5 days, 4 nights
Daily Tour
25 people
Arabic, English, Espanol, Francais
Departing and returning to Marrakech, this 5 day/4 night tour is our ultimate desert experience. We will take you through panoramic mountain roads to kasbahs, gorges, valleys, oases and palm groves. The highlight of the trip will be spending the night beneath the stars in a traditional nomadic tent in the Sahara dunes. The third day of the trip is a full day in the desert where you will get to see the biggest dune in Morocco, visit a village previously part of Mali, and enjoy a Gnawa music performance.
This is our longest desert trip and if you have time during your trip, we recommend this tour to enjoy the desert at a leisurely pace, soaking in the landscape, atmosphere and hospitality of the nomadic peoples.
All of our tour plans are only guides. We don’t take a one size fits all approach and one thing we love about offering private trips is that every trip is unique – once you get in touch with us, we will work with you to plan the perfect itinerary, activities and accommodation for a truly memorable experience!
To enquire about this tour, please email itrantravelmorocco@gmail.com or WhatsApp +212 0675321420.
The starting price for this trip is £350 per person, based on a family of 4 travelling. Please note that the price per person varies dependent on group size, choice of accommodation and time of year. The larger the group the more cost effective the per-person rate.
You will be picked up from your accommodation in Marrakech around 8 o'clock in the morning. We will then depart for the High Atlas mountains, going through the Tizi N´Tichka pass with stops for panoramic views and taking pictures of the small Amazigh villages that dot the landscape. We will then take a small road to Telouat Kasbah. After visiting the kasbah you'll have some free time to enjoy lunch in the town.
In the afternoon, we will continue through the Ounila valley, where you can see small villages and families that live in adobe houses, before we reach the ksar (fortified village) of Ait Ben Haddou Ait Ben Haddou where we will visit the famous Kasbah (declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986). Famous films have been shot in this spectacular set, including Gladiator and Game of Thrones.
You will spend the night in Ouarzazate and enjoy dinner in your hotel.
After breakfast we will depart for the Draa Valley where you can see one of the longest rivers in Morocco. On the way we will make a few stops to take pictures and enjoy the view of the spectacular kasbahs and berber villages that dot the road, as well as the beauty of the Draa valley.
We will have lunch in Nkob or Alnif and then continue driving to reach the wonderful Merzouga dunes. Here, we will swap our motorized transportation for a 4-legged one to enter inside the heart of the desert. When we reach the camp, you will enjoy sunset and then dinner before spending the night in the dunes, listening to Berber music, or stargazing.
This is a complete ‘desert day.’ This morning you have a ‘date with the sunrise.’ When you are in the middle of the desert, waking up early is a must to watch the spectacular sunrise from the top of a dune close to the camp. After breakfast we will return to Merzouga by camel. Then, we will skirt Erg Chebbi, a great extension of sandy desert where we can find the Big Dune of Morocco, more than 250m high.
We will continue by the former ‘Paris-Dakar Rally Road,’ stopping at the Tissardmin oasis where we can find fossil quarries still present in the area. We will continue by road, passing nomad settlements, where we can stop and enjoy tea with the families living there to learn more about their way of life. The next stop will be a high viewpoint where you can see the whole of Erg Chebbi.
Next we will reach Kamilia Village. The inhabitants of Kamilia came to Morocco from Mali, and we will take a relaxing cup of tea whilst listening to some of their traditional Gnawa music. In the afternoon, we will head to your Merzouga desert hotel, where you have free time to enjoy the town or the dunes next to the hotel to see the sunset. Dinner and night in the hotel.
We will leave the desert after breakfast to head to Rissani, where we will visit the market (market days are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday).
We will then continue to Erfoud, where many fossils have been found, before making our way to the Touroug and Tinjdad palm groves. One hour later we will best the Todra Gorges. The course of the river has carved out a cliff-sided canyon. You will have some free time to walk through the gorge to better appreciate the beauty of the landscape, before having lunch.
In the afternoon we continue to the Dadès valley, also known as the fig valley. We will have dinner and spend the night in Dades.
After breakfast you can enjoy one of the best views of the Dadès valley from a strategic lookout point. From there you can see the amazing number of kasbahs. Then we will continue by a road known as the “one thousand kasbahs road,” through the Roses Valley and the giant Skoura palm until we reach Ouarzazate to visit the Kasbah of Taourirt, the old residence of the Glaoui the Pasha of Marrakech.
If you are interested we can visit the cinema studios in Ouarzazate before enjoying lunch in town.
In the afternoon we start our way back to Marrakech going through the mountain pass of Tizi n’Tichka with some stops to take pictures. Here we leave back the moonlike landscape to reach another one full of colors. We will arrive to Marrakech around 6pm where you adventure ends.
We focus on authentic, locally owned accommodation for all of our trips. On this tour you will stay in a mix of hotels and a desert camp. We have accommodation in mind, but once you contact us to book your trip, we will work with you to choose the perfect accommodation for your budget and needs.
We work with solo travelers, couples, families - all the way to large groups - and have a range of transport options to suit groups of all sizes.
If it works with your flights, a Marrakech-Fes tour can allow you to see more of Morocco and have a more diverse tour, as you will return from the desert via the Middle Atlas. However, flights are often cheapest booked as return trips to Marrakech, so depending on your time and budget this may be the better option.
Our shortest desert trip is a 3 day trip. If possible, we recommend spending as long as possible on your desert trip to reduce the traveling time each day and allow you to really soak up the desert atmosphere, and slower pace of life in the South East. If you're traveling all the way to the Sahara desert, you may as well make the most of it! If, however, you only have a short period of time, we can make it work in just 3 days!
We will take a deposit in advance of your trip online, and then accept the balance in cash when you arrive for your trip in Morocco.
Member Since 2023
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