43)
Yes.

Ted Cragg (07:43)
generally under an hour or so between each and when we did it, we left Chefchaouen in the morning, we drove to Volubilis, we did a full tour there. We went to Meknes then, had an afternoon tour and a good solid tour. And then we got to Fez in the evening.

With, you know, enough time before dinner, and time for dinner, so that it wasn't late at night or anything. So a full day, but you cover a lot of ground because those places are pretty close together. Mm.

So that's one eight day option.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (08:14)
Yes.

You know, I get this quite a bit and I'm sure, you know, we've done this for quite some time. You know, it's my client. It's their first time in Morocco. Where should they go? We always recommend the Imperial Cities Tour because it's there's a lot of things that they are familiar with. It's a little bit more modern comparing to the southern part of Morocco. It's got a lot of history,

Ted Cragg (08:36)
Right.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (08:37)
a lot of culture, architecture. So they'll see thousands and thousands of years of layers of all of that. So we always plan.

I recommend

If it's their first time to do the Imperial City Tour, which is incredible. Now, typically we like to do it in seven or eight days, but this can change. For example, say, hey, you know, I have 10 days, but I don't want to do the desert. I don't want to be driving from point A to point B every day. This can be nine days. It can be 10 days. And we can just add an additional day, for example, in Fes. We can add an additional day, for example, in Marrakesh. Or they say, hey, we have 12 days. We can probably

add an additional day in Essaouira right here which is three hours one way from Marrakesh and we can do in a few stops you know wine tasting we can do argan oil cooperative stop you know

Ted Cragg (09:30)
Right, yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (09:31)
then you you have you did Essaouira tour with your local guide Zaid and it was incredible experience

Ted Cragg (09:36)
Mm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (09:40)
and again that whole experience takes probably about an hour and a half and it's all walking distance so

Ted Cragg (09:45)
Mm-hmm.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (09:46)
and then

You can do dinner and come back to Marrakesh afterwards. So you can do it as a day trip So and again, this is just an example you can you can do 10 days You can do 12 days just the north side of Morocco And we'll see when we do the the southern part of Morocco. You can do the same thing as well So but recommendation just to avoid Driving all the time out we do say seven to eight days that way you at least

Ted Cragg (10:09)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (10:09)
get to experience Fes the right way Chefchaouen the right way Marrakesh the right way. So

Ted Cragg (10:14)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah,

I mean I remember when we went and ours was ten days, so just those extra two days made a huge difference 'cause we were able to go to Essaouira which takes a full day, but you know, we had the time. And then in our case when we were traveling with two kids, young kids, and we just needed to be conscious of pacing ourselves, right? And so we

Azdean Elmoustaquim (10:34)
Absolutely.

Ted Cragg (10:35)
requested just

somewhat an off day, a quiet day, which and and Fez made the most sense. It was kinda halfway through

Azdean Elmoustaquim (10:41)
Yeah.

Ted Cragg (10:41)
the trip. Of course it's a really cool place just to hang out and, you know, we went for a quick walk and stuff and we still went for dinner and everything. But it's nice to just hang out at the riad sometimes and, you know, they often have a pool or rooftop patio or things like that. And yeah, that that really helps. So we needed that extra day even just for that, you know. And ten days was a good pace. If if obviously you have that kind of time, but it's a nice way to do it.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (11:03)
Yeah, I totally agree.

you know, you mentioned something really, really important. And a lot of people, when they are in that planning phase, they tend to forget about it is that day off is that rest day. It's really, really important because you

Ted Cragg (11:14)
Hmm. Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (11:16)
don't want to be on the go for completing days. You know, we used to have

Ted Cragg (11:20)
Yeah, it's a lot.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (11:21)
itineraries that are really packed.

But we realized, you know, the travelers, they get tired. So your itinerary, we recommend not to fill it up all the way. Just have some, you know, late

Ted Cragg (11:33)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (11:33)
afternoon, not planning anything and just go with the flow, whatever comes, whatever you want to do at the moment.

