Day by day itinerary
1. Marrakech - Tizi n'Tichka - Aït Ben Haddou - Rose Valley - Dades Valley (7h drive) / Atlas Pass, Earthen Ksar, Valley of the Roses
An early collection from your Marrakech accommodation sets the day going, then the road runs southeast through the High Atlas over the Tizi n'Tichka pass at 2,260 m, with wide views and traditional Berber villages on the way up. Midday brings you to Aït Ben Haddou, the UNESCO-listed ksar, where a local guide can be added for 3 EUR if you want the detail behind the walls, followed by lunch at your own pace. The afternoon crosses the Valley of the Roses, which holds a rose festival every year, and carries on down the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs into the Dades Valley. Dinner and the night are spent in a boutique hotel in the Dades Valley, in a private room with an ensuite bathroom and AC, half-board.
2. Dades Gorge - Tinghir Oasis - Todra Gorge - Merzouga - Erg Chebbi (5h drive) / Two Gorges, an Oasis Walk and Camels at Sundown
Breakfast, then the Dades Gorge, and on to Tinghir, where a local guide walks you through the oasis for an hour past palm groves, mud-brick villages and the irrigation channels that keep it all alive. Todra Gorge comes next, its limestone cliffs rising sheer above a narrow canyon you can walk into. Lunch is at leisure in Tinghir. The afternoon runs down to Merzouga, where the Sahara begins, leaving time for photographs and for getting ready. In the evening the camels carry you over the Erg Chebbi dunes as the sun drops, and the desert camp at Merzouga receives you with a traditional Moroccan dinner, Berber drumming at the fire and a night spent under the stars. Your tent is private; the deluxe and AC deluxe camps put an ensuite bathroom and a hot shower in it. Sandboards can be requested at the lodge. Overnight at a comfortable Merzouga desert camp, half-board. Optional upgrade to a deluxe desert camp at a supplement of 40 EUR per person, plus an optional AC supplement of 25 EUR.
3. Merzouga - Ziz Valley - Midelt - Azrou (cedar forest and Barbary apes) - Fes (8h drive) / Sunrise on the Sand, Then North to Fes
An early start, the camels back over the dunes for sunrise, then a return to the camp operator's lodge back in Merzouga for a shower, breakfast and the luggage stored there overnight. A different driver takes the Fes leg from here, while everyone else heads back towards Marrakech. The road runs northeast up the Ziz Valley, a fertile strip of date palms below dramatic cliffs. Lunch is at Midelt, a mountain town that sits between the Middle and the High Atlas. The afternoon carries on through the Middle Atlas and into the cedar forests of Azrou, stopping for the wild Barbary macaques, among the last populations anywhere in North Africa. Fes comes in the early evening, and you are dropped wherever you have chosen to stay.