11 places, from £26 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.
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 Imlil, at the end of the road climbing towards Mount Toubkal, the Toubkal Ecolodge is a stone house set at 1,700 metres, facing the summits. Six Berber rooms, a terrace over the valley, a table run by the family: you come here for the mountain and the walking, not for the medina, left an hour and a half of switchbacks below.
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.
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.
Donkeys, goats, peacocks and a kitchen garden feeding the table: at km 9 of the Ourika road, La Ferme Berbère is a farm that hosts guests, not a guesthouse with the word 'farm' on its sign. Ten rooms, two tents under the olive trees, a beldi hammam, and not a child: the house is adults-only.
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.
A half-hour south of Marrakech, towards Sidi Abdellah Ghiat, the Ecolodge Quaryati lines up two pisé villages among olive trees and fields, the Atlas for a horizon. Single-storey family rooms, two pools, a table drawn from the kitchen garden: you come here for the country calm and the view of the snows, not for the medina, left far behind.
