Day by day itinerary
1. Agadir - Taliouine - Agdez - Draa Valley - Zagora (6h drive) / Saffron Country, Lunch at Agdez and the Draa Valley to Zagora
Your driver collects you at your Agadir hotel or at the airport and heads east for Taliouine, Morocco's saffron capital, where a local cooperative shows how saffron is grown and processed and you can buy it at source. From there the road runs on to Agdez, where lunch is taken, though it is not included in the price. The afternoon belongs to the Draa Valley, running south between date palms, fortified kasbahs and Berber villages that thin out as the desert draws closer. Zagora comes in the late afternoon: check in at a hotel that has ensuite rooms, air conditioning, a garden and a pool, and dinner is served there. The Night 1 accommodation is listed as a hotel of that standard in Zagora or a comparable riad in the town, dinner and breakfast included in either case.
2. Zagora - Tamagroute - M'Hamid - Off-Road - Erg Chigaga - Sunset Camel - Camp (4h drive) / The Tamagroute Library, M'Hamid and a Sunset Ride into the Deep Sahara
Tamagroute is the morning's business, first the Quranic library, one of Morocco's oldest, with manuscripts going back to the 13th century, then the pottery workshop nearby that is known for its green-glazed ceramics. The drive carries on to M'Hamid, the last of the tarmac and the start of the Sahara, and lunch is taken there at your own cost. In the afternoon the Land Cruiser drops off the asphalt and picks a line across erg, reg, hammada and the odd oasis until the Erg Chigaga dunes come into view. In the evening a camel takes you out across the dunes as the sun drops, and the desert camp is where you end up: a Moroccan dinner served in the open, nomads playing round the fire. The Night 2 accommodation is listed as the Erg Chigaga desert camp or its luxury version, with dinner and breakfast included in either case.
3. Erg Chigaga - Iriqui Lake - Foum Zguid - Taznakht - Agadir (~7-8h drive) / Sunrise on the Dunes, the Iriqui Salt Flat, Taznakht and Home to Agadir
You are awake before dawn for a camel ride over the Erg Chigaga dunes at sunrise, with breakfast waiting at camp afterwards. The Land Cruiser then covers 90 km of mixed desert, the flat salt pan of Iriqui and the old Paris-Dakar rally track among it, and pulls into Foum Zguid, the first village to appear once the desert releases you. The afternoon runs on to Taznakht, a town with a name for Berber carpets and rugs, and lunch happens there, and then west into Agadir for an early-evening arrival, with drop-off at your hotel or at Al Massira Airport. Day 3 is a long one, about 7 to 8 hours, but the scenery changes constantly, from the lakebed to the Anti-Atlas to the Souss Valley, and there are stops for lunch and photographs.