Ted Cragg (11:37)
Yeah, it's nice to be spontaneous too.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (11:39)
absolutely. and I see that and I still see it. And a lot of people say, hey, you know what? You're right. You know, we got to day seven and we're really, really exhausted. We just wanted to stay for.

example at the desert we don't want to you know we had a day completely planned and they couldn't do it because they really got tired so you really have to pace yourself especially when you're traveling with kids there's a lot of driving they are not gonna like it sometimes so it's really really

Ted Cragg (12:03)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (12:06)
important yeah awesome yes

Ted Cragg (12:09)
Good. So that's the Imperial Cities. How about if you want

to do more of the desert side and maybe more of the cultural side of things too?

Azdean Elmoustaquim (12:15)
Absolutely.

So this is the same map and again

Ted Cragg (12:18)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (12:18)
We recommend eight days. mean, you can do it for seven. You can do it for more. But this is just in this example, we do it for eight. We have the arrival city and the departure city as Marrakesh. And again, just to make it easy in terms of moving through map and so forth, you can arrive in Casablanca and so forth and do this. You can arrive in different cities and we build itinerary that way for you. But this is just a typical southern part

Ted Cragg (12:46)
Yeah, it's a good starting point, yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (12:47)
of Morocco tour looks like. From Marrakesh, have one option which is you can drive all the way to Dades Valley or you can go to Dades Valley through Ait Ben Heddu and then to Dades Valley. So this is an option as well. So you have a lot of options. Then you spend the night here and then from here about four and a half hours you get to Merzouga.

really a really good experience. can do the camera ride and again you can do the quad and we talked you know in the previous episode that if you have guests with mobility issues you can do the 4x4 and still have that experience really really nice. Then you spend the night in Merzouga then we head to Ouarszazate. You can spend the night in Ouarszazate. Again there's a lot of stops that we make along the way and then from Ouarszazate we do the Ayt Binhiddu site and then from Ayt Binhiddu we

back to Marrakesh and we do you know Marrakesh City Tour and then we depart from Marrakesh. Now again this is eight days if you have somebody say hey I have ten days we can do maybe an additional day in the desert maybe an additional day in in Marrakesh for example or an additional day in Ouarzazate. but Marrakesh or the desert really sounds a little bit of a better fit if you want to if you have more days to add

Again, if you have 12 days, we can do maybe a day trip to Essaouira. I wouldn't do a day trip to Imlil for example, because that experience, you probably have done it somewhere along here. That Berber experience is going to be included somewhere here. So.

Ted Cragg (14:20)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (14:23)
Yes, absolutely. We

Ted Cragg (14:24)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (14:24)
normally do it with lunch with the Berbers or we do Ouirka Valley with lunch with the Berbers experience as well. So and

Ted Cragg (14:31)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (14:32)
the map that we showed earlier, the Imperial, these are the two really blueprints of any itinerary. You can create hundreds of itineraries based on these two. And again, because like we said before, lot of people, travel advisors are not really familiar with Morocco. They don't know how to sell it. hear

They're really afraid and they just want to avoid it all along but you don't really have to it just sounds complicated It sounds kind of strange and hard and difficult, but it really is not it's a very diverse Destination it's a beautiful destination

And last year when we talk about the numbers, we said 19.8 million. In Africa, we ranked number one, but globally, we ranked number 25. So it gives you, puts it in a little bit perspective, 25 globally, that's a really, really good number to be a top 25 destination of the world. It's beyond incredible. So yeah, so this is what I would say, option one, for example,

Imperial series option to the Berber and again, this is just a name and the Berber adventure desert with tour the name can change it can be any name It's you know, the names there's no shortage of names, but basically the map is the same the item is almost the same So it has these main component. It has a desert it has Marrakesh was is that boom? I'll dance a different head do and again When we build an itinerary, it's really customized item. So this

This

is just to give you an idea of what it looks like but then when you're building it for your client it's most likely 99 % of the time it's going to look different. It's going to have something that it's not on the map, it's going to have something on the map but it's going to be really personalized to your client's wants and needs.

Ted Cragg (16:21)
Now in this case, like

it's again it's that clockwise sense, circular kind of trip and it's kind of from Marrakesh you're basically going straight to Merzuga with probably a night along the way. But do you ever do it where the opposite, you might go from Marrakesh just over the mountains to Ait Binhaddou , Ouarzazate, They're pretty close together, and then your last big stop would be Merzuga, 'cause from there it's a long drive back to Marrakesh. Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (16:45)
yes, here's the thing, you can go this way, like I said

earlier, you can do Marrakesh, can do 8th Ben Heddu, you can Dades, or you can do Ouarzazate. and then...

