Tangier (Tanger) to Chefchaouen: Distance and Buses

Tanger–Chefchaouen distance: 115 km. It looks like ninety minutes and it takes us 2h 15, because the last forty kilometres climb through the Rif in continuous bends. There is no train. The CTM coach takes about three hours; a shared grand taxi is quicker and tighter.

Tanger–Chefchaouen distance, and why it takes longer than it looks

Distance Tanger–Chefchaouen is around 115 km, and the Chefchaouen–Tanger distance coming back is the same. Tangier, Morocco to Chefchaouen is one of the shortest legs anyone plans in the country and one of the most consistently underestimated.

	Time	Cost	Who it suits
CTM coach	~3h	Cheapest	Anyone travelling light with a flexible morning
Grand taxi (shared)	2h 15	Cheap	Confident travellers; six in a Mercedes
Grand taxi (bought out)	2h 15	Middle	Two or three people who want to leave now
Private transfer	2h 15 with a stop	Highest	Luggage, families, or a stop at the viewpoint

Navigation apps quote between 1h 45 and two hours depending on how they route you. The number does not survive the road. From Tetouan onwards you are climbing, the bends are continuous, and at some point you will be behind a lorry doing 30 km/h on a gradient with nowhere to pass. 2h 15 is the honest figure and we build days around it.

There is no Tanger–Chefchaouen train

People search for this and it is worth saying plainly: Chefchaouen has no railway station.

The confusion is understandable. Tangier is one of the best-connected rail cities in Africa — Al Boraq, the high-speed line, reaches Casablanca in 2h 10 — so it feels reasonable to assume the network continues into the mountains. It does not. There is no line to Chefchaouen, none under construction, and the nearest track is a long way west on the Atlantic plain.

Chefchaouen is reached by road. That is the whole answer, and the same is true from every other direction, including the road from Fes.

By CTM: which Tangier terminal, and when to book

The bus Tanger–Chefchaouen is run by CTM and by a handful of smaller operators. CTM is the one to take: modern coach, numbered seat, luggage hold, online booking.

Which terminal. Tangier’s long-distance buses leave from the main bus station, roughly 2 km from the medina — not from the port, which is what most arriving visitors assume. It is a short petit taxi from the old town. Ask for the gare routière, not “the bus”.

Journey time is about three hours, which is longer than driving because the coach routes via Tetouan and picks up along the way. There are several CTM Tanger–Chefchaouen departures a day; the morning ones are the useful ones.

Booking. On summer weekends and around Moroccan holidays the morning services fill. Buy a day ahead online or at the counter. Off season you can generally walk up. Timetables shift seasonally, so confirm rather than relying on a schedule you read anywhere — this page included.

The bus Chefchaouen–Tanger back runs to a similar pattern, and the last departure of the day is earlier than people expect. Check it when you arrive, not when you want to leave. Whichever way round you are going, the Tanger–Chefchaouen bus and the Chefchaouen–Tangier bus are the same coaches on the same road.

Grand taxi: what locals actually use

This is the local option and on this particular route it is a good one.

Shared grand taxis leave from a rank near the main bus station. Six passengers — four in the back, two in the front — and the car goes when it is full. It costs a little more per seat than the coach and gets you to Chefchaouen in about 2h 15, because it does not stop.

If you do not want to wait or to share, buy the empty seats. Three of you can take the whole car for a figure that is still well under a private transfer, and you leave immediately. Agree the price before you get in — this is a negotiated fare, not a metered one, and the money and tipping page explains how that conversation usually goes.

Some drivers run Tangier to Chefchaouen direct; others will take you to Tetouan to change. Ask which before you commit, because the change costs you the time you were buying.

One more small thing worth knowing: a Chefchaouen taxi within the town is a blue petit taxi and costs almost nothing, so do not confuse the two systems. The grand taxi is the intercity Mercedes; the petit taxi is the local car that will run you the last kilometre uphill.

Tetouan, halfway

Everything on this route passes through Tetouan, and it is worth knowing what is there.

Tetouan to Chefchaouen is about 65 km, a little over an hour, and it is the slower half of the journey. Tangier to Tetouan is a fast hour on a good road. Shared grand taxis run the Tetouan–Chefchaouen leg all day, which is exactly what people in the region do.

Tetouan itself is the most Spanish city in Morocco — former capital of the Spanish Protectorate, a UNESCO-listed medina, and plenty of people over fifty who speak Spanish before French. With a car and two spare hours it is a genuine visit, and almost nobody stops.

Driving it yourself

The road is good. Sealed, signed, in decent condition, and the first hour towards Tetouan is quick.

The last 40 km is the part that counts. It climbs steadily through the Rif in a continuous sequence of bends, some of them without a barrier on the drop side, and there is very little opportunity to overtake. It is not dangerous in daylight and it is not a road that requires nerve — it just cannot be hurried.

Two rules we apply to ourselves. Not after dark: the descent is unlit, and mopeds and carts without reflectors are the real hazard on rural Moroccan roads at night. And anyone prone to travel sickness sits at the front — this hour is exactly where it bites.

We stop once, on the last climb, at the point where the whole blue town appears at once against the mountainside. Two minutes, and it is the photograph people actually keep.

Arriving: the bus station and the medina

The bus and the taxis all put you down below the town, about 1.5 km from the medina and considerably lower.

It looks walkable and it is, empty-handed, on a cool morning. With a suitcase in August it is a mistake. Blue petit taxis wait at the station for very little money; take one to Plaza Uta el-Hammam or the gate closest to your riad. Cars do not go into the medina, so the last few minutes are on foot whatever you do — that is normal in every Moroccan old town.

Day trip from Tangier, or stay the night?

Of all the ways people try to see Chefchaouen in a day, this is the only one we do not argue with.

Four and a half hours of driving for five or six hours in the town is a reasonable trade, and it works if you leave by 08:00 and accept getting back after dark on the coach — or before it, in a car. You will be there during the busiest window, but you will have seen it.

A night is still better. The blue lanes at eight in the morning are empty, and the walk up to the ruined Spanish mosque in the last hour of light is the thing people describe afterwards. Neither is available to a day tripper.

If you want the overnight version organised, our Chefchaouen overnight trip is built from Fes rather than Tangier, but the shape of the stay — arrive late afternoon, medina at dawn — is the part worth copying.

Coming straight from the ferry

This catches people out, so it is worth being exact.

Tarifa fast ferries dock at Tanger Ville, the city port, right beside the medina. From there you are twenty minutes from the bus station and can be on a coach the same morning. The crossing takes about an hour.

Algeciras ferries dock at Tanger Med, which is 45 km east of the city. There are shuttle buses and taxis into Tangier, and you must factor that transfer in before you start planning your onward departure. Arriving at Tanger Med at 14:00 does not mean being in Chefchaouen by 17:00.

Either way, Tangier is worth an evening in its own right rather than being treated purely as a gateway, and getting around Morocco covers how the northern network fits together.

---

We drive this road with people who want the viewpoint stop and a driver who knows which lorries to sit behind and which to pass. Tell us when you land and we will fit the leg around the ferry or the train.