Three Days of Light
3-Day Ait Ben Haddou & Telouet Tour from Marrakech
Three days south of Marrakech, planned around the two hours a day that actually matter
- 3 days · 2 nights
- Marrakech → Marrakech
- About 11 hours over 3 days, all of it timed around the light rather than the distance. driving
This is the short version of what I do on the longer photography trips: drive when the light is useless, and be standing somewhere worth standing when it isn't. Three days is enough for the kasbah road south of Marrakech if you accept that the middle of each day is for eating and sleeping, not shooting. We leave early, we stop late, and we go back to the same place twice when it's worth going back. If you've got a week or more, the nine-day version does this properly. This one is for people who have a long weekend and don't want to waste it.
Why I run it this wayI shoot as well as drive, so the schedule is built backwards from sunrise and the last hour. I'll tell you where to stand, and then leave you alone to work.
The things worth stopping for
- Dawn at Ait Ben Haddou before the first coach arrives
- The painted rooms inside Telouet, shot on window light
- The Ounila back road, which almost nobody drives
- A night sky with no town for fifty kilometres
Where this trip takes you
Straight lines between stops, not the exact roads — the driving is the winding version of this.
How the trip goes
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Day 1: Over the pass, into the first golden hour
Driving: About 4 hoursWe leave Marrakech early enough that the Tizi n'Tichka is still in low light when we cross it. Stops on the way down for the switchbacks and the villages built into the slope. We reach Ait Ben Haddou with time to walk up before the sun drops, and shoot it as it goes. After dinner, the sky — there is no town close enough to spoil it.
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Day 2: Telouet, and the road nobody takes
Driving: About 3 hoursUp before light for the kasbah with nobody in it — the coaches arrive around ten, and by then we're gone. We take the old Ounila road north instead of the highway: a river valley, red rock, and villages that see almost no traffic. Telouet in the afternoon for the painted ceilings and the plaster, all of it lit through the windows. Skoura's palm groves at last light.
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Day 3: One more dawn, then north
Driving: About 4 hoursA last sunrise — either back at the kasbah or from the ridge opposite, depending on where the light is better that morning. Then the pass again, back into Marrakech by the afternoon with time to catch an evening flight.
I'll email you this itinerary — every day, what's included, what it costs — so you can think it over and share it.
One email with the itinerary. No account, and I don't pass your address to anyone — see the privacy policy.
What's included
Included
- Private air-conditioned van with me driving
- 2 nights accommodation
- Breakfast each morning
- Fuel, tolls and parking
- All timings planned around light rather than opening hours
- Marrakech pickup and drop-off
Not included
- Flights and visas
- Travel insurance
- Lunches and dinners unless listed
- Entrance fees to monuments and museums
- Local guides inside the medinas
- Tips
Read more about where you'll be
A closer look
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Every route bends: more time somewhere, a different start, a night added. Send your dates and I'll plan it around you.