Maroc: a winter teen tour of Marrakech, the Agafay desert and Essaouira

A supervised touring stay in Morocco for teenagers aged fourteen to seventeen, run by the French operator Temps Jeunes. The group travels from France with its leaders and moves between Marrakech, the Agafay desert and Essaouira on the Atlantic coast. The working language of the group is French; this is a travel and discovery programme, not a language course, with no lessons and no levels.

The package covers the accompanied flight, accommodation, all meals, the activity and excursion programme and the supervising team. The headline price is the package leaving from Paris: travel is part of the package for everyone, and each of the other French departure cities costs a set amount more, listed one by one in Extras. A departure city is only operated with a minimum of three participants, and the stay itself only runs with the minimum group of 24. Passport valid to the return date, parental authorisation to leave the territory and the other compulsory documents are the family’s responsibility and are not part of the package.

The group stays in youth hostels. Young people take part in running the stay, including the shopping and the cooking.

Meals are prepared by the group with its leaders, with the young people doing the shopping as well as the cooking. Some meals are taken in local restaurants. A Berber dinner in the Agafay desert, with mint tea, is part of the programme.

In Marrakech the group walks the Jemaa el-Fna square and the souks of the tanners and the jewellers, the lanes of the medina, and is offered visits to the Majorelle Garden, the Yves Saint Laurent museum and the Bahia Palace, with a hammam at the end. A short trip out of the city reaches the Agafay desert for a camel ride, mint tea and a Berber meal under the stars to the sound of the derbouka. In Essaouira the medina is discovered through a city-wide game that runs from the blue and white lanes to the fishing port and the spice market, with the ramparts for the sunset over the ocean and time on the beach a few metres away. Every evening ends with group activities set by the leaders.

The stay is a tour rather than a stay in one building: the group is accommodated in youth hostels in Marrakech and Essaouira.

Three different Moroccos in one stay: a city of noise, colour and trade; a stone desert where dinner is eaten on the ground under the stars; and an Atlantic port town with ramparts and a beach. Teenagers help run the stay themselves, from the market to the kitchen. Supervision is one adult for every eight participants, with a qualified director and a first-aid trained leader in the team, and the group travels and lives together from departure to return.