3 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Désert And World Heritage Kasbah
Overview
Inclusions
- Driver/guide
- Transport by air-conditioned minivan
- Camel trekking in the desert
- Hotel/port pickup and drop-off
- 2 nights Half-Board Accommodation
- 2x Breakfast
- 2x Dinner
- Accommodation included: 2 nights
- Entry/Admission - High Atlas Mountains
- Entry/Admission - Dades Gorges
- Entry/Admission - Merzouga Desert
- Entry/Admission - Jemaa el-Fnaa
What to expect
Day 1: From Marrakech To Dades Valley Via Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou and Ouarzazate
Stop At: High Atlas Mountains, 40000 Morocco
Day 1: Night and Half board (D)
Leave Marrakech, and follow a well-maintained road to the High Atlas Mountains. After about an hour, the road starts to wind its way along one of the most scenic roads in Morocco across a landscape of terraced wheat fields, cacti, waving palm trees and endless views. As the road begins to descend, the scenery changes drastically as suddenly as you enter a desert-like area. Soon, the imposing Kasbah Aït Benhaddou will loom up like a mirage.
Duration: 3 hours
Stop At: Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou, Ait Ben Haddou 45122 Morocco
Soon, the imposing Kasbah Aït Benhaddou will loom up like a mirage. A kasbah is a kind of citadel, composed of high-walled buildings of clay mixed with straw; historically used to shelter to entire village communities. At the top of the Kasbah, there is a fantastic view across the surrounding countryside and of the citadel itself giving you the sense of entering a medieval world with a warren of narrow lanes. the fortified city of Ait Ben Haddou is an UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987 With many things to do along the way, great for people who don't mind a little hike to see some exquisite views. Beautiful villages and towns scattered all around
Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes
Stop At: Dades Gorges, R704 Atlas Mountains, Boumalne Dades 45350 Morocco
After lunch, you'll set off on your tour again and drive through the fertile valley to Dades Gorges . If you thought the road from Marrakech was beautiful, then wait till you see this. Bizarre rock formations, bright green palm valleys and rugged mountain peaks in all shapes and colours alternated by small traditional villages and breathtaking views. After 2 hour you’ll pass a restaurant (‘Panoramic’), with an outdoor terrace overlooking the valley and the colourful cliffs. It’s a nice place to stop off for a cup of coffee or mint tea. From here, it’s another 40 minutes drive past yet more weird but wonderful colourful rock formations. When the cliffs begin to get narrower and you enter a kind of gorge, you’ll know you’ve nearly reached your small mountain hotel. Moments later you’re greeted by the friendly owner night and dinner in hotel (Kasbah La Gazelle) or similar.
Duration: 12 hours
Meals included:
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Accommodation included: overnight at Kasbah Atlas Dades or similar kasbah Hotel
Day 2: From Dades gorges to Merzouga desert via 1001 Kasbah Roads, and Tinghir Oasis
Stop At: Merzouga Desert, Merzouga Morocco
Day 2: Night and Half board (B, D)
After breakfast, start your journey driving through the edges of the Sahara Desert and pass through scattered Berber villages along the way towards the Erg Chebbi desert at Merzouga. Perched on a trusty camel, you will softly plod into the sea of golden sand dunes as experienced camel-drivers lead the way to our camp in the desert. Once at the camp, you will enjoy a delicious dinner and will spend a night camping out and sleep under an incredible canopy of stars.
Duration: 12 hours
Meals included:
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Accommodation included: overnight in our dunes camp
Day 3: From Merzouga Desert To Marrakech via Ouarzazat & Kasbah Taourirt
Stop At: Taourirt Kasbah, Avenue Mohammed V, Ouarzazate 45000 Morocco
Witness an amazing sunrise over the dunes in the Sahara Desert – one of the most memorable moments of this trip. After breakfast go back on the camels heading to Merzouga. Then ride back to Marrakech via the city of Ouarazazate where you'll have time for lunch and a visit to the famous Taourirt Kasbah.
