Day by day itinerary
1. Fes - Ifrane - Azrou (cedars and apes) - Midelt - Ziz Valley - Merzouga lodge (7h drive)
Cedars, macaques and the long descent to the dunes
Collection is from your Fes hotel or riad. The road runs out across the Saiss plains to Ifrane, a town with an alpine look to it, and then up into the Middle Atlas cedar forests, where a stop at Azrou is usually rewarded with wild Barbary macaques. Midelt is the lunch halt. From there the land falls away into the Ziz Valley: thousands of date palms, kasbahs scattered along the riverbed, cliffs above. Erfoud comes and goes, and Merzouga follows. Your lodge sits at the edge of Erg Chebbi, with air conditioning in the rooms, a restaurant and a swimming pool. Dinner there, and the night, half-board.
2. Merzouga - Khamlia village - Gnaoua music - desert exploration - sunset camel trek - luxury camp
Music in the morning, dunes all afternoon, camp by nightfall
You have the whole day here. It opens at Khamlia, where the Berber nomad families who settled the village are known across Morocco for Gnaoua: African rhythms braided with Berber tradition and Sufi devotion, carried on castanets and drums. Tea is poured, then the musicians play for a small audience. The afternoon is unstructured desert time, and you can spend it hunting fossils, walking the dunes, sandboarding, or sand-bashing on a quad bike. Come evening a camel carries you into the Erg Chebbi dunes as the light goes, ending at the luxury camp: your own ensuite tent, real beds, quality linens, a hot shower, electricity. Dinner is Moroccan and served under the stars, with drumming round the fire afterwards. The night is spent at the Merzouga luxury camp, half-board.
3. Merzouga - Rissani - Tinghir oasis - Todra Gorge - Dades Valley (4h drive)
Back from the dunes through Rissani and the Todra narrows
You are up before first light for sunrise on the Erg Chebbi dunes, then back onto the camel for the ride to the main town, where your driver waits. First stop is Rissani, birthplace of the ruling Alaouite dynasty, and its dates market. At Tinghir a local guide walks you through the palm-lined oasis, pointing out the Berber villages, the goat herders and the traces of the town's Jewish heritage. Todra Gorge is next, its limestone walls standing 300 metres over the riverbed, and lunch is taken at the gorge. The afternoon follows the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs into the Dades Valley. Dinner and overnight at a Dades Valley hotel, private ensuite room with air conditioning, half-board. A different Dades Valley hotel can be substituted for a supplement of 40 EUR per person, dinner and breakfast included.
4. Dades - Rose Valley - Skoura and Kasbah Amridil - Aït Ben Haddou - Tizi n'Tichka - Marrakech (6h drive)
Rose fields, a kasbah museum, a UNESCO ksar and the pass
After breakfast the route enters the Valley of the Roses. Come April and May the Damascus rose fields are in flower and an artisanal cooperative distilling rosewater is on the itinerary. The Skoura oasis follows, one of the largest palm groves in the country, where Kasbah Amridil is now a restored private museum of Berber building and irrigation. Then Ouarzazate, and after it Aït Ben Haddou, which sits on the UNESCO World Heritage list and has stood in for other worlds in Gladiator, Game of Thrones and Lawrence of Arabia. A guide takes you over the river and into the village, and lunch is at a local cafe with the ksar in view. The afternoon takes the High Atlas by the Tizi n'Tichka Pass at 2,260m, past Berber villages built from stone and earth, and Marrakech comes up late in the day, where you are set down at your hotel or riad.