Best Day Trips from Fes Morocco (2026)

This is the day trip that needs no justification. Meknes was once the imperial capital of Moulay Ismail, and his monumental Bab Mansour gate alone is worth the drive. Spend an hour in the medina, visit the Mausoleum and the Heri es-Souani granary, then continue 30 km north to Volubilis — the best-preserved Roman ruins in Morocco, with mosaics still sharp enough to identify the peacocks and dolphins. The road between Meknes and Volubilis passes the hilltop town of Moulay Idriss, burial place of the founder of the Moroccan kingdom. By car you can pace yourself; by bus and grand taxi the same circuit works, just with more patience at shared taxi ranks.

Chefchaouen is the bucket-list stop for most visitors to northern Morocco, and the bluewashed medina more than earns its reputation. From Fes, it is roughly 2.5 hours by private car on the new road via Sefrou and Taounate — longer but more scenic than the highway via Taza. A day trip is possible if you start before 8 am, but you will be rushing. The better play is one night: Chefchaouen is full of affordable riads and the light in the early morning and late afternoon is what the photographers come for. If you are determined to do it in a day, hire a private driver who knows the road — the CTM buses leave early but the return timing is tight.

Ifrane looks so unlike Morocco that first-time visitors laugh: chalets, manicured parks, a stone lion in the town square. It was built by the French as a hill station and is now home to Al Akhawayn University. Stop there for a café au lait, then continue south to the cedar forests around Azrou where wild Barbary macaques sit in the road and occasionally try to steal your lunch. In March and April the forest floor is green and the monkeys are everywhere. On the way back you can stop at Ain Leuh for a waterfall and a quieter Berber market than anything in Fes. This is the trip that kids love and that most independent travellers do not think to add.

Sefrou is the anti-Chefchaouen: almost no tourists, a compact old medina striped with covered souks, a waterfall you can walk to in 20 minutes from the bus station, and a river running through the centre of the mellah (the old Jewish quarter). It was once a significant Jewish community and some Hebrew inscriptions survive in the stonework. If you are in the region in June, the Sefrou Cherry Festival is Morocco's most exuberant small-town celebration — a market, a parade, a cherry queen coronation, and plenty of the region's renowned sweet cherries. On any other day it is a relaxed half-morning that leaves you back in Fes before lunch.

Most visitors glimpse Moulay Idriss from the road to Volubilis, but the town deserves at least an hour on its own. It is the burial place of Moulay Idriss I, the great-grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and founder of the Idrisid dynasty — the first Islamic dynasty in Morocco. Non-Muslims cannot enter the sanctuary but the streets around it are genuinely pilgrimage-town Morocco rather than tourist Morocco, and the views from the hilltop terraces over the Roman ruins below are among the best photographs you will take all week. The town was historically closed to non-Muslims overnight; it is now open, and a small number of guest houses have appeared.

Listed here because so many travellers search for "Sahara day trip from Fes" and the answer needs to be honest: at 480 km each way, it is not a day trip. What it is, however, is one of Morocco's great road trips. A private 3-day tour south from Fes passes the Middle Atlas, the date-palm oases of the Ziz Valley, the dunes of Erg Chebbi at Merzouga, and either loops back to Fes or delivers you to Marrakech. If you have built three days into your itinerary and have not yet done the desert, this is the most natural way to use them.