Nine Hours to the Sand

The Sahara is roughly 560 kilometres from Marrakech. That is nine hours of driving, assuming no stops. Nobody should assume no stops. The road crosses the High Atlas at the Tizi n'Tichka pass — 2,260 metres, 130 kilometres of switchbacks — then drops into the pre-Saharan valleys where kasbahs line the river and the landscape turns from green to ochre to sand.

The standard tourist route is three days, two nights. Day one: Marrakech to the Dades Valley, with a stop at Aït Benhaddou. Day two: Dades to Merzouga, through the Todra Gorge. Day three: sunrise in the desert, then the long drive back. This works. It is also exhausting. You spend more time in the car than out of it.

The better version is four or five days. Same route, but with time to walk through Aït Benhaddou properly, spend a night in the Dades Gorge, stop at the Todra Gorge for more than a photo, visit Rissani's souk, and arrive at the dunes with enough energy to enjoy them. The extra nights cost a fraction of what you paid for the flights.

Merzouga (Erg Chebbi) is where most tours end up — accessible, well-established, dunes reaching 150 metres high. Erg Chigaga near M'Hamid is harder to reach, less developed, and emptier. If you want silence and remoteness, Chigaga is the one. If you want infrastructure and a choice of camps, Chebbi.

What to bring: layers (desert nights drop below 10°C from October to March), a headlamp, lip balm, sunscreen, a scarf for the wind and sand, and a power bank. There are no charging points in the desert.

What to expect from the guides: most Sahara tour operators use the same road, the same stops, and the same camps. The difference is the driver-guide. A great one makes the drive feel like a conversation about Morocco. A bad one makes it feel like a bus route. Ask your riad for a recommendation. They have sent hundreds of guests and they know who comes back with stories.