Five days is where a Morocco trip stops being a desert excursion and starts being a route across the country. You leave Marrakech, cross the High Atlas, follow the pre-Saharan valleys to Merzouga, sleep in the dunes, come back out through the Middle Atlas and finish with a guided day in the Fes medina — one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world.
What the extra days buy you
Compared with a three-day desert run, the fifth day is not another drive. It is a city day. Fes needs a guide and most of a morning: the tanneries, the Qarawiyyin, the gates, and the sheer scale of a medina where the streets were laid out before wheels mattered. That day is the reason to take this route rather than looping back to Marrakech.
The desert part
The outbound leg takes you over the Tizi n’Tichka pass at about 2,260 m, down to Aït Ben Haddou — the UNESCO-listed fortified village on the old caravan road to Timbuktu — then east through Ouarzazate and the Skoura oasis to the Dades Valley. The second day runs through the Todra Gorge, where the limestone walls rise around 400 m and the canyon narrows to roughly ten metres, and on to the edge of Erg Chebbi. You ride into the dunes by camel for sunset and spend the night in a desert camp.
And then north
From Merzouga the road runs up the Ziz Valley, a long green corridor of date palms between bare cliffs, over the pass at Midelt and into the cedar forest at Azrou, where Barbary macaques live along the roadside. You spend a night in Fes before the guided medina day, so you arrive rested rather than straight off a nine-hour drive.
Who this suits
Travellers with five or six days who are flying out of Fes or Casablanca, or who simply do not want to drive the same road twice. If you have four days, see the 4-day Merzouga tour; with seven, the 7-day itinerary guide explains what the extra days add. Our guide to a night in a Sahara desert camp describes what the camp is actually like.
Aperçu
Five days is where a Morocco trip stops being a desert excursion and starts being a route across the country. You leave Marrakech, cross the High Atlas, follow the pre-Saharan valleys to Merzouga, sleep in the dunes, come back out through the Middle Atlas and finish with a guided day in the Fes medina — one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world.
What the extra days buy you
Compared with a three-day desert run, the fifth day is not another drive. It is a city day. Fes needs a guide and most of a morning: the tanneries, the Qarawiyyin, the gates, and the sheer scale of a medina where the streets were laid out before wheels mattered. That day is the reason to take this route rather than looping back to Marrakech.
The desert part
The outbound leg takes you over the Tizi n’Tichka pass at about 2,260 m, down to Aït Ben Haddou — the UNESCO-listed fortified village on the old caravan road to Timbuktu — then east through Ouarzazate and the Skoura oasis to the Dades Valley. The second day runs through the Todra Gorge, where the limestone walls rise around 400 m and the canyon narrows to roughly ten metres, and on to the edge of Erg Chebbi. You ride into the dunes by camel for sunset and spend the night in a desert camp.
And then north
From Merzouga the road runs up the Ziz Valley, a long green corridor of date palms between bare cliffs, over the pass at Midelt and into the cedar forest at Azrou, where Barbary macaques live along the roadside. You spend a night in Fes before the guided medina day, so you arrive rested rather than straight off a nine-hour drive.
Who this suits
Travellers with five or six days who are flying out of Fes or Casablanca, or who simply do not want to drive the same road twice. If you have four days, see the 4-day Merzouga tour; with seven, the 7-day itinerary guide explains what the extra days add. Our guide to a night in a Sahara desert camp describes what the camp is actually like.
Practical notes before you book
A few things worth knowing. The camel trek into Erg Chebbi takes about an hour each way and is timed for sunset; if anyone would rather not ride, we can bring you into the camp by 4×4 instead — just say so beforehand. Desert nights are cold outside high summer, with January lows at Merzouga averaging around 3.5 °C. And the local guide for the Fes medina is included, but monument entrance fees are not and are paid on the day.
Read our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit the Moroccan Sahara, the tested packing list and what a night in a desert camp is actually like before you travel. For the cities, the Fes medina guide and the Marrakech medina guide are the best preparation. And if you are still deciding how long to give Morocco, our guide to how many days you need covers every length from one to fifteen.
Points forts
- One-way Marrakech to Fes: the country crossed, not retraced
- A night in a desert camp at Erg Chebbi after a sunset camel trek
- Ait Ben Haddou, the Dades Valley and the Todra Gorge
- The Ziz Valley palm corridor and the cedar forest at Azrou
- A guided day in the Fes medina, one of the largest car-free areas in the world
- Two nights in Fes, so the medina day is not squeezed onto a travel day