Duration: 3 hours
Stop At: Western High Atlas National Park, 39JQ+PRH, Taounza, Morocco
Continue to Marrakech, crossing the High Atlas Mountains and Berber villages.
Duration: 2 hours
Stop At: Jemaa el-Fnaa, 38 Jemaa el-Fna, Rue El Ksour, Marrakech Morocco
Arrival in the evening and then be dropped-off at a central location in Marrakech.
Duration: 1 hour
Meals included:
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No accommodation included on this day.
Additional information
- Children must be accompanied by an adult
- Vegetarian option is available, please advise at time of booking if required
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Stroller accessible
- Near public transportation
- Infant seats available
- Most travelers can participate
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 15 travelers
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Ticket delivery
Cancellation
I loved the trip! Was cool and very professional,They make sure that everything is going well. Food was good and the hotels too!
I loved the trip! Was cool and very professional,They make sure that everything is going well. Food was good and the hotels too!I saw some fairly bad reviews of this tour on tripadvisor - but also some more positive ones … and thought: It can`t be that bad. But alas: it could! It tried to book om viator homepage, filled in all the details and credit card information and clicked "pay" … and nothing happened. So I called th...
I saw some fairly bad reviews of this tour on tripadvisor - but also some more positive ones … and thought: It can`t be that bad. But alas: it could! It tried to book om viator homepage, filled in all the details and credit card information and clicked "pay" … and nothing happened. So I called the company and spoke to a lady who was very helpful. She found the tour rather fast and offered to book it for me. On the homepage the tour was advertised to approximately 100 USD, but the price the lady came up with was 200 USD. I asked why this was the case, and she told me to hold, while she would contact the agent. I thought that would take a couple of minutes, but I waited approximately 45 min. - at a rate of 3 USD a minute, so it came to quite an expensive call. The lady should have offered to call me back instead of asking me to wait. Anyway, she found out that the 100 dollar tour had a pick up at 11 pm at the hotel and then drive at night, whereas the 200 dollar tour was a morning pick up. So I took the expensive tour, received a confirmation and a voucher. That all worked well. I was promised a 7 am pick up at my hotel. At 7.30 I was still waiting and called the agent in Morocco who told me, that the driver was picking up other people first, and therefore I had to wait. Why nobody told me that beforehand is incomprehensible. When the van finally arrived … voila! It was empty - apart from the driver. So the story about picking up others first was just a lie. The driver showed up 8.20 - thats a 50 minutes delay and I was the first customer! We drove to other hotels and picked up other travellers and then to the central square where we waited quite a while to be distributed into long distance vans. It was chaotic and tourists were pushed around like cattle and the drivers yelling and shouting. Finally in the bus we headed out of town - around 2 hours after my hotel pick up. The driver was kind but spoke hardly any English which was surprising as the lady I spoke to on the phone told me, that there was a very good guide on this tour (again: she obviously didn`t know what she was talking about, and told a lie instead). So, we drove off and stopped at the Ksar Ait Ben Haddou which was interesting. The guide who showed us around the kasbah was not very good though. He had memorised the information about the site and passed it on in a way, that made me doubt if he himself understood what he was saying. He climbed some of the walls and I asked him, if he wasn`t afraid to fall - a question to which he answered: "I do 2 tours with tourists every day" which illustrates his lacking language skills. After the Kasbah, we continued to Ouarzazate where we stopped briefly and continued to a very basic hotel. But all right: there was a toilet and hot shower! Day 2: We were told that the bus left at 7.30. But no .. everyone was ready but we left 8.15, don`t know why. Drove to the gorges which were nice to see, but not that impressive, and continued to the desert camp. At the hotel counter, we were asked to pay a fee though everyone in our group had been promised that the price paid beforehand included all taxes. Then we were taken outside the hotel where a jeep showed up. The camp staff wanted 100 dirham (=10 euros) per person for the jeep to take us to the desert camp. We told the driver, that we had already paid ... so he just took off with some