Solo travelers in Casablanca run into one obstacle nobody warns them about: the region’s biggest sight cannot be visited alone, no matter how independent the rest of the trip is. The mosque requires a group, even a booked one Non-Muslim visitors cannot walk into the Hassan II Mosque unaccompanied; entry is by official guided tour only, roughly 45 minutes, running Saturday through Thursday with reduced Friday hours. For a solo traveler this is less a restriction than a built-in way to meet other travelers on the same tour slot, and it removes any guesswork about timing or ticket queues.

Five sights carry almost all of Casablanca-Settat’s visual identity, and two of them aren’t even in Casablanca. The minaret that dominates every skyline shot The Hassan II Mosque’s minaret rises 210 meters straight out of the Atlantic, one of the tallest minarets anywhere until Algeria’s Djamaa El-Djazair overtook it in 2024. It reads best from the shoreline at dusk, when spray from the waves catches the last light against the tower.

Teams of horsemen in flowing white djellabas galloping in a straight line and firing black-powder muskets in unison is not a Casablanca sight; it happens 100 kilometers away, in a fairground built for exactly that spectacle, and it is worth planning a trip around rather than assuming it will turn up somewhere in the city. Salon du Cheval d’El Jadida, the region’s biggest event Held under royal patronage every October at the Parc d’Exposition Mohammed VI in El Jadida, the Salon du Cheval is one of the largest equestrian fairs on the continent.

Rick’s Café did not appear in the 1942 film that shares its name, and knowing that before you book a table changes the evening for the better rather than worse. Rick’s Café, the honest version The movie Casablanca was shot entirely on a Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank; no crew ever filmed here. Rick’s Café is a real restaurant opened in 2004 by a former American diplomat, built inside a 1930s courtyard mansion near the old medina harbor with curved arches, brass lamps, a baby grand piano working through “As Time Goes By,” and an upscale French-Moroccan menu.

The Atlantic runs the outdoor calendar here more than any single trail or park does, and it pays to know which stretch of it is safe to swim in before deciding where to spend the day. The Corniche is the default, and it works Aïn Diab’s Corniche is a 4-kilometer paved seafront promenade running from the Hassan II Mosque out past the western beach clubs, popular with joggers and rollerbladers at sunrise and again at sunset when the sea breeze cuts the heat.

A kid who has already seen enough mosques and museums by lunchtime still has an aquarium tank you can walk through the middle of waiting on the other side of town, so the family question in Casablanca-Settat is less “is there anything for children” and more “which day gets the beach and which gets the mall.” Morocco Mall’s aquarium is the easiest win Inside Morocco Mall on the Aïn Diab seafront sits Aquadream, a two-story, 1,000,000-liter cylindrical saltwater aquarium with a glass elevator that carries visitors straight through the tank, sharks, stingrays and tropical fish included.

Casablanca-Settat is a region, not a single city, and that distinction changes what “activities” should even mean here: some of the best things to do sit 100 kilometers from downtown Casablanca in towns most itineraries never name. Start with the mosque, because it decides your schedule The Hassan II Mosque is the one sight nearly everyone builds a Casablanca day around, and access is the part worth planning first. Non-Muslim visitors enter only on an official guided tour, roughly 45 minutes, Saturday through Thursday at 09:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 16:00, with a shorter Friday schedule around midday prayer.