4 days, 3 nights
Daily Tour
20 people
Arabic, English, Espanol, Francais
Departing from Marrakech and ending in Fes, this 4 day/3 night tour will take you through panoramic mountain roads to kasbahs, gorges, palm groves and monkey forests. The highlight of the trip will be spending the night beneath the stars in a traditional nomadic tent in the Sahara dunes. The second 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.
Compared to our 3 day/2 night tour, this option gives you a full day in the desert and more time to soak up the stunning landscape. We’d recommend this tour if you have more time available and really want to enjoy the desert at a slower pace.
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 £300 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.
Then, we will continue south to the ksar (fortified village) of 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. There will be free time for lunch in town.
After lunch, we will continue to Ouarzazate, also known as “The Gate of the Desert.” Here, we will see the Taourirt kasbah, one of the most spectacular ksars in Morocco. The next site on our itinerary will be the Rose Valley as we drive through the big Skoura palm grove, a beautiful place with more than 700.000 palms and numerous kasbahs that are built in the surrounding area. In this Valley damascenes roses are raised for cosmetic use, such as rosewater. The Rose Festival is held here annually in May.
Finally, we will reach the Dades valley where we'll spend the night. Your hotel has panoramic views over the valley and a beautiful outdoor swimming pool.
After breakfast you can enjoy one of the best views of the Dadès valley from a strategic lookout point. A very good asphalt road leads up the valley from the city of Tinerhir to the gorge and then to the desert. After some stops on the way we will reach the Todra Gorges. The scenery is spectacular. The course of the river has carved out a cliff-sided canyon.
After a short walk in the gorges we will have lunch in Tinejdad or Touroug and then continue our way to the desert to reach the spectacular dunes of Merzouga. 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.
After breakfast we start our last day, heading north through the Tafilalet palm grove, the biggest in the world. You will see thousands of palm trees along this 20km of road. The way leads us to the Ziz Valley, whose river comes down from the High Atlas and feeds the palm grove. Here we will make a stop and from this high viewpoint, enjoy a magnificent view of the valley and the town of Aoufous.
We make another stop in Midelt, in the heart of the Atlas, where you will have free time for lunch and a rest. In the afternoon we continue our way through the Cedar Woods where, if we are lucky, we will see some monkeys. The next place we visit is the city of Ifrane, situated in the northwestern slope of the Middle Atlas at 1630 meters above water level. With its broad avenues, wooden ski-style chalets and manicured gardens, this city is called ‘the Switzerland of Morocco.’ It also has its own ski resort.
At around 6pm we arrive to Fes, where we will bring you to your hotel and end our trip. There is an option to add a guided walking tour of old Fes the following day.
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. It's also a good option if you want to continue traveling in Morocco after your desert trip. 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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