7-Day Sahara Desert Tour from Fes to Marrakech

This is a long day, so you'll leave Fes early. First stop is Meknes, another of Morocco's imperial cities, for a short walk past Bab Mansour, one of the largest and most detailed gates in the country. From there it's a quick drive to Volubilis, a Roman site with mosaics, columns, and the remains of a forum that give a sense of what the region looked like under Roman rule almost two thousand years ago.

After Volubilis, the route turns back toward the Middle Atlas. Ifrane comes next, a town built in a French Alpine style in the 1930s that still looks a bit out of place in Morocco. Azrou follows, with a cedar forest along the road where Barbary macaques are often visible right from the car window. Midelt marks the point where the mountains start giving way to desert, and from there the road runs south through drier country until the Ziz Valley opens up, a long stretch of palm groves that leads through Errachidia toward Merzouga.

You'll arrive in Merzouga by early evening, in time for mint tea and your first real look at the dunes before dark.

This is where the Erg Chebbi and Atlas Mountains tour shifts fully into desert mode. Erg Chebbi's dunes are the tallest in Morocco, and you'll spend the day around them rather than just passing through.

Morning options usually include a visit to Khamlia, a village known for its Gnawa musicians, or a stop at Merzouga's seasonal lake, where flamingos sometimes gather depending on rainfall that year. Erfoud, a short drive away, is known for its fossil workshops. Much of southern Morocco was once seabed, and local workshops still cut and polished fossils found in the surrounding rock.

By late afternoon, camels take you out into the dunes, timed so you arrive as the light turns from gold to a deep red-orange. Dinner at the camp is typically a tagine cooked over coals, and there's often music around the fire afterward. You sleep in a proper tent with a real bed, though it does get cold once the sun's down.

Most people get up before sunrise to see it from the dunes, then head back for breakfast before the drive resumes.

Rather than backtrack through Todra Gorge like a lot of standard routes, this Fes to Marrakech 7-day desert itinerary heads southwest through Alnif and Nkob, two small towns known locally for fossil trading and, around Nkob, a cluster of old kasbahs. The road then drops into the Draa Valley, Morocco's longest river valley, lined with palm groves and mud-brick villages that have farmed dates here for generations.

Zagora is the main stop for lunch, still carrying its old reputation as a caravan town where routes once left for Timbuktu. From Zagora, the road follows the Draa upstream toward Agdz before climbing into Ouarzazate, where you'll spend the night. If there's time before dinner, the Taourirt Kasbah and the Atlas Film Studios, where several well-known films and series have shot desert scenes, are both worth an hour.

After breakfast, the short drive to Ait Ben Haddou takes you to one of Morocco's best-known ksour, a fortified village built from earth and clay and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its buildings climb up a hillside above a dry riverbed, and it's easy to spend an hour or two walking through the narrow passages between them.

From there, the route crosses the High Atlas over the Tizi n'Tichka Pass, one of the highest paved roads in Morocco. The drive is slow, with switchbacks, roadside mineral stalls, and small Berber villages along the way, but the views over the valleys below are worth the pace. You'll reach Marrakech by late afternoon or early evening and check into your riad.

Today's guide focuses on Marrakech itself. Morning stops usually include the Bahia Palace, with its carved cedar ceilings and quiet courtyards, and the Saadian Tombs, rediscovered only in 1917 after being sealed for centuries. Depending on your plan, there may also be time at the Majorelle Garden or Ben Youssef Madrasa.

In the afternoon, you're free to walk the souks at your own pace, or your guide can take you through the different quarters, dyers, metalworkers, leather sellers, before finishing near Jemaa el Fna. By early evening the square fills with food stalls, storytellers, and musicians, and it's worth coming back after dark even if you already saw it earlier in the day.

Depending on your flight time, there's a free morning before transfer to Marrakech airport or another drop-off point of your choice. This is where the Fes to Marrakech via Sahara experience ends, seven days after it started in the Fes medina.