of the tourists from our group, that paid. We asked about the camel tour that we had been promised, and after a very long wait, a man showed up with a caravan of camels. Everyone got on the camels, and they walked us out into the desert. I was expecting a longer ride, but after a mere 25 minutes, the caravan stopped, the camels kneeled and we got off. As everyone was admiring the dunes, the camel-man and the camels left. We were actually left stranded in the desert and nobody knew what was happening. It was deeply worrying and I was scared myself, especially as it was getting dark and we couldn`t see the hotel and the way back. People started calling their agents in Europe, Japan and the US plus the hotel. I called the office in Morocco to tell them that I was not a happy customer: I was left in the desert, I was not taken to the tent camp and none of the local staff seemed to know what was going on - or to care. He promised me to send a car to the hotel that would take me through the desert to the tent camp. We waited around 90 minutes, and suddenly a camel caravan arrived to take us back. There were not camels for everybody, so many tourists ended up walking back. Five minutes after the arrival of the caravan, the man from the Moroccan agency called me to ask where I was. I told him that I was on a camel in the desert on the way back to the hotel. He asked how long it would be before arriving at the hotel. As it had taken 25 min on the way out, I said that it would be 30 min. He said that there was a car waiting for me at the hotel and hung up. Nine minutes after he called me again to tell me, that he didn`t think it would be 30 min but more like an hour before I arrived at the hotel. I don`t know where he got that idea from - after all it was me who was on the camel and knew how long it had taken on the way out into the desert. And I don`t know what he wanted me to do. I couldn`t just tell the camel to move faster. I arrived at the hotel 31 min after - and of course, there was no car and there had been no car waiting for me. I went up to the reception in the hotel and asked them how they planned to get me to the tent camp. The receptionist told me, that the tent camp didn`t exist. That came as a surprise, as several tourists from our bus had been taken there just hours earlier. I asked him where I should sleep and he told me to go away. As I insisted that they found a place for me to sleep, the receptionist started to yell at me. That is completely unacceptable and I won`t have it. Other staff members saw how he was loosing control and came to my rescue. They took me to an area just meters away from the hotel, where there were 6 plastic tents - nowhere near a berber desert camp, and walked from tent to tent to see if there was an empty bed. They found a bed that seemed to be unoccupied in a tent of 4 beds. On the bed next to the empty bed was what was clearly a ladies luggage with coloured scarfs and make-up. I said that I would feel a little uncomfortable sleeping next to a lady - especially a lady I didn`t know. The hotel-man just answered: "My friend - no problem". So I asked if he himself would feel comfortable sleeping in a tent with ladies he did not know or if he would let his wife or daughters sleep in a tent with a man they didn`t know. He just repeated: "My friend - no problem". At that point I was exhausted, I was hungry, and I was scared, so I just said "all right" and left my backpack on that bed and went to have some dinner, went to the washrooms only to find there was no toilet paper nor any soap, after which I went to bed - only to be woken up 2 hours later by a group of 4 tourists from Romania who asked me, what I was doing in their tent. It was a very embarrassing and akward situation for all of us. We were 5 people and only 4 beds and they felt like I had gate-crashed into their tent. However 2 of the others cuddled up in one bed and we went to sleep. The following morning we got up early and saw the sunset, which was nice and drove off heading back to Marrakech - this last day is a very long drive. In total we spend about 11 hours in the van that day before arriving in Marrakech. In total: I was told a pack of lies, I was taken for a fool, I was yelled at, I was scared, I was put in someone elses bed and spend the night in a plastic tent with 4 complete strangers and not the berber camp in the desert that I paid for. I am glad to have seen the Ksar Ait Ben Haddou and the desert - but had I known what I know now .... I would`t have travelled with this company.Pick-Up: I was collected at 7am prompt from my Riad and escorted straight to the minivan. It then took 90 minutes of transferring different groups, before we finally left Marrakech. This got a little tedious and frustrating, and I had the feeling immediately that the tour companies struggle to co...
