Morocco asks one question early: how far into the desert do you go?
Forty minutes from Marrakech there is a stone desert with a dinner tent standing on it. Ten hours out there are dunes you can only reach by sleeping on the way. Reviews of both, and of every riad kitchen, waterfall road and quad track in between.
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Agafay at sunset, Ouzoud, the Ourika road, and three days to Merzouga.
The four bookings a first Moroccan trip hangs off. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first night outAgafay Desert Sunset, Camel Ride, and Dinner ShowSunset over the Agafay stone desert, a camel at golden hour, then dinner under canvas. Out of Marrakech after lunch and back before midnight.
02The waterfall dayOuzoud Waterfalls Guided Hike and Boat TripOuzoud drops in three stages and the boat at the bottom takes you in under the spray. Most of a day on the road, and still the trip people talk about after.
03The mountain dayAtlas Mountains, Ourika Valley, Waterfall & LunchThe Ourika runs green all the way up to the snowline, with lunch on a terrace over the river. The cool half of Morocco, an hour from the medina.
04The one that needs planning3-Day Merzouga and Sahara Desert TourErg Chebbi is a full day of driving each way, so the real dunes are a three-day commitment. Camp in the sand, ride out at first light, come back over the Atlas.
Agafay in an afternoon, or Erg Chebbi over three days.
Morocco sells two deserts and they are nothing alike. One is a bare stone plateau on the edge of Marrakech that you can do between lunch and midnight. The other is an ocean of sand near the Algerian border that costs you two days of driving to reach. Both are worth doing. Only one of them fits an afternoon.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Dunes & Camel Trek
Agafay, after lunchStone desert, a camel at sunset, dinner and a show under canvas.
Erg Chebbi, over three daysThe real dunes, a night in a camp, and the Atlas passes both ways.
An hour on a camelThe palm grove north of the medina, or the sand if you have gone the distance.
Quad tracksRocky desert and palm-grove trails, with a tea stop halfway.
All 363 days in the desert →
Marrakech first, then whichever direction you have days for.
A red city with a desert on its doorstep, a blue town up in the Rif, a walled port taking the Atlantic wind, and the oldest medina in the country. Six bases, and the best days out from each.
Marrakech: the souks early, the palm grove late, shade in between.
Everything in Marrakech →
Get into the souks before the coaches arrive, keep the Bahia and the Saadian Tombs for the worst of the afternoon heat, and put the camels or the quad bikes out in the Palmeraie once the light goes long. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Into the souks before the crowd
The lanes north of the Jemaa el Fna are a genuine maze and the first morning is the one to have somebody else navigate. Dyers, slipper makers, the ironwork alley, and out again before the tour groups fill it.
Bahia, the tombs, and a garden with water in it
Painted cedar ceilings, a courtyard built for the temperature, and the Saadian Tombs sealed up for three centuries behind a wall. All of it is walkable from the square, and all of it is cooler than the square.
Camels and quad bikes in the palm grove
The Palmeraie is thousands of date palms on the north edge of the city, threaded with dirt tracks. It is where the camel hour and the quad circuits run, and it is at its best in the last hour of daylight.
The High Atlas starts an hour from Marrakech and runs ten degrees cooler.
The Ourika runs green right up to the snowline. Ouzoud falls in three stages with a boat waiting at the bottom. Imlil is where the walks up Toubkal start. All of it is a day trip from the city, and all of it is the answer when the medina turns unbearable.
Morocco’s most popular days out.
Every Moroccan tour we have reviewed →The days more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Agafay Desert Sunset, Camel Ride, and Dinner Show
Review of Marrakech’s Agafay Desert sunset tour, with camel ride, argan oil visit, Moroccan dinner, Berber music, and fire show.
From · $20
Read our review →
2
Ouzoud Waterfalls Guided Hike and Boat Trip
from $17
3
Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner Show
from $24
4
Agafay Desert Quad Biking Tour with Dinner-Show
from $21
5
Atlas Mountains, Ourika Valley, Waterfall & Lunch
from $16
6
3-Day Merzouga and Sahara Desert Tour
from $134
7
Berber villages : Atlas Mountains Day Hike from Marrakech
from $15
8
Merzouga 3-Day Desert Safari with Food
from $122
What a day out in Morocco actually costs.
Grouped by what you pay per person. A surprising number of the best Moroccan days come in under the price of dinner at home.