You all the way to to you know, spend the night in Ouarzazate, and that from Ouarzazate you drive all the way to Merzouga? So you

Ted Cragg (17:02)
Right.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (17:02)
yeah and and again, this is just an example, but it will be customized to you according to your clients needs so know when we talk about the distance the drive for example from Fes to Merzouga It's it's a 10 hours when we talk about the drive from Merzouga to Marques about 10 hours So we we we tend to avoid doing that straight drive

and split it in two nights because it does make a big difference. If you're

Ted Cragg (17:31)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (17:31)
just driving for a lot of people, say, I have three days I want to do the desert, you're not going to see anything. You just 10 hours, you're not. It's not an experience at all. So

Ted Cragg (17:40)
A lot of driving. Yep.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (17:43)
the same thing, say, hey, I have five days I want to do Marrakesh, Merzouga and Fes. It's good luck.

Ted Cragg (17:51)
Yeah, yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (17:51)
I honestly don't know what to say, but...

I'm being very frank because it's, know, you have to see Morocco is pretty big. There's a lot of driving between Marrakesh and Merzouga, between Merzouga and Fes. And if we go on this route, which we'll see shortly, we do it the right way, unless sometimes the guests, don't really have the luxury of an additional day or additional two days. But we'll see them at some point of the presentation if they want to have a combination of both. So.

Ted Cragg (18:21)
Yeah.

I guess another key point here, I mean our map here is is kind of basic on purpose. We didn't want to put

Azdean Elmoustaquim (18:27)
Yeah.

Ted Cragg (18:27)
a lot of detail, but it's it's basically the same highway, right, between Marrakesh and Merzuga. Like it's not you're not kind of looping back on a different road. You're going there and back on the same road, right?

Azdean Elmoustaquim (18:39)
there are different ways to get from Marrakesh to Merzouga. When the first route gets into it, we use a different route coming back. So

Ted Cragg (18:46)
yeah, okay.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (18:47)
that way you get to see different things. You see

Ted Cragg (18:49)
okay.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (18:49)
what I'm saying? So if it's a highway, you're going to see the same thing. But there's no... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ted Cragg (18:53)
Well, by highway I mean what kind

of ro there's a good question. What kind of road is it? Is it a really windy road or Okay. Okay, yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (18:57)
It's we call it National Road, but it's paved.

It's really good. It's actually good roads, know, from Marrakesh to Merzouga. You know, there's there's an area where you see and this is a really, really good one. Sometimes there's flash floods. Sometimes you'll see a little bit of damage on the gravel. But other than that, it's really, really good. But when you get to to the desert from the other side to Erg Shebi and this is we had somebody wanted to do this.

We choose Merzouga for comfort. We choose Merzouga because when you get to the village, you'll see it. The sands are right there. When you get to the other side, know, Urkis, Shibbi, Shigaga, then you have an hour you're driving on the dirt road.

Ted Cragg (19:45)
yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (19:45)
And I know I've had some people in the past and they really...

two different clients. They really insisted on doing that and I had no idea why because I explained to them when you get to that area they have to switch vehicles because

Ted Cragg (20:04)
really?

Azdean Elmoustaquim (20:05)
if you remember Ted when we picked you up you were picked up in a Mercedes vehicle. It's a minivan

Ted Cragg (20:10)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (20:12)
and then

they are not going to let that van drive on dirt road for an hour back and just one way

Ted Cragg (20:18)
Right.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (20:18)
because it's going to damage it. So when they switch

Ted Cragg (20:20)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (20:21)
vehicles most likely those vehicles have and for a fact they have no insurance. They are built up vehicles and it's just it really changes the whole experience. So that's one of the biggest differences. So if you'd go in the other route and say hey no no I want to feel that drive I want to feel that bumpiness I want to have that experience. Really really good luck to you especially one of the

The people that came to ask me, she said that she had a back problem and back surgery and I said, look, I don't advise it. It's going to be terrible in a way.

Ted Cragg (20:50)
So that was going to a different desert?

Azdean Elmoustaquim (20:53)
Yes. Yeah, there's myrzogad and there's the other side.