Pick-Up: I was collected at 7am prompt from my Riad and escorted straight to the minivan. It then took 90 minutes of transferring different groups, before we finally left Marrakech. This got a little tedious and frustrating, and I had the feeling immediately that the tour companies struggle to cope with larger number of tourists arriving during the peak season. Day 1: Most of the first day was spent driving, with a short breakfast stop at a restaurant overlooking the Atlas Mountains. The day's real highlight was visiting the Ait Ben Haddou, which was spectacular and the best guide of the trip joined us here (his name may have been Omar - he was the youngest guide (he had braces) - and the only guide I actually wanted to tip - and unusually he didn't even ask for one, and disappeared before I had the chance to give him one). Strangely, we were given only a few minutes in Ouarzazate - and not allowed by our driver to enter the Kasbah or film museum - which was a real shame - and it had been included on the itinerary. We then missed our scheduled sunset stop - seemingly because it was more important to our driver that we made it to one of the en-route restaurants, despite the fact we had already stopped for breakfast, lunch, and would later have dinner when we arrived. Couldn't we have spent some more time (even half-an-hour) in Ouarzazate? Never mind, I enjoyed a nice Coca Cola a mediocre sunset experience overlooking a town, as opposed to what was actually listed on the programme. We then continued to Dades gorge, where we stayed the night - and here's where it gets a little interesting... I was the only solo traveller in my group - so I was separated and asked to join a different group, which I didn't mind. There was another solo traveller (Michael) in the other group - but he had paid a 10 euro supplement per night, to have a private room. He was very welcoming and didn't mind sharing with me - but the tour groups could have done better than to take his money without giving him the private room he'd paid for. We spent the night at La Gazelle du dades. The hotel was surprisingly good and exceeded my expectations - sure it was a little cold - but it was far better than other reviews that I had seen. Dinner and service was excellent - but the mint tea was terrible - terrible - terrible - no amount of sugar could mask how bad that tea was. We ordered another pot before bed and it didn't get any better - and it was equally bad at breakfast. It is the worst Moroccan tea I have ever had - worse even than the mint tea I had at the Sahara lounge in Stanmore, UK - anyways let's move on... The hotel overlooked the gorge, well technically it was in the gorge, so we looked up at it? Anyways - the sound of water at night and the sunrise was a lovely experience. Day 2: We left at 8am. Sunrise is very late in the winter, which explains why the tour struggled to run to time on Day 2 and Day 3. Again most of the day spent driving with nice stops at Tinghir and the Todga Gorge. We hiked from the gorge to a local village, that gave us a nice experience of the locals, and obligatory stop at an authentic carpet workshop, which was interesting but clearly included only for the chance someone would buy an over-inflated rug. The seller was very nice - "you don't need to buy, but we stay friends" and I stayed with another couple after the tour to negotiate on some of the rugs. The prices were ridiculously inflated - starting price 10,000 dirhams - I was laughed at for starting at 500 dirhams, then not going above 1000. In the end I bought a similar rug back in Marrakech for 1300, so I can't complain. At the end of this stage of the tour, our guide, who was a little shifty and creepy, awkwardly demanded a tip - none of us gave him (from what I could see). We continued into the Sahara for the next few hours, making one nice late-lunch stop at the Café Touroug that I quite enjoyed, even if the menu prices appeared quite inflated. We arrived at Merzouga about an hour before sunset, where we were able to leave our stuff at a hotel, then continuing on jeeps to the camels. The jeep ride was a real bonus, that wasn't promoted in the programme, and although brief it was a lot of fun. We spent some time waiting for the camels to come - about 45 minutes - in the meanwhile enjoying a spectacular sunset from the dunes. The camels, when they finally came took us 45 minutes through twilight, then darkness to the dessert camp. I thoroughly enjoyed the camel ride, although we ended up arriving pitch black as the last group at the camp. Again, it was a struggle to find a tent and I ended up back with my other solo friend from the other group - after a couple hours of trying to find somewhere to sleep. Dinner was excellent - the tea this time also good - but there was no tea to be had after dinner - this was a real shame. Despite being told not to wander too far from camp, I took an amazing hike with my newfound solo traveler buddy, Michael up to the top of the highest sand dune, adjacent to the camp. We