✦Journal/ 7 August 2026
Where Nolan filmed The Odyssey in Morocco
Aït Ben Haddou played Troy and Essaouira's coast carried the Trojan Horse. Here is what is confirmed, what is only reported, and which of our routes already reach both.
- Published
- 7 August 2026
- Reading time
- 6 minutes
- Places
- Aït Ben Haddou · Essaouira
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey reached cinemas on 17 July 2026, shot on the new IMAX 70mm camera system across six countries in a 91-day production. Two of its largest sequences were made in Morocco, in places we drive to every month.
A number of Moroccan operators published this same article within days of the release. Most of them list every town anyone has mentioned online as though the production had confirmed it. We have separated what is actually established from what is only reported, because if you are choosing a route on the strength of an article, the difference matters.
What is confirmed
Confirmed — Established across independent reporting
- Aït Ben Haddou
- The ksar stood in for the city of Troy
- Essaouira
- The Atlantic beach and sea walls carried the Trojan Horse sequence and Odysseus's departure
- Format
- Shot on the new IMAX 70mm camera system
- Production
- Six countries, 91 shooting days
- Released
- 17 July 2026
At the ksar the production added roughly sixty temporary structures, including a pillared Temple of Athena and a set of city gates, covering about two and a half acres. None of it survives. Everything built for the film was removed after the shoot, which is worth saying plainly: what you visit is Aït Ben Haddou itself, not a standing set. That has been the draw for a thousand years and it did not need a film to become one.
What is only reported
Reported, not confirmed — Named in secondary coverage, not by the production
Interesting enough to record, not established enough to plan a trip around. We will update this section if the production confirms any of it.
- Tahannaout, Al Haouz
- A market town about twenty miles south of Marrakech, described as carrying additional city scenes
- Dune Blanche, near Dakhla
- Reported as the isle of Ogygia, where Odysseus meets Calypso
- Marrakech
- Mentioned repeatedly, without specifics
- Ouarzazate
- Mentioned as a production base rather than a location
Dakhla sits roughly twelve hundred kilometres south of Essaouira, on the Atlantic edge of Western Sahara. It is a flight, not a drive, and it does not join any overland route in our catalogue. If you want to see it we will arrange it as a separate leg with its own flights either side — tell us and we will build it in.
Which of our routes already go there
Twenty of our twenty-three itineraries reach Aït Ben Haddou. Only four reach Essaouira. Exactly three reach both, which is the answer most people are actually looking for.
The three that reach both locations
Aït Ben Haddou and Essaouira, on one route.
Worth being straight about one thing: our signature trip, the Grand Traverse, reaches Essaouira but not Aït Ben Haddou. It is the best twelve days we run and it is not the route for this. If both locations are the reason you are travelling, take one of the three above, or let us build the short version around them.
Aït Ben Haddou is a two-and-a-half hour drive from Ouarzazate airport and about four hours from Marrakech over the Tizi n'Tichka pass. Essaouira is three hours west of Marrakech on the coast road. The two are a full day apart, which is why so few routes carry both — and why the ones that do tend to be the longer ones.