You know, which I definitely do not recommend, especially when you have someone with the mobility challenges. This one, you don't drive in any dirt road. The pavement

Ted Cragg (21:09)
Right, right.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (21:09)
road is right there. They drop you off. You get it. You you want to stay in your reality, you stay in your reality, you want to do the camp, you get into the car and you get your camp and that's it. So there's, the other one is it's

Ted Cragg (21:20)
Yeah. Yeah, mercy yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (21:23)
not recommended at all. So I hope I'm not confusing a lot of people.

Ted Cragg (21:26)
Well, I just want to know where the other one is. You said the other side of of where?

Azdean Elmoustaquim (21:31)
the opposite side of Burj Khalifa. So it's going to be right here. So it's definitely, you know, it's completely different. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Ted Cragg (21:37)
Okay, like southwest of where's it at? I see. Okay. Which probably

tamps P because it's closer, right, to Marrakesh? Or it looks closer.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (21:45)
It

just looks closer, but the experience definitely not the same. Yes. Yeah, it's a little bit more luxury.

Ted Cragg (21:50)
Yeah. Yeah, 'cause Merzuga has the the infrastructure. And that's the place you see the

you know, the incredible golden sand dunes, right? And the starry skies and and the luxury tents and everything. It's it's in Merzuga more than anything. Okay, yeah. So I mean that kinda covers the two options, but then of course you can put them together. So our last one is if you have more time for sure, but combining the two itineraries.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (22:16)
Yes, again, you have more time, is what we would recommend. And you can see here, arrival and departure from Casablanca. This is just an example.

When we build a night area for you or your client, it's going to be customized so it can be arrival, Casablanca, Departure Marrakech. But then this is just an example that we're using and we do in 10 minimum of 10 to 12 days. 10 days it is going to have a little bit of driving. But if you have more days, it's always better. So and again, the same route, if you look at it, you know, go from Casablanca to Rabat to Chefchaouen, spend the night, Volibules, experience, Meknes, visit, spend in the night.

in Fes and here this is where we split it into two. So we split it, we spend the night in Middlet, it's a small village along the way and then from Middlet the next day we continue to the desert. and then when we do the desert you have options you can either go through Goumal Deds then Ouarzazate, Ait Ben Haddou and Marrakesh or you can you know you can go to Ouarzazate,

with a stop here at the gorge then Aït Ben Heddu Marrakesh and then your departure in Casablanca. So but this is the complete tour of Morocco which has the north side and the south side. So if you have more time to do it this is the itinerary or in general this is what the itinerary would actually look like. You can do 12 days you can do 15 days and again if you have more time this is where you can do day trips as well to Essaouira if you want to do

some surfing you want to do some golf in Marrakesh you want to do some golf for example in Essaouira as well you want to do some golfing in Rabat is really really known for a lot of golf courses so there's a lot of things that you can do with your time in Morocco so it's the challenge a lot of people have is they don't have enough time

Ted Cragg (24:06)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (24:06)
to get you know all the things that they want to do have fit in that one itinerary but this is the combination really of both

Ted Cragg (24:14)
Yeah. So that's just it. It gives people a good foundation to to build out from

Azdean Elmoustaquim (24:17)
Yes,

Ted Cragg (24:18)
there.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (24:18)
yes. And again, you know, this just gives them a little bit of, know, like you said, the map is kind of cleaned up in a way because we, if we put everything in the map, it's going to look overwhelming with the cities and villages and everything. So kind of cleaned it up just to give you an idea of at least where everything is, at least to have an idea of what is the driving distance between here and here and so forth and so forth. that's really, really the goal is to get you at.

at least have an idea in your mind what Morocco looks like and the distances between cities to cities in terms of driving. And again, when we talk about flying, example,

Ted Cragg (24:54)
Hm. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you about that.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (24:57)
in here, you see Merzouga along the way there's a small city town called Er Rashidiya and they have an airport. From that airport, you can see, you can fly to either Ouarzazate I think they have...

I'm not sure if it's Wednesday or Saturday And you can you know drive from Merzouga to Marrakech or fly from? Rashidiya to Casablanca so in terms of flights you have options and again when we talked about Ryanair in the past You know from Fes to Marrakesh you have options as well from Fes to Casablanca It's it's not that bad of a drive, but still you know you have that you know instead of going six hours six and a half you can you can do it within an hour or so and you're in Marrakesh and then you can continue

the

tour you know so you can do driving which we do most of the time but you can also include flying from city to city within your tour as well

Ted Cragg (25:51)
Yep. Yeah,

that's a good point, 'cause there's very good airports, obvious not just Casablanca and Marrakesh, but in Faz as well and and other places. So I mean that's an option to speed up your time. Do you I guess this gets into logistics, but is it the type of thing where you could meet your same guide and car driver? They'd have to drive, but they could meet you like the next day and you know, carry on.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (26:13)
Yeah, the next day they

can definitely meet you.

