Fes: 5 Morocco Day Trips

Fes’ medina is a trip on its own, our full city guide covers that. This one is the other job Fes does: base camp for the north of Morocco. From here you reach a Roman ruin, an imperial city, a monkey-filled cedar forest cold enough for real snow, and, if you actually give them the days they need, the blue city and the Sahara. Five trips earn a slot on your itinerary. Two of them get sold constantly as day trips and are not: Chefchaouen needs a night, the Sahara needs two or three.

Essentials Fes as a Morocco base
Trip range Sefrou at 30-40 minutes out, up to a 2-3 day Sahara loop
Best months March-May and September-November for driving days; Middle Atlas winters bring real snow
Day-trip budget Grand taxi or shared transport ~150-400 MAD; guided day tour ~400-900 MAD; private car more
Book first The CTM bus to Chefchaouen and Merzouga desert-camp tours both sell out in peak season

The 5 trips, ranked by distance from Fes

  1. Sefrou, 28-30km, 30-40 minutes
  2. Meknes and Volubilis, roughly 60km and 45 minutes to an hour, plus an onward taxi leg
  3. Ifrane and Azrou in the Middle Atlas, roughly 1.5-2 hours
  4. Chefchaouen, roughly 200km, 4 hours 40 minutes each way by CTM bus, an overnight and not a day trip
  5. Merzouga and the Sahara dunes, 7-9-plus hours each way, a 2-3 day tour, never a day trip

Meknes and Volubilis: the imperial city and Rome’s edge, paired

An ONCF train from Fes Ville to Meknes runs 45 minutes to an hour, roughly 18-26 MAD, or charter a grand taxi round trip covering Meknes, Volubilis and Moulay Idriss for roughly 400-500 MAD for the whole car. Meknes earns an hour or two on its own: Bab Mansour’s gate is one of the most elaborate in North Africa, and the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail is genuinely open to non-Muslims, remove your shoes at the door. Volubilis , Morocco’s best-preserved Roman site, charges 70 MAD adult entry (fact-checked 2026-07, older posts still quote a stale 10 MAD), and storks nest on the surviving Arch of Caracalla. Moulay Idriss, the hilltop pilgrimage town nearby, is worth the short stop even though parts of it stay closed to non-Muslim overnight stays. Visitmorocco.com’s Fez travel page covers the wider region if you want background before you book. Book the Meknes, Volubilis and Moulay Idriss day trip on GetYourGuide .

Ifrane and Azrou: Little Switzerland and a cedar forest full of monkeys

Ifrane and Azrou sit roughly 1.5-2 hours from Fes through pine-forested Middle Atlas roads. Ifrane earned its Little Switzerland nickname honestly, alpine chalets and genuinely snowy winters, a look no other Moroccan town pulls off. The better reason to come is the Azrou cedar forest, home to Barbary macaques resident year-round, not a rare sighting but a near-guaranteed one. A typical guided day tour runs 8-9 hours round trip with a morning pickup. Book the Fes to Middle Atlas day trip on GetYourGuide .

Is Sefrou worth the detour from Fes?

Yes, if you want a quieter version of the same architecture. Sefrou sits just 28-30km and 30-40 minutes away by grand taxi, its own walled medina and historic Mellah getting a fraction of Fes’s foot traffic. Time it around mid-June if you can: the Cherry Festival has run here since long before UNESCO listed it as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2012.

Is Chefchaouen doable as a day trip from Fes?

No. The CTM bus takes 4 hours 40 minutes each way (fact-checked 2026-07), with four departures daily from Fes’ dedicated CTM station, Gare CTM Atlas, not the main Gare Routière. Tickets run roughly $16-17, about 150-160 MAD, and the route sells out, book at least two days ahead through CTM’s own site or on arrival at the station. A same-day round trip means roughly nine hours in transit for a handful of hours in the blue-washed alleys, technically possible, a bad way to spend a travel day. Book Fes to Chefchaouen CTM bus tickets on Viator .

Is the Sahara doable as a day trip from Fes?

No, not remotely. One-way alone runs 7-9-plus hours through the Middle Atlas and the Ziz Valley. Operators sell both a 2-day, 1-night version, real, if brutal, and a more common 3-day, 2-night version with an overnight camp under the dunes, roughly 150-200 euros per person for a shared group tour, more for a private one. Anyone offering a genuine one-day Merzouga round trip from Fes is selling something else.

Where to stay for these trips

A riad inside or right at the edge of Fes el-Bali is still the right base, every tour and bus pickup happens from the city regardless of which direction you are headed that day. Compare current riad rates in Fes on Booking.com and confirm your pickup point with the tour operator the night before.

For the day-by-day version, our 2-day through 7-day Fes-to-Morocco itineraries lay out exactly which trips fit which length, and our Fes city guide covers the medina itself, deliberately left out of this one. Check ONMT’s practical Morocco information before you book any of these, since entry and transport rules do shift.