Marrakesh: how many days you need and which months to avoid

When to go, and how bad the summer really is

This is an inland city on the edge of a desert. The temperature range across the year is wide, and the top of it is not something you can plan around with an early start.

1. January: Worth it, butJan
2. February: Worth it, butFeb
3. March: Go nowMar
4. April: Go nowApr
5. May: Go nowMay
6. JuneJun
7. July: Think twiceJul
8. August: Think twiceAug
9. SeptemberSep
10. October: Go nowOct
11. November: Go nowNov
12. December: Worth it, butDec

• Go now
• Worth it, but
• Think twice

• March to May

  Go now

  Warm, dry and comfortable

  The best window of the year: warm days, cool evenings, and the Atlas still snow-capped in the distance. Spring is when the gardens are at their best.

• October and November

  Go now

  The heat has broken, the crowds have gone

  Warm without being difficult, and noticeably quieter than spring. October is arguably the single best month.

• December to February

  Worth it, but

  Mild days, genuinely cold nights

  Pleasant for walking and cheap, but riads are often poorly heated and the evenings are colder than people expect. The mountains nearby have real snow.

• July and August

  Think twice

  Severe heat, not just hot

  Regularly above forty degrees in the afternoon, with little shade in the souks. This is not something an early start fixes — the whole middle of the day disappears, and it is the one window worth actively avoiding.

• Ramadan (moves each year)

  Worth it, but

  A different rhythm, and worth knowing in advance

  The dates shift roughly eleven days earlier each year, so check them against your trip. Many cafés and restaurants close during daylight, the pace of the day changes, and the evenings become much livelier. Not a reason to avoid the city — a reason to know before you arrive.

How many days Marrakesh needs

Three days is a good fit for the city: the medina, the gardens and palaces, and a day of nothing in particular, which is when the place starts making sense.

Longer works better as a base. The Atlas mountains are an easy day trip and a complete change of temperature, and the desert or the coast are within reach of a longer trip — which is where multi-destination planning earns its keep.

How the city is arranged

The old walled medina and the modern city outside it are two different places with different rules, and moving between them is the basic rhythm of a trip here.

• The medina — the souks, the main square, the riads. Dense, unsigned, and where a phone map is less useful than you expect.
• The Kasbah and the southern medina — the palaces and tombs, quieter than the souks.
• Gueliz — the modern city, wide streets, and where the prices and the pace become ordinary.
• The gardens — scattered, cooler, and the right plan for the hottest part of the day.

Where to stay: a riad in the medina or a hotel outside

In Marrakesh the decision is binary and it defines the trip. A riad inside the medina is a traditional house with an inner courtyard, cool, quiet within and in the middle of the maze: it is the experience most people come for. A hotel in Guéliz, the new town, is comfortable, with wide streets and cars, and none of the medina's atmosphere.

The riad's drawback needs stating plainly: taxis cannot reach the door. They drop you at the edge of the medina and from there you walk through narrow lanes, sometimes for several minutes, with your luggage. Most riads send someone to meet you, and it is worth giving them your arrival time.

Compare these areas against your priorities

Airport to the medina, and the rules of the street

The airport is a few kilometres out and the trip is short, but taxis do not use the meter with visitors: you agree the price before getting in, and it is worth asking your riad what it should cost. It is normal practice and not something to take badly, but without an agreed price the final figure can triple.

In the medina there are two things to get used to quickly. The first is that people will constantly offer to guide you, and whoever does expects payment. The second is that mopeds ride down lanes barely wide enough for a person, and they do not brake: you keep to the wall.

• If someone tells you the square is closed or there is a Berber festival, that is the city's classic scam. The square is never closed.
• Download an offline map. The medina has no grid logic and GPS is patchy between high walls, but it helps.
• Petits taxis are for city journeys and are beige. Grands taxis are for longer, shared trips.
• Carry cash in dirhams. Many stalls and taxis do not take cards, and dirhams are hard to obtain outside the country.
• Covered shoulders and knees avoid unnecessary attention, especially for women, though Marrakesh is fairly relaxed compared with other areas.

Day trips: the Atlas, the desert and the coast

Marrakesh sits at the foot of the High Atlas, giving it a variety of day trips few cities have: in two hours you go from thirty-five degrees in the square to snow on the mountain. There is one important decision: what to do about the desert.

