Marrakech to Fes Through the Sahara: The Route Day by Day

If your trip includes both Marrakech and Fes, you do not need to choose between the cities and the desert. The Sahara lies on a natural route between them. Instead of a train north and a separate desert trip, you cross the High Atlas, sleep among the dunes and arrive in Fes three days later, having driven every kilometre in one direction.

Day one: over the High Atlas to the gorges

You leave Marrakech in the morning and climb into the High Atlas. The road crosses the Tizi n'Tichka pass at about 2,260 metres, with long views back over the folded mountains, before dropping into a different country of red earth and fortified villages.

The first great stop is Aït Ben Haddou, the earthen ksar on a hillside above the river, listed by UNESCO since 1987. From there you pass Ouarzazate and follow what is called the road of a thousand kasbahs: the Skoura palm grove with its old kasbahs, then Kalaat M'Gouna, the town of roses. You sleep in the Dades Gorges, under the rock formations locals call the monkey fingers.

Day two: the Todra Gorge and the dunes

In the morning you drive to the Todra Gorge, where the canyon narrows enough to walk between its walls. Then the land flattens and dries as you head east past Tinejdad and Erfoud, a town of date palms and fossil workshops, where the local marble is full of creatures hundreds of millions of years old.

You reach the Erg Chebbi dunes at Merzouga in the late afternoon. The camels take you into the sand as the sun goes down, and you sleep at camp. On our trips that is Sahara Garden Camp, in a tent with its own bathroom and a heater for the cold months.

Day three: north through the Ziz Valley to Fes

You wake for the sunrise, ride back to the edge of the dunes for breakfast and a shower, and turn north. The road passes Rissani, home town of the Alaouite dynasty that still reigns in Morocco, then follows the Ziz Valley, a long ribbon of palms in a deep canyon.

Beyond Midelt the road climbs into the Middle Atlas. Near Azrou and Ifrane you pass through cedar forests that are home to the Barbary macaque, an endangered monkey of North Africa's mountains. The park asks visitors not to feed them, and you will see why: they are wild animals, and food from cars makes them ill. By evening you are in Fes.

Three days or four?

Three days is enough, but the first and last days are long. A fourth day lets you stop longer where it matters: a night in Ouarzazate after Aït Ben Haddou and the Kasbah of Telouet, and a night in a kasbah above the river in the Todra Gorge, with the dunes on the third night.

Doing it the other way

The route works just as well from Fes to Marrakech, and for travellers who fly into Casablanca it fits naturally after Rabat, Meknes and Fes. Our five-day journey from Casablanca to Marrakech takes exactly that line, with a full guided day in Fes before the desert.

If you only want the desert and are coming back to Marrakech, our three-day loop to Erg Chebbi returns by a different road through Alnif and Tazarine. And if you want Fes without the desert, the three-day crossing by Midelt and Ifrane gives you a full day in the medina instead.