Morocco - Multi Centre Holidays

[LondonSuperTrooper]

Can anyone please guide me in the right direction for cheap websites for booking a multi-centre holiday to Morocco?

Or is it better to book everything by myself? Is booking.com the best for accommodations? I've tried to use Skyscanner for direct flights but none seem to be available.

We are happy to hire a car & travel by ourselves. But I was hoping to hire a local guide to accompany us to the Atlas Mountains - no idea on how to go about finding this!

We went to Morocco at half term and had a lovely time. We booked it with www.completemorocco.com/ who were brilliant and created a tailor made trip for us with 2 nights in Marrakesh, 4 nights in the Ourika Valley in the Atlas Mountains, 4 nights in Essaouira. Lovely walking in the mountains. We just booked a guide with the Riad we were staying with. Not cheap, I have to say, but worth it for the mountains obviously.

Thanks for your reply. That's the trip that we are looking to book - the same places that you've travelled to!

How did you get from one place to the other? Did you hire a car?

We had a car & a driver collect us and deliver us, organised by Complete Morocco. I just don't want to be driving on holiday as we live in the country and do a lot of driving all the time! However, I'd say you could quite easily drive yourself with a hire car - obviously Marrakesh was busy, but not crazy like New Delhi say, no beggars at the traffic lights, no animals wandering around randomly and they didn't drive especially fast. Navigation might be a slight challenge in the older parts of the town. The drive down to Essaouira was just straight motorway with very little traffic and nothing to see, just flat desert landscape. Took about 2.5h from the outskirts of Marrakesh. I have to say I was a little disappointed in Essaouira as I thought it would be spectacular (it IS a UNESCO heritage site after all!) and expected something like in Rajasthan, but it's basically a modern scruffy town with a very long and scruffy beach, and a small medina which is very run down (authentic!) and full of tourists aimlessly wandering around. Didn't really excite me, and there wasn't much to do or see unless you take expensive excursions to argan oil plantations or camel trekking or something. If you just want to slob, then it's fine, I suppose. The city wall was closed for renovation so we couldn't walk on it. Much preferred the Atlas Mountains and Marrakesh! :) Marrakesh is easily walkable, we stayed in a riad about 10 mins walk from Jeema el-Fnaa, and you don't get hassled in the streets either, and barely even in the souk. Relaxing country, super polite and helpful people everywhere, lovely food. Enjoy!

Thanks for your reply, really useful information.

We didn't use them in the end because we opted to use airmiles and stay in Marrakech, but we got good information and prices from Lawrence Of Morocco Multi Centre Options here

With apologies to CeciliaL, our experience of Morocco was a bit different! The Atlas Mountains were great and outside Marrakech the roads were fine, scenery interesting and driving ok but inside the city, different story and you'll need nerves of flipping steel! Like Cecilia, we stayed in a (fantastic) Riad in the Old City, about 20 minutes from the Square but it wasn't on the map, the place is a complete maze and when you're wandering around clueless in 30+ degrees being stalked by a guy you asked directions from 30 minutes ago and trying to dodge mopeds and donkeys in small passage ways with a 7 year old, it isn't a huge amount of fun if I'm honest. Ask shopkeepers for directions otherwise you do get pestered! The medina was fine, if you've been to any other souk you'll know the score! My advice would be to get a guide - I know it's touristy but they'll show you places you wouldn't have found and you'll probably have a better time. Just my opinion though!

You could try Specialist Morocco. I know they have plenty of contacts for the kind of thing you are after