Morocco 2017

[Walrus]

As you can see from my avatar, I have been to Morrocco but not in a van. I found it a very friendly and welcoming and I wouldn't be nervous about going. I sent three weeks wandering in a vague circle from Melilla to Tangier Med with a few friends. Personally, Marrakech was the one place I didn't enjoy and the only place were we felt hassled. It's very touristy. Eating n the square in the evening is fun though. The falls at Ouzoud are good and easy to visit en route. Fes medina is a fascinating place to visit and worth it if you can fit it in. Don't forget it can get cold at night and over the passes. They say Morrocco is a cold country with a hot sun. Do it and enjoy.

 

[Loz]

We love Morocco.
Have been on 4 trips there, 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2014 it's a great and friendly place.
From the posts above..
Take the Ferry from Algeserias to the new port of Tanger Med (not the old port of Tanger) also avoid crossing to Ceuta at the moment.
Prefer Fez to Marrakesh, the square in Marrakesh is over rated and a haven for pickpockets and hasstle, where as the fez historic souk and tannery have had a make over and a great visit.
Nothing notable in Chefchaouen and the campsite is full of Pot smokers as the Riff mountain area was the last major pot growing area up until 2005 when the King ordered the "Crop be burnt" but still goes on in small areas.
Dades and Todra gorge are a great drive. As is Jebel Saro further south but its an off rod track.
If you like Animals, you can see Barbery Apes in the Ceder Forest north of Ifrane.
The High Atlas and Ait Ben Hadu are very scenic
The film sets around Ouzerzatte are quaint.
If you like Fossils go over to Er Foud or Rissani.
If you want to see big sand dunes drive down from Er Foud to the Grand Erg Chebbi.
If you drive down to the dunes in mohamid you will pass through the town of Zagora where I know a superb mechanic if you need running repairs.

Here is our last trip we did in the Touareg;

 

[zeratul]

So we are back from our 18 day trip to Morocco and did more or less all the highlights Loz mentions above.
It was a great trip. The children loved every piece of it and played for hours on campsites and in the desert dunes. Our best Cali trip ever.
18 days is not too short. It felt just perfect. We even met Germans that had only 9 days (1 week) which means 5 nights in Morocco. But I'd recommend more. We met a lot of people there for easter (2 weeks, 17 days total travel) holidays with their children. We even met some Irish (with 3 children as well) with their big Defender with Roof tent and some Swedes ... all traveling for 2 weeks. So we did not feel stupid doing to many kms, it was an amazin trip.

The highlight was an overnight stay in the Merzouga desert in a Berber camp. You find it on booking.com 'Desert berber camp', very very cheap and still so brilliant and totally worth it. 2x 1.5h camel trip , evening dinner, 3x tea times, breakfast, sleeping in tents , sunrise, sunset... for like 80 euro for the 5 of us combined.

We had a camping spot in Oualidia for just 2.6 euro for the whole family including california.. 3 course meals in the touristic part of Essaouira for just 3euro.. A cheap holiday for sure.

For others considering this trip I also have a small list of things to avoid:
- Avoid Grimaldi Lines. Horrible. Supposed to leave at 2am, left at 4.30am. Total chaos on the embarkment process with the biggest and most damaged cars pushing through the hardest and no one organizing the queues. Only 1 car per minute could embark - customs strike in Barcelona? Guess we'll never know. Really bad communication (arabic english and french) about customs procedures and we lost lots of time. Horrible food, very noisy cabins, never again. Next time we try the more expensive GNV instead. Or do the drive to Algeciras like we did on the way back.
- Avoid booking through aferry.com/ferrysavers.com . We used them because the Italian Grimaldi lines did not accept our credit card (only italian cards perhaps) but they currently have bugs in their IT system causing the times of departures to be off by 5-6 hours for the Tanger Med->Algeciras ferry and you cannot change the tickets easily and they are unreachable. Not fun to wait so long on a parking lot.
- Marakkesh .. accidently drove the cali in the medina.. What a nightmare. Not a nice city to visit with children. 1000x times 'non merci' and everyone touches their hair (3 young blond boys..) which they did not like at all. After a while the stress goes down but we didn't really enjoy the constant rip-offs we had to fight.

We did Barcelona->Tanger->Oualidia->Essaouira->Marakkesh->High Atlas (Toubkal National park)->Ait Ben Hadou -> Dades and Todra gorge -> Tinnerhir -> Merzouga -> desert camp -> Midelt->Azrou->Meknes-> Chefchaouen -> cascade d'Akchour -> Tanger Med and drove home via Bordeaux. A total of 6200km driven but it did not feel like too much as there was so much to see along the way.

 

[zeratul]

Oh and the California 4MOTION with VB Air suspension in Off-Road mode is just so much fun in Morocco especially finding yourself on the edge of the desert where there are no roads, and amongst all those big jeeps.
Some of the roads we did looked like this

And the 'auto-level' feature is so great that it should be standard on every Cali. Choose your spot on the campsite not based on where it's level, just take the best spot and direction and then push the button. I remember in Croatia with those non-level we campsites we sometimes lost 15-30 minutes trying to get the car level every day...
Auto-level in action:

But I guess my favorite picture of the holiday is this one, our 3 boys so happy climbing and playing in the largest sandpit on earth while we watch the sun go under and the shadows and lighting change the landscape every minute.

 

[Walrus]

I'm glad it went well. The boys will remember it for a long time.

