Fes Plus Day Trips in 7 Days on a Budget
Seven days: the only version here that fits a Sahara add-on
This is the 6-day plan ’s spine with its rest day swapped for the shortest real Sahara option: a 2-day, 1-night tour to Merzouga. It’s tight, you’re back late on Day 7, but it’s the only way a Sahara add-on fits inside a 7-day Fes trip without lying about the drive time. If you’d rather keep the rest day, stick with the 6-day version instead.
| Day | Focus | Time/cost from Fes |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Meknes medina, Bab Mansour, Volubilis ruins, Moulay Idriss | ~1-1.5 hrs each way, ~40-110 MAD round trip |
| Day 2 | Ifrane chalets, Azrou cedar forest, Barbary macaques | ~1.5-2 hrs each way, ~500-700 MAD chartered taxi or ~€45-60pp tour |
| Day 3 | Sefrou medina and Mellah, half day | ~30-40 min each way, ~20-30 MAD shared seat |
| Day 4 | Travel to Chefchaouen, overnight | ~4.5 hrs each way, ~150-180 MAD CTM bus |
| Day 5 | Chefchaouen morning, return to Fes | ~4.5 hrs return |
| Day 6 | Depart for Merzouga, overnight desert camp | 7-9+ hrs each way, tour only |
| Day 7 | Sunrise over the dunes, return to Fes | 7-9+ hrs return |
Book these before you go:
- 2-day, 1-night Merzouga desert tour : camp space sells out in peak spring and autumn weeks, book before you land.
- CTM bus tickets for Day 4: departures run roughly every 4 hours.
- Riad rooms in Fes on Booking.com : 4 nights here, plus 1 in Chefchaouen and 1 in the desert camp booked separately.
Day 1: Meknes and Volubilis by train and taxi
Take an early ONCF train from Fes Ville to Meknes, 45 minutes to an hour, roughly 30-90 MAD one way. Morning at Bab Mansour and the Meknes medina, then a shared grand taxi (roughly 10-20 MAD per seat) or chartered round trip (roughly 400-500 MAD for the car) out to Moulay Idriss and the Archaeological Site of Volubilis . Evening train back to Fes.
Day 2: Ifrane and Azrou, the Middle Atlas on a day trip
Ifrane, 1.5-2 hours out, runs alpine-chalet architecture and genuine winter snow; Azrou’s cedar forest 20 minutes further has resident Barbary macaques. Charter a grand taxi for the day (roughly 500-700 MAD) or book a shared-group tour (roughly €45-60 per person). Back to Fes for the evening.
Day 3: Sefrou, then rest before two travel-heavy legs
Sefrou is a 30-40 minute grand taxi ride, roughly 20-30 MAD shared or 120-200 MAD chartered. Its walled medina and historic Mellah take half a day; the Cherry Festival runs mid-June and is UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage-listed. Be back in Fes by early afternoon; the next four days are the trip’s longest hauls.
Day 4: Travel to Chefchaouen, an honest overnight
Book the CTM bus, 4 hours 30 minutes to 4 hours 45 minutes, roughly 150-180 MAD (about $16-19) one way, departures roughly every 4 hours. Spend the afternoon and evening in the blue-washed medina and book a room here for the night, separate from your Fes riad.
Day 5: Chefchaouen morning, then back to Fes
Use the morning for whatever you missed the evening before, then catch an afternoon CTM bus back to Fes. You’ll want a full night’s sleep at your riad before the desert leg starts the next morning.
Day 6: Depart for Merzouga, one night in the dunes
A 2-day, 1-night Sahara tour departs Fes early morning, 7 to 9-plus hours through the Middle Atlas, Ifrane, and the Ziz Valley, arriving at Erg Chebbi by evening for a camel trek and dinner at a desert camp. Shared-group pricing on this shortest version starts around €110 per person; it’s a long single day of driving for one desert night, the honest tradeoff for fitting this into a 7-day trip at all.
Day 7: Sunrise over the dunes, then the long drive back
Catch the sunrise from camp, then begin the 7-plus hour drive back to Fes, arriving in the evening. If your flight out is the next morning, this works; if you need to fly out same-day, don’t book this leg, add an eighth day instead, since arriving back exhausted and immediately catching a flight is a bad trade for the extra dune night.
Is 7 days enough for Fes, Chefchaouen, and the Sahara?
Just barely, and only in this shortest 2-day/1-night Sahara configuration. You’ll genuinely see all five day trips plus a real overnight in both Chefchaouen and the desert, but the schedule leaves no slack; a delayed bus or a late desert pickup pushes everything back. If you want a 3-day/2-night Sahara tour instead of the rushed 2-day version, budget 9 days, not 7.
How much does a 7-day Fes-based itinerary cost?
Figure 4,300-5,600 MAD ($462-602) total for a solo traveler, most of it the desert tour: four Fes riad nights, one Chefchaouen night, the Meknes and Sefrou legs, the Ifrane and Azrou charter or tour, the CTM bus both ways, and the 2-day Sahara tour itself. That desert tour is the one cost worth booking weeks ahead, not the night before.
Check the official Morocco tourism site before you go for current notices on Volubilis, the Middle Atlas, and desert-route conditions. Carry small MAD bills for every taxi leg; drivers on these routes rarely carry change for a large note.