sat up there for 45 minutes (it took us close to an hour to make the climb) - then we were suddenly joined by another group from camp - Croatian and Polish guys - as we sat there watching the moon rise up over the distant dunes. It was incredible - a moonless night beforehand we could see the stars like never before - and I'd never seen a moonrise. Incredible. We headed back to camp and sat round a roaring camp fire - tea would have made the night - but I had some water and passed my dried biltong round instead, and made do. Night in a Bedouin tent in winter - its rough and was about a grim as I expected, but all part of the experience nonetheless. Day 3: Surprisingly late wake up (7:30am) because of the late sunrise, but even then I overslept to 8am. Jeeps took us to where we'd originally met the camels the previous day - and we were left in the icy cold morning to enjoy an amazing sunrise, while I massaged and rubbed at my feet, still numb from the night's cold. The camels eventually came, and we stopped for breakfast at the hotel. There was no time to shower as promised on the programme, but I made do with sticking my numb sand-covered feet in the hotel swimming pool, and giving them a good wash. Unfortunately, and it wasn't made clear when I booked, most of the entire was spent driving - with the entire 3rd day (over 12 hours) spent in the minivan. The only stops on the final day were return breaks at all the places we had passed through previously. Most annoyingly, the timings provided most likely reflected the summer schedule, and due to a very late sunrise we didn't leave Merzouga until close to 10am, arriving back in Marrakech at 10pm and not between 17:00 and 18:00 as advertised. This had the knock-on effect of me arriving at my hotel, which had cancelled my reservation, and then struggling to find alternative accommodation late at night. I selected this option over the 2-day tour to Zagora (I've heard from most people that Merzouga is better), thinking there would be more time to explore. So I'd recommend if you have more time, to select a 4 or 5 day option, if available. Our driver was excellent, but he was miserable from having done the same job and same routes every single week for 20+ years, and he hardly even acknowledged or talked to us until the final day. I can't really blame him, and we were given guides at other points. Overall: The tour met my expectations, and is great value for money, and the best option for the limited time I had available, but there is substantial room for improvement (especially on time keeping). I imagine that the experience is better during off-peak season, and especially when the days are a little longer. Thank you to Brahim Daoud (who was in regular contact in the lead up to, during and following the tour) and the team at Marrakech Travel Services! Harrison from London
The places you go are great, but everything the tour company provided was poor. Pick up was late, drop off was nowhere near our hotel, the driver was driving manically (most people in Morocco do, but this was insane overtaking on blind corners in the mountains) and the whole tour felt rushed.
The places you go are great, but everything the tour company provided was poor. Pick up was late, drop off was nowhere near our hotel, the driver was driving manically (most people in Morocco do, but this was insane overtaking on blind corners in the mountains) and the whole tour felt rushed.
The manager is very kind and helpful, l He treated us royally and he satisfied all our request, also organised a super and experience with a unforgettable night in the Merzouga desert ( we visited Ait ben Haddou Village, Ouarzazat, Dades And Todgha Gorges, Taourirt kasbah and many other beautiful...
The manager is very kind and helpful, l He treated us royally and he satisfied all our request, also organised a super and experience with a unforgettable night in the Merzouga desert ( we visited Ait ben Haddou Village, Ouarzazat, Dades And Todgha Gorges, Taourirt kasbah and many other beautiful places…) Accommodations were very big and clean, also the common area. Excellent value for money!! We absolutely recommended this agency !Very calm and friendly staff, always want to help you, on our trip through Morocco we stayed 2 nights in the desert. Our driver speaks English and is super friendly and helpful! They organised for us the tour through the desert and it was breathtaking. Accommodations were warm and clean, and you...
Very calm and friendly staff, always want to help you, on our trip through Morocco we stayed 2 nights in the desert. Our driver speaks English and is super friendly and helpful! They organised for us the tour through the desert and it was breathtaking. Accommodations were warm and clean, and you can see the milkyway from the balcony. The breakfast was plenty and good, and dinners were the best morrocan home made food we had on the trip (no menu, but rather a different set of dishes on each day). Overall it was a great experience which we can only recommend.