In deciding a route we had a few pointers to go by. Firstly there are a lot of organised 4x4 trips that regulary go to the country, so we had a good look at their itineraries and found quite a number of sights, common trails and waypoints.

The next bit of research was a visit to Amazon to buy some further reading matter. My shopping cart included the current edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Morocco and Sahara Overland by Chris Scott. We bought the maps that we would need from Standfords.

I thought that a good start would be to try piece together a route taking in most of Morocco's major attractions. True to form Lonely Planet quickly told me the highlights of the country and most helpfully suggested itineraries based on the duration of ones visit. Once finished we had a good idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see.

We were also interested to visit some of the property hotspots around Morocco and were keen to incorporate some of these into our journey. Most are on the west coast which we hoped would make for a leisurely drive back to the UK.

We didn't have much off road experience so were unsure about attempting some of the more challenging terrain such as The Cirque de Jaffar, The Plage Blanche and the full Todra Gorge / Dades Gorge loop.

In the end this was decided for us by the weather. By some accounts the autumn of 2008 had been the worst in some 40 years with over six weeks of non-stop rain. Many off-road tracks were completley washed out and according to frequent postings on The HUBB, often well known pistes had been all but destroyed by floods and landslips.

We were forced to make a number of changes to our itinerary, but this didn't spoil the trip at all. Apart from being holed up in Ifrane for 3 days because of snow, not to mention getting stuck in mud in the desert, it just gave us a reason to visit again some time in the future.

Michelin Sahara map (Sheet 741)
Scale 1:1000000   Click to enlarge

Michelin sheet map Morocco
Scale 1:4000000   Click to enlarge

Google Earth file