Abercrombie & Kent Unearths Luxuries Both Simple and Grand on a Tailormade Journey Through Northern Morocco

Travelers can cover a lot of ground on Abercrombie & Kent’s new 10-day Small Group Journey in Northern Morocco, but for those keen on a slower-paced, more immersive touring experience, a Tailormade Journey may be the best way to go.

That’s what I did not too long ago back in early December when cooler, early spring-like temperatures blanketed much of the north. I joined a private A&K Tailormade Journey of Northern Morocco that sampled some of the luxury brand’s existing itinerary highlights, including cherry-picked selections from its new small group journey, Morocco: Tangier & the Blue City.

Everything from hotel accommodations, restaurants, sights and cities visited, down to special activities and events, were among the aspects that made up this curated itinerary for the small party of three I was traveling with. Our trip spent one night in Casablanca, two nights in Rabat and capped off with three nights in Marrakech.

There are a number of new hotels that have opened across Morocco and the cities A&K visits on all of its itineraries there within the past year, including the ultra high-end Royal Mansour Casablanca, the Four Seasons Rabat, and the Park Hyatt Marrakech.

We made our way through the country’s ancient and imperial cities accompanied by a private guide who led our entire seven-night tour, which made for a more intimate way of seeing Morocco. Our group was small but the experience I had felt larger than life with the extra space available, whether it was in the comfortable sprinter van we traveled in or while feeling free to wander off in the kasbahs, mosques and medinas we visited, without the fear of holding up many more members of a larger group.

You can breathe, see and really take in Morocco’s sights, its culture, its people, and its sounds in a much more personal and intensified way on a custom private journey, as it lets travelers set their own pace, adjustable in many ways as you go along.

Surprise & Delight Around Every Corner

I often found on this trip that with every corner I turned, something visually stunning would appear and stop me in my tracks. Whether it was my first time seeing the inside of a riad, losing myself in the mystery of Morocco’s many medinas, or shuffling through the shifting sands of the Agafay desert at luxury glamping site Scarabeo Camp, I was never met with a moment that wasn’t entirely visually, audibly and emotionally stimulating.

Our dining experiences were some of my favorite and most standout memories of this trip. Many of them were in tucked away restaurants, found only after winding through labyrinths of terracotta colored alleyways lined every so often with those iconic Moorish doorways made of wood or tile. In Casablanca, for our first lunch, we headed to Dar Dada, a riad nestled in one such labyrinth.

This being my first time in Morocco and my first time setting foot in a riad, I was instantly filled with a sense of wonder, of curiosity and awe at the realization that not only did the tiles, textures, the open atrium, the acoustic music filling the space, look and sound like the images I had come across all my life, but the reality was so much better and really helped set the tone of what the rest of the trip would later offer.

Rabat certainly surprised me. After hearing our guide, the knowledgeable Hicham El Alioui who hails from Marrakech, speak so vividly of Fez’s ancient history – it’s the oldest city in Morocco and boasts more than 9,000 alleyways – I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense that we were missing out by not factoring in even at least one day visiting the city.

But after arriving in Rabat, spending time in the medina, taking a walk through a kasbah and getting to know the city, I immediately understood that this too is a city travelers need to make time to be in in order to appreciate it fully; an extra day spent here could only enhance their trip.

Rabat is also a great introduction to the more traditional style communities in Morocco and a good precursor to Marrakech. It’s a calmer, more laid back big city that prepared me for the high-octane hustle and bustle energy I was met with in Morocco’s fourth-largest city, which perhaps would have been overwhelming had I skipped Rabat or only spent a day, or half day, visiting.

While all of A&K’s itineraries that include Rabat only spend one night in the city at most, on a Tailormade Journey, you can spend as much time as you’d like here before embarking on your next destination in Morocco.