When to go, month by month.

There is a weather answer and a music answer and they are not the same answer. The weather answer is March to May and September to November. The music answer is more interesting, because the festival calendar clusters in exactly the months the weather answer warns you about.

January and February. Cold at altitude, snow closing the High Atlas passes occasionally, and the best time of year for the Sahara by a distance — clear, cool days and genuinely cold nights. No festivals. This is when the private sessions happen, because the musicians are at home.

March and April. The easy months. Everything is green, the passes are open, the coast is mild and the interior is not yet punishing. Almost no festivals, which for a music-led trip is a feature rather than a problem.

May. Tan-Tan in the south, then the Sacred Music festival in Fes at the end of the month. Warm, not hot. Probably the single best month to come if you want one festival and good weather.

June. Mawazine in Rabat, then Gnaoua in Essaouira at the end. Essaouira is the exception to Moroccan summer — the Atlantic keeps it at about twenty-two degrees while Marrakech is at forty. Inland travel in late June is unpleasant.

July and August. Timitar and Jazzablanca, and otherwise the months to stay on the coast or in the mountains. Marrakech and Fes in August are survivable rather than enjoyable. The High Atlas in August is perfect and almost nobody goes.

September. The busiest month on the calendar — Tanjazz, L’Boulevard, Oasis and Imilchil — and the weather has broken. If you are only coming once and you want to build around music, come in September.

October and November. The Sufi festival in Fes, Taragalte in the desert, and the two months most people wrongly avoid. Warm days, cool nights, thin crowds, and the desert becoming comfortable again. Our own favourite window.

December. Quiet, cheap, cold at night, and fine if you are going south. Nothing on the calendar.