And on that, it is worth being honest. The real sand-dune desert, the Erg Chebbi, is about nine hours away by road. The day trips sold as "desert" go to Agafay, a stony desert forty minutes out: it is beautiful and it is not the Sahara's dunes. The dunes need three days minimum.

• Ourika Valley — an hour away, green, with waterfalls and Berber villages. The easy, cool summer trip.
• Imlil and Toubkal — the base of North Africa's highest peak, an hour and a half out. Walks at every level.
• Essaouira — the walled coastal town, two and a half hours away. Cool, windy and full of fish. It is the escape when Marrakesh bites.
• Ait Ben Haddou and Ouarzazate — the kasbah from the films, over the Tizi n'Tichka pass. A very long day on a road of continuous hairpins.
• Agafay — the stony desert forty minutes out, with camps and sunset dinners. It is the half-day option, knowing what it is.

Eating in Marrakesh, and the square

Moroccan cooking is slow-cooked: tagine, couscous — traditionally a Friday dish — and pastilla, plus harira soup, eaten above all to break the fast in Ramadan. Riads eat very well and many will serve dinner if you tell them in the morning.

About the food stalls in Jemaa el-Fna, two things need saying: they are a spectacle worth seeing, and the food is unremarkable while the touting to sit down is relentless. Eating there once for the experience is fine, knowing it is not where the city eats best.

• Mint tea is served very sweet and forms part of hospitality. Refusing repeatedly is considered discourteous.
• Morocco is a Muslim country and alcohol is limited: available in hotels and some restaurants, and almost nowhere in the medina.
• The orange juice stalls in the square are extremely cheap and fine; agree the price and ask for no added sugar.
• The rooftop terraces around the square are the best place to watch sunset with a tea, and most charge no more than the drink.
• Eat cooked food and drink bottled water. Tagines and anything served bubbling cause no trouble.

Where to eat in Marrakesh, dish by dish

Marrakesh has two food cities: the medina, where the food is cheap and the hustle is constant, and the new town, where it is calmer and more expensive. The single most useful habit is to agree the price before anything is served or handed to you — that includes a plate at a stall, a glass of juice and a photograph with a snake. It is not rudeness, it is the local norm.

• Jemaa el-Fnaa

  Market

  The famous square at night, and how to handle it

  The great square of the medina, which fills with food stalls after sunset — grills, soup, snails, sheep's head. Stalls with a number, a visible queue of locals and prices on a board are the ones to use, and touts who physically steer you to a stall are the ones to walk past. Eat where the turnover is fast.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Tagine

  What to order

  The dish everyone comes for, and how to spot a bad one

  A slow-cooked stew named after the conical clay pot it is made in. A good one takes hours, so a place offering twelve varieties in five minutes is reheating them. The best are lamb with prune, or chicken with preserved lemon and olive. Order it in a place that also has locals eating.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Méchoui

  What to order

  The slow-roast lamb, and when to look for it

  Whole lamb roasted slowly in a pit oven, sold by weight and eaten with bread, cumin and salt. It is a lunch food and it sells out — the alley of méchoui pits in the medina works through the middle of the day and closes when the lamb is gone. This is the single best thing to eat in the city.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Bazaar

  Market

  Buying spices and sweets without overpaying

  The medina's souks sell spices, dried fruit, nuts and pastries, and haggling is expected on everything without a marked price. A workable approach: ask two or three stalls before buying, start well below the first number quoted, and be prepared to walk. The stalls furthest from the square are usually the fairest.

  Check it on Wikidata

Things that change the trip

1. 1Phone maps work badly in the souks. Landmarks and asking are more reliable, and getting briefly lost is part of it rather than a failure.
2. 2Prices in the souks are negotiated. Not haggling is not politeness; it is simply paying more than the asking rate expects.
3. 3Unsolicited offers to guide you somewhere generally end in a shop and a fee. A firm, friendly no is standard.
4. 4Book a riad inside the medina for the atmosphere, but understand that taxis cannot reach the door — you will walk the last stretch with luggage.
5. 5A day trip into the Atlas is a twenty-degree change in temperature and the best possible answer to a hot week.