6-Day Sahara Desert Tour: Marrakech to Fez
Marrakech → Sahara Desert → Fez
A private route over the Atlas passes and down into the Sahara, with two nights to actually sit still in the dunes instead of rushing through them. We end in Fez instead of backtracking to Marrakech, so every day moves forward.
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Highlights
- Cross the Tizi n'Tichka pass into the pre-Sahara valleys
- Overnight in a small desert camp near Merzouga, not a tour-bus staging ground
- Sunrise by camel or 4x4, whichever you'd rather do
- A full day in the Dades and Todra gorges before turning north
- Arrive in Fez with two days to explore before you fly home
Day by day
A working draft: the order and pace are ours to adjust once we know what matters most to you.
Marrakech to Ait Ben Haddou
We leave Marrakech after breakfast and climb the Tizi n'Tichka road over the High Atlas, the highest major mountain pass in North Africa. French military engineers cut the route into the old caravan trail in 1936; the sign at the summit says 2,260 metres, though a 2022 GPS survey puts it closer to 2,206. Walnut and almond terraces give way to bare red rock near the top, with a stop possible at the crumbling Kasbah of Telouet, once the mountain seat of the Glaoui pashas who governed southern Morocco under the French protectorate. We continue to Ait Ben Haddou, a fortified ksar on the old Sahara-to-Marrakech caravan route that has stood in pisé (rammed earth) for close to a thousand years and become one of Africa's most-filmed locations, Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Game of Thrones among the productions shot here. The afternoon is free to cross the Ounila River on stepping stones and walk the ksar's six kasbahs as the earthen towers turn a deeper ochre with the light.
About 4 hours on the road, roughly 200 km
Guesthouse below the ksar
Dades Valley
Along the 'Road of a Thousand Kasbahs,' through the Skoura palm grove (thousands of date palms and old fortified granaries) to Kelaat M'Gouna, the centre of Morocco's rose-growing valley, where 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of Rosa damascena petals are picked by hand over a few weeks each May. It takes around 4,000 kilograms of petals to distil a single litre of rose oil. From there into the Dades Gorge, where the road switches back up a cliff face past rock formations known locally as the monkey fingers, worth photographing from the car and again on foot.
No driving today
Guesthouse in the gorge
Todra Gorge to Merzouga
A morning walk into the Todra Gorge, cut by the Todgha River through its final stretch of the High Atlas. The canyon narrows to about ten metres wide, with sheer limestone walls rising up to 160 metres on either side. Then the long, flat drive across the hamada (stony pre-desert plateau) to the dunes at Erg Chebbi, a sand sea roughly 22 by 5 kilometres that wind has piled up to 150 metres high, among the tallest in Morocco. We arrive as they turn from gold to deep rust at dusk.
About 2.5 hours on the road, roughly 130 km
Desert camp, Erg Chebbi
In the dunes
A day with no driving. Sandboard the ridgelines barefoot while the sand is still cool, visit Khamlia, a small village whose families trace back to sub-Saharan communities brought north through the trans-Saharan trade and who still perform Gnawa music on iron krakebs and the three-string guembri lute, or just read somewhere quiet. Dinner is a shared tagine at the camp with Berber drumming afterward, under a sky with none of the light pollution to dull it.
No driving today
Desert camp, Erg Chebbi
Ziz Valley to Fez
North through the Ziz Valley's palmeries, a roughly 70-kilometre ribbon of oases threading between ochre canyon walls that once carried caravans north from the Sahara, and over the Middle Atlas cedar forests around Ifrane and Azrou, where you'll likely see Barbary macaques, the only monkey species native to North Africa, at the roadside. We arrive in Fez by early evening.
About 6.5 hours on the road, roughly 400 km
Riad in the Fez medina
Fez
A full day with a local guide through the medina, one of the largest car-free urban spaces in the world. Start at the Chouara tannery, carved into the medina in the 11th century, where hides are still soaked in lime and pigeon droppings before being dyed by foot in vats of saffron yellow, poppy red, and indigo blue. Walk to the Bou Inania madrasa, built in 1350–55 by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan Faris and the only madrasa in Morocco ever granted the status of a full Friday mosque, then through the metalwork and leather souks, timed for the afternoon light. Free time before your onward flight.
No driving today
Riad in the Fez medina
Included
- ✓Private car and driver for the full route
- ✓5 nights' accommodation, breakfast included
- ✓1 camel trek and 1 desert camp dinner
- ✓Local guide for the Fez medina day
- ✓All transfers listed in the itinerary
Not included
- —International flights
- —Lunches and dinners outside the desert camp
- —Entry fees to monuments and museums
- —Travel insurance
- —Tips for driver and guides
Questions about this route
Ask about this route
Send us your rough dates and what you'd want to change, and we'll come back with a real draft, not a form letter.
Tour at a glance
- Duration
- 6 days · 5 nights
- Transport
- Private car/4x4
- Languages
- English, French
- Availability
- Year-round
From the blog
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How many days do you actually need in Marrakech?
Enough to slow down, not so many that you run out of medina.
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