4 days Desert Tour from Agadir to Merzouga

Departure in the morning at 8.30 a.m. by 4×4 from Agadir to Ouarzazate, via Taliouine, Taznakht, and Taroudant, dubbed “the little Marrakesh”. The road continues on to the most well-known Kasbah in Morocco, the Kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou, which is also one of the country’s nine UNESCO World Heritage sites. There is time to explore the Kasbah and ascend to the top for a view after lunch in the village.
There will be an afternoon excursion to the Atlas Film Studios. The sets from several Hollywood blockbusters, including Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Asterix and Obelix, and Game of Thrones, are still largely intact. The little village of Ouarzazate, where you spend the night in a riad, is just a few kilometers away.

We leave in the morning and travel off-road through Skoura to the Toudgha gorges, passing through Ouarzazate. Here, we view the Kasbahs, some of which are badly dilapidated but beautifully situated amidst a profusion of palm trees in this amazing oasis. Amredhil is the most well-known of these Kasbahs, and it’s well worth going by for a short visit and some pictures. The major route is through the Valley of Roses, where roses are extracted and used to make oils, lotions, and creams that are sold all over the nation.

The Dades Valley, with its verdant gardens beside the river and breathtaking rock formations, is the next location to explore from there. We pause in the Toudgha gorges for lunch.

Our journey continues in the afternoon to the Merzouga dunes, where we take a camel ride to reach the 250-meter-high Erg Chebbi dunes. Watching the sunset from the top of the dunes is very amazing.

You eat dinner and spend the night in an opulent tent featuring king-sized mattresses, a private shower, exquisite Moroccan furnishings, and lighting that are thoughtfully placed to maximize your enjoyment of the solitude and beauty of the dunes.

If you get up early enough, you can witness the amazing sunrise, when the dunes’ colors and the way the shadows move create a breathtaking scene.

The longest valley in Morocco, the Dra’a Valley, is the next stop on the agenda after breakfast. We pause for lunch along the way through the villages of Rissani, Alnif, Tazzarine, and N’Qob.

We travel to Tansikht in the afternoon, crossing the Dra’a River, which is occasionally in full flow and other times barely a trickle. Here we head north to follow the old caravan route off-road, passing through the valley with its enormous palm palms and historic settlements. We make our way to Agdz in the end of the afternoon for dinner and a night’s sleep.

Following breakfast, we go from Agdz to Taznakht, which is well-known for its Berber carpets and gelims, by automobile. We pass through stunning scenery and the Bouazzer mines along the route. This is a more remote and unexplored area of the nation.

Afterwards, we cross the Tizi-n-Ikhsane and Tizi-n-Tighatine passes and proceed westward to Agadir. We make a lunch stop in Taliouine, which is in the center of Morocco’s saffron-growing region and has a great tiny museum dedicated to the craft of saffron cultivation.

The route returns to Taroudant in the afternoon, following the frequently dry Souss River and many argane trees on every hillside slope back to Agadir, which we arrive at by the end of the afternoon.