2 Days in Casablanca: First-Timer Plan
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Two days is enough to cover Casablanca’s real highlights without padding, since the city’s own core realistically fills 1-2 focused days.
Day 1
Morning: Start at the Hassan II Mosque. Non-Muslim visitors need a guided tour (around 140 MAD, about $14-15, verify), and tours pause for prayer times and run shorter on Fridays, so check the schedule before you go. The mosque is the largest in Africa, oceanfront, with one of the tallest minarets in the world.
Midday: Walk the Old Medina for an hour. It’s smaller and more workaday than Marrakech’s or Fes’s medina, a genuine local souk rather than a showpiece, so a focused visit is plenty.
Afternoon: Head to the Corniche and Aïn Diab for sea air. The public beach is free; private beach clubs run roughly 200-300 MAD a day in summer.
Evening: Dinner at Marché Central, where seafood stalls grill your pick on the spot, or at La Sqala, a restaurant inside an 18th-century Portuguese bastion.
Day 2
Morning: Explore downtown around Mohammed V Square, known locally as “Pigeons’ Square,” free to visit and ringed by Art Deco and Mauresque civic buildings dating from 1916. Walk Boulevard Mohammed V for more of the city’s dense Art Deco heritage, comparable to Miami Beach’s district.
Midday: Shop the Habous Quarter, a 1920s-30s planned neighborhood that’s the best spot for babouches, argan oil, spices, and ceramics, with calmer bargaining than the Old Medina.
Afternoon: Free time for a museum. Villa des Arts is free, or try the Musée Abderrahman Slaoui (around 60 MAD) if it’s open; it closes some summers.
Evening: Dinner at Rick’s Café, a real restaurant opened in 2004 as an homage to the 1942 film, which was actually filmed entirely on a Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, not in Morocco.
Getting around
The ONCF train from Mohammed V International Airport (CMN) to Casa-Voyageurs or Casa-Port takes about 35 minutes for roughly 50-60 MAD. In the city, red petit taxis are metered (insist on the “compteur”), the tramway runs four lines for a flat 6 MAD, and Uber, back in Casablanca since November 2025, runs alongside inDrive, Careem, Yango, and Heetch.
Money and tips
The dirham is a closed currency, so get cash on arrival and keep receipts (cash export is capped at 2,000 MAD). Round up for tips, and keep small coins for the curbside “gardiens de voiture” who watch parked cars. One concrete tip: pre-check the Hassan II Mosque’s tour schedule online before you build your first morning around it, since Eid closures and Friday’s shorter hours can wreck an unplanned visit.
Read more: our Casablanca Travel Guide covers the city in full, and the 3-day itinerary adds a Rabat day trip.