Most “best time to visit” advice compresses the year into two words: spring or autumn. True, and not much use if you can only travel in July, or if you are deciding between late October and mid-November.
Here is the year as it actually feels.
January and February
Cold at night, genuinely. Ten degrees in the small hours, and riads are stone boxes built to stay cool — which they do, all winter. Fireplaces and heaters are the difference between a good stay and a miserable one, so ask before booking.
Daytime is glorious: eighteen to twenty, hard blue light, the Atlas white and visible from the rooftops. The best light of the year for photographs, and the emptiest souks.
March and April
The city’s best weeks, and everyone knows it. Warm days, mild evenings, gardens at their peak, and the Atlas still snow-capped behind. Easter is the single busiest period of the spring and prices move accordingly.
Book early or take the last two weeks of March, which are almost as good and noticeably quieter.
May
Hot but not yet oppressive, and the last month when walking the medina in the middle of the day is pleasant. Pools become the point rather than the decoration.
June, July and August
Forty degrees and above. This is the part people either avoid or handle badly.
It is perfectly doable if you invert the day: out early, back by eleven, the afternoon in the water or asleep, out again at six. The medina at eight in the morning in July is one of the best things in Marrakech, because it belongs to the people who live there.
What does not work is trying to keep a European schedule. Nor does a riad without a pool in August.
September
The first half is still summer. From about the twentieth, the heat breaks and the city exhales. Late September is underrated — warm, quiet, and everything open.
October and November
The second great season. Warm days, cool evenings, and the light going gold earlier every week. November brings the first rain: not much, but when it comes it is sudden, and the medina drains badly.
December
Cold nights again, and short days. But Christmas and New Year are among the busiest weeks of the year, with the city full and the villas booked months ahead.
The two weeks nobody mentions
The second half of March and the second half of September. Both sit just outside the peaks, both have the weather of the peak, and both cost less and feel calmer. If your dates are flexible, that is where to aim.
Planning a stay in Marrakech?
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