Let's say if you do Fes, for example to Marrakesh and instead of driving the whole day you just want to relax, you can do that

Ted Cragg (26:22)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (26:23)
as well. We'll take you to your way out just chilling and relaxing and then we can come back to you for dinner and take you somewhere for you and your party to have dinner and stuff like that and you'll be the same driver for example. The next day, they'll take over. If you have a day planned already and packed in Marrakesh, once you get to Marrakesh you'll have a different car and driver waiting for you. So when it comes to that

Ted Cragg (26:42)
Hm. I see.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (26:44)
it's just basically

logistics what fits you the best

Ted Cragg (26:46)
Right. You know,

and that gives a bit of space too for I mean, the independent travelers to some extent who like to still do a bit of exploring maybe on their own. A bit of free time.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (26:55)
Absolutely.

Ted Cragg (26:56)
They're more than capable of getting from the airport to the place or to go to the hamam or something like that.

But they obviously have the benefits too, the convenience of having your own dri car and driver and the guide. And the guide is more

Azdean Elmoustaquim (27:09)
Yes.

Ted Cragg (27:09)
than just someone who tells you where to go and what things are, but you know, you get to know these people, become your friends and it's that's a whole other level of the experience. Yeah. Good. Well, I mean, I think

Azdean Elmoustaquim (27:14)
Absolutely. Yes. I completely agree, Awesome.

Ted Cragg (27:21)
part of our goal here was, you know, to give people that visual

display and then inspire more questions. So I mean we kind of turn at this point over to you, the our viewers and our listeners. If you have questions, especially coming from these maps, right? And to learn more details, well we've got lots of podcast episodes for sure. But you can always reach out to us Dean for sure if you have any questions too. And I know you're happy to take people's calls.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (27:46)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and again, this is basically a lot of content we put in especially to to travel advisors who has never sold Morocco or been to Morocco

Ted Cragg (27:56)
Mm-hmm.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (27:56)
they hear about Morocco, but they're hesitant They are afraid they don't know what to expect As you can see, you know throughout our podcast throughout our social media Morocco is very diverse. It's a really really beautiful Destination it has not caught up in the West. It's not as popular yet, but it's just a matter of time

So

Ted Cragg (28:14)
Yeah, certainly getting there.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (28:15)
yeah, it's definitely getting there and the funny thing is because if you look at the last three or four years It has been an increase of 40 % of Americans visiting Morocco, which is which is just

Ted Cragg (28:25)
Mm.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (28:25)
incredible So I meet a lot of people I say Moroccans. my god. I love it and that and I meet some people say I never heard of it I don't even know who it is and that's that's pretty common But then again, we're here for you for the education for the knowledge anything in it for must just let us know we'll share it with you with this

whether you need images and all that stuff just to help you be familiar become familiar with the destination and make it easy for you to sell and sell it

Ted Cragg (28:52)
Yes.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (28:52)
really with confidence thank you

Ted Cragg (28:54)
That's awesome. Okay. Well

I guess we'll leave it at that, but yeah, it's been fun. It's nice to always fun to look at maps and show people where everything is.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:01)
I know.

It's always fun to have you at the episode, trust me, because

Ted Cragg (29:07)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:08)
I don't want to do any other episode. I'm terrible

Ted Cragg (29:10)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:11)
at scripts, I'm terrible at following

Ted Cragg (29:14)
Mm.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:14)
the lines, and I'm terrible at reading. can't read.

Ted Cragg (29:16)
Yeah.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:17)
I cannot read. absolutely, you make it so easy. I'm very grateful, I'm very grateful. Thank you, thank you.

Ted Cragg (29:19)
Well, it's fun to have conversations of course about these things too, you know. It's fun being here.

All right, we'll see you next time.

Azdean Elmoustaquim (29:30)
Thank you so much. Thank you.

Ted Cragg (29:31)
Cheers.