If you find the prospect of planning a trip to Morocco yourself overwhelming, an organized tour is perfect for you. Here is how you should think about choosing and hiring a tour company for a life-changing trip to Morocco.

Decide on Your Tour Type

If you want to experience the whole country but don’t want to book your own hotels or think about an itinerary, you can definitely book a 14-day trip with a tour company and have a splendid time. There are two types of these trips: group and private.

Moments in Morocco, Nomadic Tours, or Morocco Travel are a few that offer this type of group trip. However, I would really recommend you do something private for the following benefits:

You can choose your own pace and itinerary. If you go on a group trip, you have to do what the tour recommends, and you’ll frequently spend less time at spots than you may have wanted. You’ll also have many more people in all your photos, if that matters to you.
You’ll get more time with the driver. We learned so much from our driver, but would have spent much less time with him if we weren’t his only clients.
You can do things off the beaten path. Two of our most special experiences (having tea with a nomadic Berber family and walking to a salt mine) were way off the main road, and a large bus or even sprinter van would not have been able to make it out there. If you want moments like these, a smaller, private car is the way to go.

If you want to do something private, I would highly recommend Moments in Morocco, the company we did 5 days in the desert with. But here is a guide of how you should go about finding the tour company that works best for you.

Getting Quotes

The first step to finding your private tour is messaging 3 - 5 companies (always get at least 3 quotes), and asking them to put together a quote for you.

In your message to them, include the following:

How long you’d like your tour to be
If you have flights already, where and when your flights in and out are
Which cities you would most like to see. If you don’t really have a preference, they have tours they do all the time that they can recommend to you.
What kind of travel you most want to do: adventure? shopping? eating?
What pace you want to travel at. Do you mind being in a car for 8 hours with frequent stops? Or do you have back pain that would prevent that from being a good idea?
How many people you are
If you have a budget you could state that up front. It might also be possible to negotiate, although we didn’t try.

Tips when Considering a Tour Company

Every quote you get back will be slightly different, and if it’s not detailed enough, ask for more details. To decide between them, here are the things I would consider:

Ask for the make and model of the car. If you are going to the desert with 4 people or fewer, I would definitely recommend you find someone with a 4x4 (it should be a Toyota Prado or better), and make sure it has AC that the driver will actually use. We saw several other companies have issues with their cars breaking down, etc.
Check the hotels the company will book for you. They will likely say, “X, Y, or Z hotel, or similar.” Look up these hotels and see if they are the caliber of hotel you’re hoping to stay at. Confirm after booking the tour that you are still satisfied with the hotels they secure. Some may be unavailable but you might not find out until after you pay a deposit. Make sure the tour company specifies if certain hotels cost more or all options are the same price.

Consider what the tour includes. You can definitely find cheaper tours that don’t include any kasbah tours or only include breakfast but not lunch and dinner. Most will include some meals but not drinks. Food is not very expensive, but you should at least compare apples to apples.

Make sure you like their proposed itinerary. One of the tour companies we got a quote from recommended we stop in Midelt the first day to break up the drive to Merzouga (which is 8 hours). This is fine, but Midelt is a pretty whatever town, and we preferred another itinerary that recommended we spend 2 nights in Merzouga. If we hadn’t gotten multiple quotes we wouldn’t have known that this was what we preferred. And of course, you can always ask them to change the itinerary if the tour company you proposed a worse itinerary.

Kasbah of Aït Ben Haddou from above.jpg

You want an experienced driver. We LOVED our driver, and found him to be quite wise about the desert, the country, and the culture. It turns out he was one of the most experienced the company has, and we were very grateful for him our whole trip. He also spoke a bit of Berber, so we were able to have a really special experience with a Nomadic Berber family that didn’t speak any Arabic. Ask the company about the driver/guide if you can.

What You Should Expect

For some reference as to what your tour should look like, here is what ours included:

5 days, 4 nights in the desert, with pickup in Fes from our hotel and dropoff in Marrakech at our hotel
Private driver in a Toyota Prado 4x4 with AC or heat as needed
4 nights in luxury camps or mid-level luxury accommodation in cities
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner included every day (except dinner after we were dropped off). Drinks not included
They provided water for us our 5 days
Our guided kasbah tours were all included

A driver who spoke English, Arabic, and Berber. He was also very experienced driving in the snow and sand. Not every driver is, and yes, it does snow in Morocco (in the High Atlas Mountains)
When a hotel they usually booked was unavailable for our date, they sent us 2 options and we chose one
Our whole trip was €605pp, and we paid a 30% deposit to secure the trip, then the rest the 2nd to last day of our trip

During the Trip

Enjoy! Morocco is so beautiful and you’ll love it.
If you see a beautiful vantage point (or if you pass one), don’t be afraid to let your driver know so they can stop for you. It can be hard to make frequent stops on days you’re rushing to get to the next destination, but this is the benefit of going private.
Ask lots of questions. We learned so much about the Moroccan government, education system, people, culture, and food, by talking to our driver.
Take lots of photos. The trip will fly by super quickly, and if you don’t take photos, you might forget what you did that day or where you went.

Let the driver know if you anticipate bathroom needs. I always knew I’d have to go to the bathroom about 45-60 minutes after we set out after breakfast, (all the fruit + juice + coffee!) so I let the driver know when I got into the car so we could find a good bathroom that was ideally free.
Check in with your driver if he has to go to the bathroom. The drivers are there to serve you, so they don’t want to halt your trip for their own needs, but it’s always good to check in because they might also have to go.

After the Trip

After the trip, make sure to tip your driver. You’ll want to, I’m sure, but prepare because you’ll need to have cash. A typical tip for a private driver is 100 - 200 MAD per day.
Leave a review! If you liked the tour, leave a review for them. If you didn’t, give them feedback.

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I hope this helps! If you find a great tour company with the help of this blog post, I’d love to hear about it!

How to Hire a Moroccan Tour Company // Morocco