Home > Tours > From Fes > 5 days trip from Fes to desert Sahara tours

Quad adventure bike in Erg Chebbi Sahara Merzouga

palms trees watch the stars in Sahara desert camp

5 days trip from Fes to desert Sahara tours

Tour Ref :	5DFMM
Duration :	5 Days – 4 Nights
Tour type :	Private Tour, Family, Desert, Sahara
Tour start :	Fes
Tour end :	Marrakech
Highlights :	Middle Atlas Mountains, cedar forests, Barbary apes, Fossil, Ziz valley, Berber Villages, Sahara Desert, Camel ride, Todra valley, Kasbahs, Hight atlas
Price :	Prices according to number of people travelling in vehicle.

Overview

This 5-day tour from Fes to the Sahara crosses Morocco one way from Fes to Marrakech, with a night at Erg Chebbi, a full exploring day in the Merzouga region, and — the thing that sets it apart — a night in Ouarzazate instead of one very long final drive.

What the extra night buys you. On the shorter 4-day version, the last day runs from the Dades valley all the way to Marrakech: roses valley, Skoura, Ouarzazate, Ait Ben Haddou, Telouet and the Tizi-n-Tichka pass, all before dark. It is a lot of road. Here that stretch is split across two days. You stop at Ouarzazate for the night — with time for the film studios and the kasbah — and tackle Ait Ben Haddou and Telouet fresh the next morning, with room to actually walk around the ksar rather than photograph it and move on.

The rest of the route is the same and it is a good one: over the Middle Atlas through Ifrane and the cedar forest where the Barbary macaques live, down through Midelt and the Ziz valley to Merzouga; a day among the nomad families, the Gnawa musicians of Khamlia and the market at Rissani; camel trek and camp in the dunes; then out through Erfoud, Tinghir and the Todra gorges into the Dades valley.

Which to book: take the 4-day tour if you are short on time and do not mind a long last day. Take this one if you would rather not spend eight hours in a car on your final day. Take the 6-day tour if you also want a guided day in Marrakech at the end.

Day tour itinerary

Day 1: Fes – Ifrane – Cedar forest – Midelt – Ziz valley – Merzouga

We leave Fes at eight and climb into the Middle Atlas. Ifrane comes first — alpine roofs, tidy hedges and snow in winter, which is why Moroccans call it the Switzerland of Morocco. Past it lies the cedar forest of Azrou and its Barbary macaques, quite used to visitors. Lunch is at Midelt below Jbel Ayachi, in apple country. Then over the Tizi-n-Talremt pass and down into the Ziz valley, where the palm groves stretch along the river far below the road. Through Errachidia and Erfoud, the fossil and date town, and on to Merzouga for the night in a hotel by the dunes.

Day 2: Merzouga region – nomads – Khamlia – Rissani – camel trek and desert camp

A whole day in the desert instead of passing through it. Off-road first to meet a nomad family on the hamada and drink Berber tea while they explain how they follow the water. Then Khamlia, where the Gnawa musicians — descendants of people brought north from Mali, Sudan and Niger — still play the music that travelled with them. Lunch at Rissani after walking its souk, one of the last big desert markets. In the late afternoon you leave the car for a camel and ride into Erg Chebbi, stopping high on a dune for the sunset, and spend the night at a desert camp — dinner, drumming round the fire and a completely dark sky.

Day 3: Merzouga – Erfoud – Tinghir – Todra gorges – Dades valley

Get up for the sunrise if you can; the colour of the sand shifts minute by minute. After breakfast we head west to Tinghir and the Todra gorges, stopping at the khettara — underground channels dug at a shallow gradient so water reaches the fields without evaporating in the heat. You can climb into one. At Todra the walls narrow to a few metres with three hundred metres of rock overhead, and there is time to walk up the canyon or through the gardens below it. The afternoon runs on into the Dades valley, seabed millions of years ago, silted around coral reefs and compressed into sandstone and limestone before the Atlas lifted it clear — which is why the cliffs are banded the way they are. Night in a hotel or kasbah.

Day 4: Dades Gorges – Boutarar piste – Roses valley – Skoura – Ouarzazate

A short walk in the Dades gorges after breakfast, then the part of this tour the shorter version has no room for: we turn off onto the Boutarar piste and go off-road to visit Berber nomads living in caves in the hills. Tea with them makes plain how hard this life is — grazing goats and raising children in a landscape with almost no water. Onward through the Valley of the Roses at Kela’a M’gouna, where the May harvest supplies rose water and cosmetics sold across Morocco, and into the palm oasis of Skoura. Here Kasbah Amridil deserves a proper visit: beautifully restored, built entirely of adobe — warm in winter, cool in summer, thanks to the thickness of the walls — and familiar from the old fifty-dirham note. Three quarters of an hour further on is Ouarzazate, where you stay the night in a guest house. Arriving with the evening free means you can look at the film studios or the Taourirt kasbah if you want to.

Day 5: Ouarzazate – Ait Ben Haddou – Telouet – High Atlas – Marrakech

Because yesterday ended at Ouarzazate, today starts fresh and short. Half an hour out of town is Ait Ben Haddou, the ksar stacked up the hillside above the Ounila river — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the backdrop to Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia and Game of Thrones. You arrive early enough to cross the riverbed and climb through the village to the granary at the top, which is the whole point of coming and is exactly what a rushed schedule costs you.

The road then follows the Ounila valley to Telouet, deep in the mountains, once the stronghold of El Glaoui, the last Pasha of Marrakech, who controlled the Tizi-n-Tichka from it; the painted ceilings and zellij inside the ruined kasbah are startling given the state of the outside. Over the pass in the afternoon, down through the Atlas foothills, and into Marrakech, where your driver drops you at your riad. End of the tour.