Medina walks, the Ourika and Ouzoud runs, quad tracks in the palmeraie, and an evening out in Agafay.
Multi-day desert trips down to Merzouga, hammam afternoons, and the long drive over the Tichka to Ait Ben Haddou.
Balloons at first light, a private driver for the day, and the desert camps that come with a pool.
Three things that only happen in Morocco.
Deserts and walled towns exist all over. A stone desert with a dinner tent forty minutes from a city of a million, a mud-brick ksar that film crews have used for fifty years, and a balloon lifting off the palm plain at dawn do not.
The Agafay
Agafay is not sand. It is a bare, rolling plateau of pale stone and dust that begins where the Marrakech suburbs stop, with the High Atlas standing along the far edge of it. Camps have gone up across it over the last decade, so you can be sitting on a rug with a tagine and a drummer by eight and back in your riad by midnight. Anyone who has seen Merzouga will tell you it is not the real desert. They are right, and it is still the best evening you can buy in the city.
- 1Agafay Desert Sunset, Camel Ride, and Dinner Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 35,119 reviews
- 2Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 27,382 reviews
- 3Agafay Desert Quad Biking Tour with Dinner-Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 16,569 reviews
Ait Ben Haddou
The ksar rises straight out of the riverbed in stacked mud brick, and enough of it survives that film crews have been shooting there for fifty years. Getting to it means the Tizi n Tichka, the pass over the High Atlas, which is most of a day in itself. Climb up through the old village to the granary at the top for the view back down the valley, and go early before the coaches arrive.
- 1Day Trip to Ouarzazate and Ait Benhaddou★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 9,447 reviews
- 2Ouarzazate & Ait Benhaddou Guided Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,829 reviews
- 32-Day Sahara Tour to Zagora & Ait Ben Haddou★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,925 reviews
The dawn balloon
Baskets lift off the plain north of Marrakech just after sunrise, when the air is still and the Atlas has gone pink along the horizon. You are collected in the dark, you fly for about an hour, and a breakfast in a tent usually follows. Wind cancels flights more often than anyone admits, so put it early in the week and keep a spare morning behind it.
- 1Balloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & Certificate★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 8,164 reviews
- 2Early Morning 40-Minute Balloon Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,533 reviews
- 3Hot Air Balloon Flight with Berber Breakfast★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,832 reviews
Fez and Marrakech hold the two best medinas in the country.
Fez el Bali is the older and by far the harder to read: thousands of lanes, a tannery you smell long before you see it, and no cars anywhere in it. Marrakech is louder and easier, with the souks running north off the Jemaa el Fna. Both are worth handing over to a guide for the first morning.
Every medina walk →
Essaouira takes the wind, Taghazout takes the swell.
Essaouira is a walled port with blue boats, gulls over the fish stalls and enough steady wind to have turned it into a kitesurfing town almost by accident. Further down the coast the surf schools cluster around Taghazout. Both run as day trips from a city, and both are a good ten degrees kinder than the medina you left.
- 1Essaouira Full-Day Tripfrom $20
- 2Small Group to Essaouira & Sekkala Day Tripfrom $15
- 3Essaouira Day Tour with Optional Activitiesfrom $21
Four Moroccan bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged from a rooftop the night before. These four run on dawn slots, long drives and fixed visiting hours, none of which take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Balloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & CertificateBaskets go up at first light and only in still air, so a windy morning cancels the flight outright. Book it early in the week and keep a spare morning behind it.
- 023-Day Merzouga and Sahara Desert TourErg Chebbi is a full day of driving from Marrakech in each direction. The real dunes are a three-day trip rather than a day out, and the camps out there hold a fixed number of tents.
- 03Casablanca Tour with Hassan II Mosque VisitHassan II is one of the few mosques in Morocco that non-Muslim visitors may enter, and only on a guided visit at set times. Outside those hours you see it from the outside.
- 04Chefchaouen Day Trip with Local GuideThe blue town sits a long drive from every city that runs trips to it. Departures are early and you get back after dark, so it takes a whole day whichever base you leave from.
When the medina hits forty degrees, go up or go indoors.
High summer in Marrakech and down the Draa is genuinely punishing, and the middle of the day is not walking weather. Both answers are easy. Get up into the Atlas where the rivers still run, or give the hot hours to a hammam, a cooking school, or a courtyard with water in the middle of it.
By place, coast to desert
Marrakech, the Atlas, Merzouga, Fez: the run almost everybody does first.
The High Atlas
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