3 Days in Merzouga

Most guesthouses and camps sit on the dune edge in Hassilabied and Merzouga, and the camp is the biggest decision of the trip. The local authorities closed unlicensed camps in 2019, so book one that's registered, ideally by message a week ahead in winter.

A standard camp means a shared Berber tent with mattresses and blankets, shared washrooms and dinner around a fire, usually in a circle of tents at the foot of the big dunes. A luxury camp means a big tent with a real bed, a private bathroom, sometimes heating and a proper dining tent. The difference is mostly comfort, not the dunes: both sit at the same erg. If your trip is in December or January, spend the extra for the heating. Ask four things: is the camp licensed, how long is the camel ride, is there a private bathroom, and what's included. Negotiate with the camp you've messaged, not whoever meets you at the bus stop.

Most visitors eat at their lodge, but a few simple restaurants in Merzouga serve tagines, omelets and salad. Keep it light before climbing sand.

Stock up on cash first. Merzouga has one ATM, an Al Barid Bank machine at the north entrance of the village, and it isn't always reliable. Withdraw in Erfoud or Rissani on the way.

The tall ridge people call the Grand Dune, south-east of the village, has the steepest and highest slopes. The sand is soft and every step slides back, so the climb takes most of an hour. The top gives the view you came for: ridge after ridge of orange sand and, past it, the flat stony hamada.

The erg is only about 5 km across, so you could cross it on foot, but not without a guide. Wear shoes you can empty, and go barefoot only once the sand has cooled.

Some lodges rent boards and many camps lend them, so ask. It's harder than snow: you stop dead if you tip, and a plain plastic slide is easier if you only want to slip down.

Climbing back up takes ten times longer than the run, so two runs is plenty. Go before the camel ride, while your legs are fresh.

The camels (strictly dromedaries, with one hump) wait in a line at the edge of the village. The guide leads the train in single file into the erg at a slow, swaying walk, and your knees will complain. Hold the saddle handle and lean back when the camel stands up.

You stop on a high ridge for sunset, around 17:15 from November to January, then ride on in the dusk to camp. Most overnight packages include the ride in and the ride out at sunrise. Take a scarf for the sand and a warm layer for after dark.

Dinner is usually a tagine in a shared dining tent, then tea and a fire where the camp staff play drums. Stay for the music, then walk fifty meters from the fire and switch off your torch. With no village lights, the stars are the real reason to sleep out here, best on moonless nights.

In winter the cold arrives within an hour of sunset. Wear your layers, use every blanket and keep a hat on to sleep.

Wake before dawn, wrap up, and climb the nearest dune. Sunrise falls at about 06:45 in mid-November and 07:10 in late December, and the low light turns every ridge into a sharp orange edge over a blue shadow. It's colder than sunset, so keep your hat.

Then the camels take you back to the village in the first light, and breakfast is bread, jam, msemen and mint tea at camp or at the auberge. Many rate this above sunset: fewer people, smooth unmarked dunes.

The only way to see the whole erg is by 4x4. A driver takes you across the dunes and the black stony plain on their edge, usually as a loop with Khamlia and the lake. The price is per vehicle (older listings quote around 800 MAD for two hours), so a group of four pays much less each.

Quad bikes are the alternative, but you follow a guide in line and churn up the sand. A 4x4 with a driver who knows the tracks is better; get out and let the engine stop.

About 7 km south of Merzouga, Khamlia is a small village of earth houses on the edge of the dunes. It's known for its Black community. A 2026 article says some residents may descend from people enslaved and brought across the Sahara, others from families who came by choice, and that the village has kept its Gnawa music through it all.

Walk the lanes and buy from a family if you like what you see. Every August, from the first Thursday, the village holds the Sadaka, three days of music in memory of the ancestors. It's a village ritual first, not a show.

There's no restaurant row, just a couple of cafes and a guesthouse where a family cooks lunch. Expect tagine or couscous with bread, then mint tea, which locals call Berber whiskey since no alcohol is served in the village. Ask the price first.

Gnawa music is a ritual tradition of the descendants of enslaved West Africans, built on the guimbri (a bass lute), metal castanets and chanting, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2019. In Khamlia it's sung in Tamazight and invokes God, the Prophet and the spirits, asking for deliverance.

Musicians host visitors at home, one of them at Dar Gnawa Khamlia, an earthen house hung with drums. There are no posted hours, but musicians are usually on hand in the afternoon, so drop in or ask your driver. Listen to a full piece rather than one song, and tip the group at the end. It's paid and sincere, and both can be true.

About 4 km west of Merzouga, Dayet Srij is a seasonal lake in a salt basin. It holds water from late autumn to spring after rain, is often dry by summer, and some years never fills. Rain in autumn 2024 made lakes between the dunes near Merzouga, but nobody can promise water on your dates, so ask a local driver.

When it's full it's the best birding in the area, with ducks and in some years flamingos, and the dunes reflect behind it. When it's dry you still get a white salt flat and a big sky.

Tonight you sleep in a guesthouse in Hassilabied, with a shower to wash the sand out. Rooms cost a fraction of a camp night.

Dinner is tagine, couscous or harira soup, cooked by a family and often eaten on the roof. Look up afterward: the stars are good from the village too.

Rissani was the caravan crossroads of the south and still the trading center for the oasis, with a large souk that runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, and Sunday is the day most visitors plan around. Berber and Arab families come in from the villages, and one corner is a parking lot for donkeys. Look for the spice stalls, the leather and goatskin sellers, dates, and the sheep and the bird market if they're on.

There's less to buy than in Marrakech and far more to look at.

Sijilmasa was the northern end of the trans-Saharan gold and salt route, a rich city that stood for centuries until the Ait Atta destroyed it in 1818. Ibn Battuta stayed in 1352 and praised its dates. Today the ruins stretch for miles along the River Ziz, near the town of Rissani, and what's left is mostly mud walls and gateways, so go for the sense of place rather than the monuments.

Next to the town is the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif, an ancestor of the Alaouite dynasty that still rules Morocco, rebuilt in 1955 after flood damage. Non-Muslims have usually not been allowed into the tomb, so ask at the gate. You can look at the green-tiled facade from outside.

Lunch has to be madfouna, the Tafilalt specialty known as Berber pizza. It's a round of dough stuffed with minced meat, onion and herbs, and its name means buried, from the old way of baking it in the sand. In town it's baked in a clay oven, and small take-away stalls near the souk sell it by the slice.

Eat it hot, with mint tea after, from a stall busy with locals.

Erfoud sits on an ancient sea floor. The Sahara was under water for much of the Palaeozoic era, hundreds of millions of years ago, and the black limestone around the town is full of trilobites, ammonites and the cone-shaped shells called orthoceras. Workshops on the Rissani road cut and polish the stone into tabletops, bowls and tiles, and some let you watch.

Go and see it, and buy carefully. Genuine pieces and fakes are hard to tell apart, and scientists warn that over-digging damages the sites. Buy a small polished piece you like, not a trilobite someone swears is rare.

Erfoud bills itself as Morocco's date capital. The market sells dates all year; try the large, soft mejhoul.

Finish at the hill of Borj Est, above the town and palm groves, for the last light. Tinghir and the gorges are 141 km and about 2.5 hours north.