Morocco Travel Answers

Your best bet for an overnight stay in the desert is nearby Merzouga. The Erg Chebbi dunes are part of the Sahara. You can quite easily reach this destination from Marrakech ina 3 (better 4) days trip, guided or on your own by car.
never been to Tunisia and/or Egypt, so I can not compare cities.

happy travels
Jaap

Moroccan cities are very different from both Egyptian and Tunisian cities. Casablanca is not exactly a tourist destination and too far from the desert. Marrakech would be my first choice city for an overnight desert trip. There are many possibilities available. Also consider a couple of days in Essaouira, a delightful coastal town .

I had 10 days or so in Tunisia particularly to get down to the Douz desert festival and had already seen a lot of Morocco at that point. My opinion too is that Morocco and Tunsia on a whole are rather different from each other. and both worth seeing.
Tunisia has a lot more roman and pre-roman historic sites, Morocco has a lot more people still living in the rural areas living and working off the land....not so common to see people out and about with donkeys for example in Tunisia whereas you will see donkeys, mules and horses still used all over Morocco. In my opinion there are more beauty spots and stunning landscapes in Morocco than Tunisia which makes the journey just as interesting as the destination..
the sahara desert around Merzouga ie the erg chebbi dunes area are pretty impressive in my opinion.

How do you have and would you get a car and self drive - certainly the most time efficient way to see a good range of sites - make a circuit and go...

In addition to Marakech and Essaouira if youre coming down from Casablanca Id recommend a visit, even a night at Cascade douzoud which is just up in the hills above Azilal with northern Africas highest waterfalls.
then you could do a circuit from Marrakech along the dades valley road via the Glouai headquarters of Telouet to Ait Benhaddou and then to the desert ie Merzouga and back via Alnif and Nkob with a drive down to Zagora and back up to Ouarzazate and out to Essaouira.

Hello....as you don't appear to have finalised your decision to visit Morocco yet, I will only generalise, and if you decide to go, you can come back with more specific questions. First, I have never been to Tunisia or Egypt, so I can't compare these destinations with Morocco.

One week is not very long to travel to the southern desert regions and include a stopover in Casablanca, so you would need to hire a car, most of the desert tours start in Marrakesh and Ouarzazate, the scenery between the two cities, over the Tizi n' Ticha highway mountain pass is spectacular, and one of the highlights of Morocco, from Ouarzazate you can either decide to drive to Merzouga or the more authentic and primitive M'Hamid, which is close to the Algerian desert frontier. I was not too impressed with Merzouga, it was too orientated towards the expensive organised desert tour companies, some of which can be quite disreputable. I preferred M'Hamid, it';s only a small town on the edge of the desert with three hotels, if you want to hire camels and a guide, this is the place to do it, personally, I just took a walk into the wilderness and met some of the local people sheltering in their bivouac tents, when a sand storm blew up, we all sat around drinking ghastly mint tea!

Casablanca is a different world, it's a huge seaport and industrial centre, and the traffic is nightmare. I always stay in the old French Quarter which is central to everything you want to explore, within walking distance (watch out crossing the road in the nightmare traffic) or you can use one of the small inexpensive red taxis, buzzing around everywhere. I stayed last year in Hotel Mon Reve, just around the corner from CTM bus station, there are other inexpensive lodgings of variable standards in this locality. The main attractions are Hassan Mosque, the Central Market, ancient Medina and the main thoroughfare Boulevarde Mohammed V. Casablanca's night life is on a par with any major European city, pubs, nightclubs, restaurants etc, so if you're a night owl you will find everything you want.

Finally two warnings, in mid summer the desert heat is intolerable, day temperatures climb over 50C and nights are not much cooler, the month-long religious fast of Ramadan begins this year on 9th July, the hottest month, daily life is turned upside down for five weeks, public transport is disrupted, and many shops and restaurants are closed all day. I made the mistake of spending three weeks in Tangier in 1985 in the middle of Ramadan, out of ignorance, never again!

So, I hope this gives you some clues, visit my travel pages, where I've done more detailed writing on Morocco, in general.

Benny.