Marrakech

Two and a half hours of motorway separate Casablanca from Marrakech, which makes the red city a long but entirely workable day. You leave early, spend the middle of the day inside the medina, and come back in the evening.

The shortest trip that gets you properly out of the corridor between Casablanca and Rabat. One night in Marrakech turns the day trip into an evening on Jemaa el-Fna, and the second day runs west to the Atlantic at Essaouira, a fortified port with a working fishing harbour and no hustle to speak of.