Morocco Travel Blog | Sahara Desert Part 1 - Marrakech to Merzouga
So you can either choose to drive yourself to the Sahara Desert (and most probably will get lost) or there are plenty of vendors offered both in Fes and Marrakech that will take you to the Sahara and will show you really cool and well known geographic sites of Morocco along the way (better option to go with in my opinion).
The best part of this tour is that it takes course over a few days. We heard to see the most and the best you should do the 4 day and 3 night tour, but with limited time on our hands we decided to go with the 3 days and 2 nights, which still got us to the mainland of the Sahara, unlike the 2 days and 1 night tour - which barely gets you to the tip of the desert.
When: Spring or Fall is the best time, Summer can be done as well, but it will be extremely hot throughout the whole tour (and depending on the driver they like to use A/C as minimal as possible)
Cost: 220 €
Who: Go Sahara Tours
Duration: 3 days 2 nights
Tips: pack light and pack efficiently for sure. Bring a warm covered outfit for the chilly overnight in the desert. 2 day outfits to walk around in all sorts of dust, water, mud, road and to keep you cool as you are up and early and out and about all the time on this tour. Don't forget the basic essentials: sunglasses, sunscreen, overnight personal care kits, allergy medicine, etc.
My personal experience: Rise and shine at 7 am and they picked us up right on the dot in a huge comfortable 4 x 4. The great thing about this vendor was that you're the only group they pick up, the whole trip is a private tour just for you and who ever else you're with. Trust me, this will come in handy when you have to ride back 12 hours with so much space for you to sleep in! The driver's a quiet and respectful elderly man and the tour guide's a young guy in his 30s who can speak English pretty decently (better than the majority anyway).
1st day: right after the pick up, we drove up the High Atlas Mountains located in Marrakech and go across the mountain range. It's absolutely stunning and well worth the 2-3 hour drive. They make stops at the best scenic spots for snacks and pictures of the stunning scenery. Most of the drivers are experienced and aggressive, so we were pretty afraid of the speedy drive through the narrow and winding roads, but it was a hilarious thrill (and a bit of nausea). We make our way towards the old Kasbah (old city or citadel) of Ait Benn Haddou, where a ton of movies and shows were filmed such as our favorite Game of Thrones. It's amazing how they still let tourists go in and out of the Kasbah and host a couple of merchants in there. It's a gorgeous old ruin to walk through and you get to go all the way to the top! Afterwards we were treated with lunch at a modern restaurant nearby. On our way to another valley, we make a pitstop at Ouarzazate, basically Morocco's Hollywood. It casually has a couple of ruins, but mainly very modernized and interesting to stroll by. We finally get to our last destination for the day and the most beautiful, Dades Gorges in Ourzates. These magnificent red clay like stoned cliffs and canyons were absolutely fascinating. In this case, pictures speak more than words and we were so excited to find out this was basically going to be our backyard view (yes, not even joking because they casually have hotels structured into the canyons - so awesome!). We were treated again with dinner served promptly at 8 pm and were left with time a little before and after to explore our beautiful backyard ourselves.
2nd day: Woke up for breakfast and left the hotel promptly at 8 am with our driver and guide. I was really excited today was the day for the desert! We were dropped off, what seemed like in the middle of nowhere in an agricultural field in Tenhir and then were given a tour of how this little Berber village makes their produce, water supply, and colors for the woman to weave into their carpets. BTW the souks here (ask your guide if you can shop around) because the prices are so much cheaper than the bigger cities like Marrakech or Fes! After the Berber village, we drove through Todra Gorges, humongous canyons carved by the Dades River, which we got to stop and play around in for a bit. The water was so clean and refreshing that people openly drank and washed off their hands (don't worry everyone was very cautious not to dump some junk in it). After a few more hours we finally made it to Merzouga in the Sahara Desert - follow up with the overnight stay in the desert with this post.
3rd day: you'll come back to the hotel take a shower and be thankful you're exhausted because you're going to sleep through the rest of the 12 hour car ride (ssh).