Marrakech

Fly into Marrakech Menara Airport and transfer to your riad in the medina — the streets narrow progressively until your driver stops at a lane too small for the car, and you walk the last 100 meters to what looks like a blank wall with a modest door. Inside: your riad's courtyard, open to the sky, with a central fountain, orange trees, and a complete silence that seems impossible given the medina's intensity just outside. Check in, drink mint tea on the courtyard, and then take your first tentative step into the medina at dusk — the late afternoon and evening light in the souks is extraordinary.

Djemaa el-Fna — Marrakech's central square — is one of the world's great spectacles: snake charmers, acrobats, fortune tellers, henna artists, and orange juice sellers by day; then at sunset the entire square transforms into a vast open-air food market with dozens of numbered stalls, smoke rising from charcoal grills, and the entire city eating together in the open air. Morning: explore the souks radiating outward from the square — the spice souk (mountains of cumin, paprika, ras el hanout), the leather souk (where hand-stitched babouche slippers are made in front of you), and the copper souk (every surface hammered by hand). Afternoon: Medersa Ben Youssef — a 14th-century Islamic college with the most beautiful courtyard in Morocco.

A traditional Moroccan hammam is one of the most restorative experiences in travel — not a day spa but a 1,000-year-old ritual of heat, steam, black soap (savon beldi made from olives), and vigorous exfoliation with a kessa mitt that removes layers of skin you didn't know you had. Book the private hammam at your riad or at Hammam de la Rose in the medina, followed by an argan oil massage. Afternoon of medina wandering — the Saadian Tombs (a 16th-century royal necropolis discovered behind a bricked-up wall in 1917), the Bahia Palace (a 19th-century grand vizier's palace of extraordinary painted cedar ceilings and zellige floors).

The High Atlas Mountains begin one hour south of Marrakech, and the Imlil Valley at their base is one of Morocco's most beautiful landscapes — a deep green river valley of Berber villages clinging to the mountain walls below the 4,167m peak of Jebel Toubkal. A private car brings you to Imlil (1,740m) where a guide leads a 3-4 hour hike through walnut orchards and mountain villages to Aremd village for a traditional Berber lunch — tagine cooked in a clay pot over a wood fire, with bread baked in the courtyard oven. Return to Marrakech for evening.

The Jardin Majorelle is one of the most visited gardens in Africa — created by French painter Jacques Majorelle over 40 years, then rescued and restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé in 1980, and now also home to the Berber Museum and the YSL Museum. The garden's defining color — electric cobalt blue — covers every structure among a collection of 300 plant species from five continents. Afternoon: the Palmeraie, Marrakech's palm grove north of the medina, for a camel ride through the 150,000-palm oasis — touristy but beautiful in the late afternoon light.

Essaouira is 3 hours west of Marrakech on the Atlantic coast — a blue-and-white walled medina with ramparts built by a Portuguese architect, a working fishing port, and an extraordinary wind that has made it a world-class kitesurfing destination and given it a dramatic, wild-Atlantic character completely unlike Marrakech. The ramparts, the port, the argan oil cooperatives in the surrounding countryside (Essaouira is in the heart of the argan forest), and the winding lanes of the medina are all beautiful. Return in time for a final Marrakech evening on the rooftop.

Final mint tea on the riad rooftop before transferring to the airport. Buy saffron, argan oil, and a hand-painted ceramic plate from the souk on your way out.