5-Day Tour from Fes to Marrakech via the Sahara

Fes → Middle Atlas → Azrou → Ziz Valley → Merzouga

Around 8:30 am your driver collects you in Fes and sets off for the Sahara. You'll cross the Middle Atlas with frequent stops — the mountain town of Ifrane, the Azrou cedar forest and its monkeys, Midelt for lunch, and the sweeping palm panorama of the Ziz Valley. By late afternoon the golden Erg Chebbi dunes appear on the horizon; you'll ride a camel over the sand to a high dune for sunset, then settle into a hotel or camp along the dune line for dinner and your first desert night.

Accommodation: Tawada Desert Camp or similar

Explore Merzouga — Gnawa music & nomad families

Today is devoted to the desert around Erg Chebbi. On a 4x4 tour you'll see how nomads live and how the light transforms the dunes hour by hour. You'll hear the Gnawa musicians of the black village of Khamlia, share a Berber pizza in historic Rissani, and watch the sun sink over the sand before a camel ride back to camp. Dinner is a traditional tagine with mint tea and Berber music beneath a sky thick with stars.

Accommodation: Riad Chebbi or similar

Merzouga → Rissani → Todra Gorge → Dades Valley

Wake for a final desert sunrise — colour and shadow stretching across Morocco's highest dunes — before breakfast and the drive on to Tinghir and the breathtaking Todra Gorge, one of the country's tallest, narrowest canyons and perfect for a riverside walk. After lunch you travel through the Dades Valley, ending the day at a hotel set high above its dramatic rock formations. Dinner and overnight in the Dades.

Accommodation: Riad Paradise Dades or similar

Boumalne Dades → Valley of Roses → Skoura → Ouarzazate

After breakfast you set off along the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, past grand old fortified homes. An off-road stretch climbs into Berber villages where a few families still live in caves — a glimpse of daily life tending goats and sheep. The colourful Valley of Roses leaves its mark before you reach the Skoura palm grove and, 45 km on, the film city of Ouarzazate, where you'll have dinner and spend the night.

Accommodation: Riad Chamaa or similar

Ouarzazate → Ait Ben Haddou → High Atlas → Marrakech

After breakfast you visit Taourirt Kasbah, then the UNESCO-listed ksar of Ait Ben Haddou, with an optional stop at the High Atlas Berber village of Telouet and its Glaoui kasbah. A lunch stop in the mountains breaks the drive before you climb the Tizi n'Tichka pass and descend to Marrakech, where your tour ends at your accommodation.