Two Deserts
9-Day Erg Chigaga & Merzouga Desert Tour
Nine days across both of Morocco's great ergs, which almost nobody does in one trip
- 9 days · 8 nights
- Marrakech → Marrakech
- About 33 hours over 9 days, including around 4 hours off-road. driving
Morocco has two great sand seas and they are nothing like each other. Chigaga is reached across two hours of open desert with no road, and there's nothing at it but dunes. Chebbi rises straight out of a village, so you can walk into it from a doorway. Nearly every operator sells one or the other. Doing both in one run is the trip for someone who has already been to Morocco, already spent a night in the Sahara, and wants the version that goes further. The nine days are what it takes to cross between them without spending the whole trip in a seat — the route between the two ergs goes through fossil beds, kasbah villages and the Jbel Bani rather than back up the highway.
Why I run it this wayTwo deserts in nine days only works if the days between them are worth driving, so we cross through Nkob and Alnif rather than doubling back on the main road. The Chigaga leg travels with a local desert driver who knows the reg.
The things worth stopping for
- Erg Chigaga by 4x4 across open reg, and a night with nothing on the horizon
- Erg Chebbi from the village side, walked or ridden in
- The Jbel Bani and the kasbahs at Nkob between the two
- Fossil country through Tazzarine and Alnif
Where this trip takes you
Straight lines between stops, not the exact roads — the driving is the winding version of this.
How the trip goes
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Day 1: Over the Tichka
Driving: About 5 hoursThe pass, then down to Ait Ben Haddou with enough of the afternoon left to walk up through the ksar. Ouarzazate for the night.
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Day 2: The Draa to M'Hamid
Driving: About 5 hoursSouth through the palm groves — Agdz, Zagora, Tamegroute and its green pottery — to M'Hamid, where the road ends and the desert starts.
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Day 3: 4x4 to Erg Chigaga
Driving: About 2 hours off-roadTwo hours across the reg with no road under the wheels. Lake Iriqui's dry bed, nomad tents where the grazing is, and then the dunes. Camp at the foot of them.
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Day 4: East through the Jbel Bani
Driving: About 5 hoursSunrise on the big dune, then out of the erg and east along the flank of the Jbel Bani to Nkob, a village of kasbahs with more towers than it has any business having.
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Day 5: Fossil country
Driving: About 4 hoursThrough Tazzarine and Alnif — trilobite country, where the rock is full of things that lived when this was seabed — and on into Rissani.
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Day 6: The other desert
Driving: About 1 hourErg Chebbi. Different sand, different colour, and a wall of it that starts where the last house ends. Out to camp on foot or by camel, and a second desert night that feels nothing like the first.
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Day 7: West to Todra
Driving: About 4 hoursDawn on the dunes, then west through Erfoud and Tinghir into the Todra gorge, where the light comes down between the walls for about an hour a day.
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Day 8: Dades and the roses
Driving: About 4 hoursThe Dades switchbacks from above, the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs, Rose Valley and Skoura's palm groves into Ouarzazate.
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Day 9: Telouet, and home
Driving: About 4 hoursThe old road over Telouet rather than the highway, and into Marrakech by the afternoon.
I'll email you this itinerary — every day, what's included, what it costs — so you can think it over and share it.
One email with the itinerary. No account, and I don't pass your address to anyone — see the privacy policy.
What's included
Included
- Private air-conditioned van with me driving
- 4x4 and local desert driver for the Chigaga days
- 8 nights including 2 in desert camps, one at each erg
- Breakfast each morning, dinner at both camps
- Fuel, tolls and parking
- Marrakech pickup and drop-off
Not included
- Flights and visas
- Travel insurance
- Lunches and dinners unless listed
- Entrance fees to monuments and museums
- Local guides inside the medinas
- Tips
Read more about where you'll be
A closer look
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Every route bends: more time somewhere, a different start, a night added. Send your dates and I'll plan it around you.