 

[Loz]

Excellent, well done, love the picture of the boys on Grand Erg Chebbi.

For anyone else wanting to book a better ferry you need to use Carlos (will add the exact detail when back from current trip) who has a shop behind the hypermarket in Algerciras, and take the ferry to Tanger-med (not old Tanger).

I laughed out loud when you mentioned driving into the souk at Marrakesh as we nearly did the same, that area at the back is really interesting as they have all the manufacturing of various things going on back there like turning bike tyres into picture frames and tyres into well buckets etc.

 

[zeratul]

Excellent, well done, love the picture of the boys on Grand Erg Chebbi.

Yes, our only regret is not staying there for longer. We could have added a third day in the area there.

For anyone else wanting to book a better ferry you need to use Carlos (will add the exact detail when back from current trip) who has a shop behind the hypermarket in Algerciras, and take the ferry to Tanger-med (not old Tanger).

Yes we'll do that next time. And I think we may go back some day, again with easter.
Still those long distance ferries from Barcelona or Sete (France) are a good option as well (or Porthsmouth -> Bilbao from the UK) as they reduce the long distance driving. Just never again Grimaldi lines.

I laughed out loud when you mentioned driving into the souk at Marrakesh as we nearly did the same, that area at the back is really interesting as they have all the manufacturing of various things going on back there like turning bike tyres into picture frames and tyres into well buckets etc.

My wife had read in a guide that to really experience Marrakech, you have to stay inside the Medina. So we did, booked a riad through booking.com and asked where to park. We did not get an address or a google maps link just some vague descriptions but as all signs of the mentioned buildings were Arabic only we got lost. Turning around with a Cali in the middle of donkeys, scooters, other cars, bikes, etc is nearly impossible. Then "guides" start offering their services and they of course want money.
Eventually we called the phone number and a guy from the Riad came to look for us. When parking the Cali we had to leave the keys .. and that felt really bad. But it worked out fine.

For other Cali travellers I'd recommend to take a campsite outside Marakkesh and find transport to the center from there. Even though a Riad is an experience and an "oasis of rest" in the busy center.. it's not worth the risks of ending up with a damaged or stolen Cali.

 

[Loz]

I just got around to scanning the details for Carlos who is a top guy and agent for ferries from Spain to Morocco.
Attached is his card.

 

[Ksar-el-kebir]

So we are back from our 18 day trip to Morocco and did more or less all the highlights Loz mentions above.
It was a great trip. The children loved every piece of it and played for hours on campsites and in the desert dunes. Our best Cali trip ever.
18 days is not too short. It felt just perfect. We even met Germans that had only 9 days (1 week) which means 5 nights in Morocco. But I'd recommend more. We met a lot of people there for easter (2 weeks, 17 days total travel) holidays with their children. We even met some Irish (with 3 children as well) with their big Defender with Roof tent and some Swedes ... all traveling for 2 weeks. So we did not feel stupid doing to many kms, it was an amazin trip.

The highlight was an overnight stay in the Merzouga desert in a Berber camp. You find it on booking.com 'Desert berber camp', very very cheap and still so brilliant and totally worth it. 2x 1.5h camel trip , evening dinner, 3x tea times, breakfast, sleeping in tents , sunrise, sunset... for like 80 euro for the 5 of us combined.

We had a camping spot in Oualidia for just 2.6 euro for the whole family including california.. 3 course meals in the touristic part of Essaouira for just 3euro.. A cheap holiday for sure.

For others considering this trip I also have a small list of things to avoid:
- Avoid Grimaldi Lines. Horrible. Supposed to leave at 2am, left at 4.30am. Total chaos on the embarkment process with the biggest and most damaged cars pushing through the hardest and no one organizing the queues. Only 1 car per minute could embark - customs strike in Barcelona? Guess we'll never know. Really bad communication (arabic english and french) about customs procedures and we lost lots of time. Horrible food, very noisy cabins, never again. Next time we try the more expensive GNV instead. Or do the drive to Algeciras like we did on the way back.
- Avoid booking through aferry.com/ferrysavers.com . We used them because the Italian Grimaldi lines did not accept our credit card (only italian cards perhaps) but they currently have bugs in their IT system causing the times of departures to be off by 5-6 hours for the Tanger Med->Algeciras ferry and you cannot change the tickets easily and they are unreachable. Not fun to wait so long on a parking lot.
- Marakkesh .. accidently drove the cali in the medina.. What a nightmare. Not a nice city to visit with children. 1000x times 'non merci' and everyone touches their hair (3 young blond boys..) which they did not like at all. After a while the stress goes down but we didn't really enjoy the constant rip-offs we had to fight.

We did Barcelona->Tanger->Oualidia->Essaouira->Marakkesh->High Atlas (Toubkal National park)->Ait Ben Hadou -> Dades and Todra gorge -> Tinnerhir -> Merzouga -> desert camp -> Midelt->Azrou->Meknes-> Chefchaouen -> cascade d'Akchour -> Tanger Med and drove home via Bordeaux. A total of 6200km driven but it did not feel like too much as there was so much to see along the way.

Yes, avoid GRIMaldi lines, whether it be to Morocco from Spain or Italy to Greece!
If you’re south of Agadir, Sidi Ifni is a good place to stay a while. Being ex Spanish there are tapas bars etc. Also it doesn’t get very hot or very cold.