26 places, from £47 to £340 a night.
About twenty kilometres from Marrakech, on the Ourika plain facing the Atlas, Les Asnouss is a nine-room ecolodge built in pisé. Earthen walls, solar power, well water, kitchen garden and a small farm of donkeys and peacocks: you come here for the country and the silence, not for the medina, which needs a car.
About fifteen kilometres from Marrakech, on the Fès road, Bakkal Farm is an organic farm you inhabit rather than a hotel. Seven waxed-concrete rooms with large picture windows onto the olive grove, a long mirror pool, a table drawn from the kitchen garden: you come here for the country and the calm, not for the medina, left a half-hour drive away.
The Fashion Boutique Hotel wears three stars on its plaque, but lines up a level above: a rooftop pool-bar with an Atlas view, a spa with hammam, a restaurant, all on avenue Hassan II. Thirty-five rooms in contemporary decor, a service travellers place at the top, five minutes from the station.
The PL Place is closer to a retreat than a hotel: only nine rooms, tucked in a dense Palmeraie garden, around a pool and a domed pavilion. The heavily decorated suites play caidal tents, patina and lanterns, each with its green corner. An intimate, densely decorated address, for cutting off from the city rather than visiting it.
In the Ouirgane valley, an hour by road south of Marrakech, Ouirgane Ecolodge is a pisé guesthouse set at the foot of the Toubkal national park. Twelve rooms, an olive garden, a pool facing the mountains and a table drawn from the kitchen garden: you come here for walking, calm and altitude, not for the city.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Deux Tours is the house designed in the 1980s by the architect Charles Boccara: 44 rooms spread across pisé pavilions, three hectares of Andalusian gardens, patios, pools and a heated pool. You come for the calm and the hand of an architect, not for palace living.
The medina's first guesthouse, opened in 1946 at Bab Doukkala, La Maison Arabe is an institution two steps from Jemaa el-Fna. Twenty-six rooms and suites around patios, a cookery school known well beyond the city, a spa and a piano bar. The large pool sits elsewhere: at the country club in the Palmeraie.
The Ksar Anika is a large Mellah riad playing the boutique-hotel card: eighteen rooms across two patios, a pool under a glazed roof, a spa with hammam and a table. You are two steps from the Bahia palace, in a quarter in full change, for an entry rate that stays reasonable for the class.
The 2Ciels plays the pleasure boutique on several levels: a pool in the patio, another on the roof with a bar-lounge that livens up in the evening, a spa, two tables including a seafood one. Eighty-five rooms in Art Deco decor, on the edge of Guéliz and Hivernage, facing the tennis club and near the galleries. An address to stay in as much as to head out from.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Cinq Djellabas lines up ten lodges under conical thatched roofs among an olive grove. A human-scale guesthouse, designed by its owners around a heated pool and a Moroccan table. You come here for the calm and the orchard, not for the souks at the door.
Set in a palm grove north of Marrakech, the Tigmiza is a red pisé palace tucked under the palms, with three pools, a spa and rooms treated as works of their own. Suites, bungalows and villas spread through a garden, fifteen minutes from the centre. A calm-and-decor address, for anyone accepting to sleep outside the walls, off the medina's buzz.
In the Palmeraie, ten minutes by car from Jemaa el-Fna, the Villa Al Assala holds ten junior suites set in a large garden, around a domed pavilion and a heated pool. A human-scale address, betting on quiet and green rather than the number of rooms.
Behind a Kasbah wall lies what the medina rarely delivers: a three-thousand-square-metre garden, planted with orange trees, around a heated pool. Les Jardins de la Médina occupy a former palace turned into a thirty-six-room hotel, minutes from the Saadian Tombs. A green oasis in the old town, for anyone wanting space without leaving the walls.
In the Palmeraie, Dar Sabra is less a hotel than an open-air art gallery you sleep in. Two hectares of olive trees planted with sculptures and pop frescoes, around twenty all-different rooms, three pools: you come here for the decor as much as for the rest, ten minutes from the medina but off its buzz.
Carved stucco, zellige columns, chiselled wood ceilings: The Red House pushes the decor of the great early 20th-century Moroccan houses into an eight-room home. A garden with a pool, a house table, right in Hivernage. A dense and intimate decor at once, for anyone who likes owned excess rather than bare elegance.
About thirty kilometres from Marrakech, set in the Agafay desert, La Pause is an ecolodge deliberately off the grid: no electricity, no Wi-Fi, pisé lodges and tents lit by candle, two pools facing the stony hills. You come here for the silence and the sky, not for city-hotel comforts.
The Ari Boutique Hôtel made calm a rule: the house is adults-only. Thirty-one contemporary rooms in Guéliz, a pool sheltered between two facades, a breakfast travellers cite often, five minutes on foot from the station and walking distance from the Majorelle garden and the Yves Saint Laurent museum. A quiet urban address, no children, for a settled stay.
On the Amizmiz road, ten minutes south of Marrakech, Oasis Lodges lays out low pisé houses opening onto large gardens. Its real argument is the neighbouring Oasiria water park, free and unlimited access for guests. You come here for children and slides more than for the medina.
The Palais Nouhass bets on space where Marrakech often lacks air: a recent palace of the north palm grove, opening onto a large garden, with a long pool lined with palms and the Atlas as backdrop. Eighteen rooms and suites, a monumental Berber sitting room, a spa with hammam. A green, ample and calm address, for anyone coming to sit down far from the medina.
In Ghmat, former Almoravid capital at the foot of the Atlas, Aghmat Lodge is a guesthouse set in the countryside, 25 km from Marrakech. Pisé and stone walls, solar power, well water, pool open onto the summits: you come here for the silence and the big landscape, not for the medina at hand.
Above Imlil, in the Tamatert hamlet, Douar Samra is a pisé house clinging to the valley side at 1,800 metres facing the Toubkal massif. Seven rooms, including the main house lit by candles and two cabins perched on stilts in the trees: you come here for the mountain, the silence and a night out of the ordinary, an hour and a half by road from Marrakech.
The Hotel Jadali & Spa is a small 5-star in Hivernage with a green facade, halfway between the boutique hotel and the family address. Fifty-two rooms, a spa with hammam, a pool and a roof where you can spot the Koutoubia. Care for children, a warm welcome, a more intimate scale than the great hotels of the quarter, walking distance from the medina.
About forty kilometres south of Marrakech, near Lalla Takerkoust lake, La Fattoria is an Italo-Moroccan farm turned lodge. Around thirty pisé rooms, a pool at the foot of the hills, horses and free-roaming animals, a table fed by the kitchen garden. You come here to cut off from the city and let the children unwind, provided you accept being far from everything.
An hour from Marrakech, hanging above the Azzaden valley, Kasbah Africa is an ecolodge turned to the mountain and the sky. Eight suites facing the summits, telescopes in the rooms, glass domes for sleeping under the stars: you come here for the High Atlas silence and the dark night, not to range out on the medina.
Opened in 2022 in the Palmeraie, the Palais Mirage d'Atlas holds a handful of suites laid out around a long pool and a palm grove. You come for the spa, the calm and the space, 9 km from the medina. Comfort convinces, but location and value for money are up for debate. Here is who it fits, and who it does not.
The Dellarosa is a contemporary boutique hotel planted right in Guéliz, Marrakech's modern quarter: eighty rooms and suites around a pool tucked between walls, a spa with hammam, two tables. You sleep among the cafés, boutiques and galleries of the new town, at a soft rate, a few minutes by taxi from the medina.
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