Boutique Hotels in Morocco

Morocco offers more ways to stay than any other country on our list: a carved door in a medina wall that opens onto a courtyard of citrus trees and zellige tilework; a tented camp pitched in the dunes of Erg Chebbi; a hilltop terrace looking down on a medina that has worked the same trades for a thousand years. The riad is the signature stay, and choosing the right one matters more here than in any city we cover.

Our collection maps four Moroccos. In Marrakech, Royal Mansour's private riads and El Fenn's art-filled courtyards sit inside the walls with Riad Kheirredine and Le Farnatchi deeper in the medina, while Hotel Tigmiza keeps the Atlas Mountains in frame from a palm grove beyond them. On the Atlantic, Heure Bleue Palais holds a corner of Essaouira's fortified 18th-century medina, where the trade winds keep summer ten degrees kinder than the interior. In Fez, Hotel Sahrai looks over Fes el-Bali, the medieval city where Al-Qarawiyyin has taught since 859. And in Merzouga, Desert Luxury Camp, run by a local Berber community, puts you under the Sahara's night sky in the Erg Chebbi dunes.

Go in spring or autumn, when the cities are mild and the desert evenings still warm; summer belongs to Essaouira's breeze, winter to clear desert days and sharp nights. Members hold rates at each of these houses that the hotels themselves don't publish, and the pieces combine well: Essaouira is three hours from Marrakech by road, and the drive to the dunes crosses the High Atlas. Most guests break it overnight and count the journey as part of the trip.