Before You Go
The Three Deserts
There is no single Sahara. Three deserts, three experiences. Merzouga is the postcard. Zagora is the river. M'Hamid is the edge.
M'Hamid
M'Hamid el Ghizlane — M'Hamid of the gazelles — is the last town on the N9 before the road gives way to sand. South of here, there is nothing but the Sahara and the Algerian border.
The town was the terminus of the trans-Saharan caravan routes. Traders from Timbuktu arrived here with gold, salt, and enslaved people. The weekly market on Mondays still draws nomadic families from the surrounding desert, though the caravans are gone.
M'Hamid is the starting point for desert excursions to Erg Chigaga — the largest sand sea in Morocco, a five-hour drive or two-day camel trek to the southwest. Erg Chigaga is wilder and emptier than Erg Chebbi at Merzouga. The dunes are taller. The camps are fewer. The silence is absolute.
The Draa River, which runs through the valley from Agdz to Zagora, has usually disappeared into the ground long before reaching M'Hamid. The palmery survives on wells and khettara. The heat in summer is severe.
Places
01→02→
Natural
Erg Chigaga: The Remote Dunes of the South
The other Sahara — larger dunes, fewer tourists, 50 kilometers past the end of the paved road. The isolation is the point. Budget two nights; one isn't enough for this silence.
Nature
Chegaga Desert Route
The 50-kilometre desert route from Mhamid to the Erg Chigaga dunes — accessible only by 4x4 or camel, crossing a hammada of black volcanic rock and isolated sand sheets. No villages, no road, no phone signal. The Erg Chigaga at the end of it is more remote and less visited than Merzouga, which means the silence is real.
Stories from M'Hamid
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Journeys that pass through M'Hamid
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Coming to M'Hamid?
Every journey we design includes private guiding, accommodation chosen for character rather than category, and the kind of access that takes years in Morocco to arrange.
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