Idea
Lab

1 

Food and Wine

• Hands-on (or not) participation in the (November) olive harvest in a desert oasis reputed to produce Morocco’s finest olives. Watch extra virgin oil be pressed in front of your eyes and try your own hand. Visit the groves, and if you wish, help out a bit.

• Curated private cooking lesson with a dada (a traditional Moroccan grandmother who is the master of the family kitchen).

• Insider tour of local foods and seasonal specialties of the souks.

• Lunch at a locals-only establishment that is considered to make Morocco’s yummiest tanjia (one of the few dishes traditionally the domain of the men).

• Private workshop in traditional “khoobs”, the hand-made round bread cooked in communal wood-fired ovens all over Morocco.

• Curated tasting of Morocco’s wines. Remember the French were here.

• See a whole region in action at the saffron harvest (late October/early November) in one of the world’s most important saffron producing areas. Thread-like stigmas are manually extracted from each flower. Your visit to a family-owned farm will be followed by lunch in a village home.

• Private lesson in the traditional Moroccan patisserie under the tutelage of a master.

• Visit a local kasbah in one of the great date-palm oases of the Sahara. Arrive as the finest Moroccan dates are harvested (usually the second half of October) and laid out on the roofs of the kasbahs to dry in a spectacular annual display of color.

2

Bring The Kids

• Private henna and tea ceremony.

• Visit the movie studio at Ouarzazate, where part of Game of Thrones was shot. Movies filmed here include Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Kundun, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, Ben Hur, Alexander, Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky and Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. If a movie is being shot at the time, we may be able to arrange a lunch for you.

• Make your own taarija, or traditional Moroccan ceremonial drum.

• Scavenger hunt in the medina of Marrakech.

• Astronomy workshop under the brilliant Saharan sky or the Desert of Agafay outside of Marrakech.

• Explore the age-old art of woodcarving with traditional artisans and try your hand in this craft under the tutelage of a master.

• Family cooking lessons in a variety of Moroccan foods in a local farm.

3

Adventure + Adrenaline

• Private desert encampment (accessible by 4×4) near the greatest dunes in the Sahara (Erg Chebbi).

• In the remotest part of the Sahara, accessible by helicopter, a luxury private encampment. Except for your staff, you won’t see another soul.

• Multi-day ascent of Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa.

• Camel trekking in the Sahara desert or, alternately, in a small desert only an hour from Marrakech.

• Sandboarding on Saharan dunes.

• Multi-day road rally in the Sahara with a former Dakar Rally pilot.

• ATV adventures in the Sahara.

• Pilot the Predator X-18s ultra-terrain vehicle in the Sahara.

• Mule trekking in the High Atlas Mountains.

• Windsurfing in Essaouira and kitesurfing in Dakhla.

• Surfboarding at Taghazout.

• Swimming with dolphins (if you get lucky) or sea-kayaking at Dakhla.

• Hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camel riding, all over Morocco, from the mountains to the desert to the beach.

• Enjoy stunnning sunrise view over desert landscape, Berber villages and the Atlas Mountains near Marrakech during Hot Air Balloon flight.

• Discover the city of Marrakech and Palm grove on a sidecar.

• Camel riding and/or Quad bike in Agafay.

• Zip-line in the Atlas Mountains. 

4

The Arts

• Meet one of Marrakech’s most talented fashion (and most famous) designers. Together visit the fabric souk before heading to her studio and together designing your own kaftan.

• Create your own perfume with Morocco’s most famous perfume designer.

• Owner-led visit of Marrakech’s top photo gallery.

• Private tour of the Art Deco district in Casablanca with the person leading the charge for its preservation.

• Design (with the help of an artisan) and craft your own scarf or jewelier using traditional techniques. Your day starts in a small village famous for the quality of its wool.

• Spend a morning immersed in the art of traditional leather making in the souks of Fes, ending with creating your own bag, babouches (traditional Moroccan slippers), or jacket.

• Workshop in the fine art of zellij – delicately hand cut ornamental mosaic ceramic tiles)

4

Jewish Heritage

• Visit mellahs (Jewish quarters), synagogues (in use and as monuments), and cemeteries in most of the major cities, including: Fes, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, and Essaouira. The major communal institutions of Casablanca can be visited as well.

• Experience one of the unique aspects of Moroccan Jewish culture – the veneration of tzaddikim (righteous people) through annual pilgrimages to their tombs. For some tzaddikim, thousands of people come from all over Morocco and abroad.

• Visit remote, rural Jewish cemeteries and, in a few cases, remains of former synagogues.

• Shabbat lunch with a Jewish family in Marrakech.

• Visit an adobe synagogue in southern Morocco.

• Meet leaders of the Jewish community in Casablanca and Marrakech.

• Curator-led tour of the only Jewish museum in an Arab country.

• Erev Shabbat services in Casablanca, Rabat, Fes, Agadir, Tangier, and Marrakech.

1 

Our Favorites

• Meet one of Marrakech’s most talented fashion (and most famous) designers. Together visit the fabric souk before heading to her studio and together designing your own kaftan.

• Private storytelling with young, English-speaking storytellers who will impart the humor and wisdom of this time-honored Moroccan tradition (this is an art form that was nearly lost until recent years).

• Curated shopping in Marrakech for fashion (ladies or mens) and/or home design.

• Private dinner in an 18th-century home in the medina with a French expat who purchased and restored this home – once in ruins – and has been spearheading a number of projects to safeguard Marrakech’s patrimony.

• Bird’s-eye view from a private hot air balloon as you are whisked over the High Atlas Mountains, lush desert oases, and earthen kasbahs to the remotest reaches of the Sahara Desert to a private encampment set up just for you.

• Meet the owner of our favorite photography gallery (in fact, our favorite gallery, period) in Morocco. She will introduce you to the current exhibit and the just-emerging art scene in Marrakech.

• Spend a morning exploring the treasure trove of Art Deco and Modern architecture in Casablanca (one of the greatest collections of this period of architecture in the world) with the head of an NGO whose goal is to preserve this quickly-vanishing showcase.

• Meet local leaders of an NGO focused on the many issues that women in Morocco face in a remote oasis town near Ouarzazate.