Agafay Desert & Sunset Dinner

Agafay is stone desert rather than sand — forty minutes from Marrakech, a landscape of bare rolling hills with the snow line of the Atlas behind it. It is not the Sahara and nobody should sell it to you as such; what it is, is the only way to have a desert evening when you do not have three days to reach Merzouga. You arrive in the late afternoon when the light turns the hills gold, ride a camel along the ridges, and if you want it, take a quad bike out across the open ground.

Dinner is at a permanent camp: tagine under lanterns, low tables, a fire, and Gnawa musicians playing after dark. The sky here is genuinely dark despite the city being so close, so the stars are the part people remember. You are back at your riad by midnight. It works particularly well as a first or last night in Marrakech.