How many days do you need to reach the desert?

Half a day: Agafay

Agafay is a stone desert forty minutes from Marrakech. No dunes, but bare hills, remarkable light at the end of the day and the Atlas behind. You leave mid-afternoon, dine under canvas, then either drive back to sleep in the city or stay the night.

This is the right answer if you have three or four days in total. It gives you the atmosphere of the desert without giving up two days to the road.

Three days: Merzouga one way

Three days gets you to the real dunes of Erg Chebbi, with a night under canvas, ending in Fes. It is the most sold format and it works, but two of the three days are largely spent driving, six or seven hours each.

The round trip from Marrakech in three days exists too, but it means repeating the same road and leaves even less time on the ground. If you must return to Marrakech, four days is better.

Four to five days: seeing rather than crossing

The fourth day adds a full day in the desert instead of a single night. In practice: a sunrise without hurrying, a morning in the villages around the erg, a second night under canvas. It is the difference between crossing the south and seeing it.

The fifth day opens the Draa valley, two hundred kilometres of continuous palm grove between Agdz and Zagora, which the shorter tours skip for lack of time. It is the quietest stretch and one of the finest.

What to know about the road

Distances in Morocco are counted in hours, not kilometres. The Tichka pass at 2,260 metres, the gorges and the valleys all force slow driving. If anyone in the group gets travel sick, plan for it and tell the driver.

Nights under canvas vary enormously, from a bare bivouac to a camp with private bathrooms. The standard should appear on the quote before payment, not be discovered on arrival.