Marrakech to Erg Chigaga Desert Tour

After an 08:00 collection from your riad, your private 4×4 threads upward toward the 2 260 m Tizi n’Tichka Pass, pausing often for panoramic shots of emerald valleys and clay-built Berber hamlets. Late morning finds you touring Ouarzazate’s historic Kasbah Taourirt and, if you wish, the famed Atlas film studios where “Gladiator” and “Game of Thrones” left their mark. Following a leisurely bistro lunch, the road swings south to the Draa Valley’s first oasis towns. By 17:00 you roll into Agdz, where a boutique kasbah hotel welcomes you with a poolside mint-tea ritual and a candle-lit dinner of saffron-scented Tagine.

The date-palm ribbon of the Draa guides you southeast after breakfast. In Tamgrout you descend into a 17-century underground ksar and browse its celebrated green-glazed pottery before viewing illuminated Qur’ans in the ancient library. Rejoining the convoy trail, you lunch café-style in M’Hamid, the last asphalt outpost, then swap engine for camel to approach Erg Chigaga’s first dunes just as the sun slips low. At camp a chilled welcome drink, hot shower, and velvety dunes entice you outside for sand-boarding thrills. Dinner is served under a canopy of stars, followed by Berber drums and stories around the campfire until the Milky Way steals the show.

Dawn paints the 100 m dunes blush-gold—wake early for the spectacle and a short camel ride before a hearty Saharan breakfast. Your driver then navigates 90 km of piste across the fossil-strewn Iriki dry lake, stopping so you can hunt ammonites and trilobites embedded in the flat pan. Rejoining tarmac at Foum Zguid, you break for a freshly squeezed orange juice, then weave north through desert plateaus to the fertile Ounila Valley. Mid-afternoon check-in at a kasbah lodge overlooking UNESCO-listed Aït Ben Haddou leaves time for a guided sunset ramble through its labyrinth of adobe towers and rooftop vistas that glow ember-red as evening settles.

Wake to first light glinting off the ksar’s adobe towers and enjoy breakfast on the lodge terrace. By 08:00, while tour buses are still winding through the Atlas, meet your local guide for an intimate walk through Kasbah Aït Ben Haddou—climbing quiet alleys, peeking into ancestral granaries, and reaching rooftop lookouts free of crowds. After this exclusive hour-long exploration, drive the serpentine piste to Telouet, where a 45-minute tour reveals the Glaoui palace’s zellij mosaics and cedar-inlaid ceilings. Continue over the High Atlas, pausing at panoramic viewpoints and an argan-oil women’s cooperative before rolling back into Marrakech around 16:00 for drop-off at your riad or the airport—desert rhythms still echoing in your ears.