2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes
2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes via Merzouga
Note: The 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes takes ten hours, and you will leave feeling annoyed, tired, and let down. Because Morocco is so big, getting from point A to point B usually takes a lot longer than the map shows. For a full picture of what there is to see and do in Erg Chebbi, you should take a 3- or 4-day desert tour from Marrakech. A 2-day tour from Marrakech would not be enough time to see and do everything.
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Table of contents
2-Day Desert Tour from Marrakech to Fes main information
Tour start
Marrakech
Tour end
Fes
Time of departure
06:00 AM
Duration of the Tour
2 Days / 1 Night
Highlights of our 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes
- Cross-high and middle atlas mountains
- Ait Ben haddou kasbah
- Ouarzazate
- Camels for a ride in Merzouga
- Camping in tents made of Berber
- Barbary monkeys of Azrou
- Beautiful sunrise and sunset in the desert
A 2-day tour of the desert from Marrakech to Fes overview
This 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes via Merzouga is great for people who only have a short time in Morocco when they get to Marrakech but still want to do the camel trip and spend the night at a desert camp. On the 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes, you will see the high Atlas mountains, film sets, and the Taourirt Kasbah in Ouarzazate. You will also stop for a few short photo stops, go camel riding in Merzouga, and spend the night in the Erg Chebbi desert. You can get to Fes the next day by going through Ifrane, the Middle Atlas, the Ziz Valley, and the Azrou Forest. Our 2-day Sahara Desert trip from Marrakech to Fes ends when we get there.
2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes itinerary
Day 1: From Marrakech to Ouarzazate and then to the Merzouga Desert (550 km).
For your 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes via Merzouga, your driver from Unique Desert Tour will pick you up early in the morning from your hotel or riad in Marrakech and take you to the High Atlas mountains, passing through Tizi N Tichka port and stopping to take pictures of the Berber villages and the beautiful countryside. Then we’ll head south to Ait ben Haddou, a walled town that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. This beautiful place has been used to film many famous movies, such as Game of Thrones, Gladiator, The Jewel of the Nile, and The Mummy. Our trip continues to Ouarzazate, which is also known as “The Gate of the Desert” and whose name means “Noiseless” in Berber. The Taourirt kasbah is one of the most beautiful ksars in Morocco, and we will see it here.
Our next stop is Rose Valley, where we will have lunch after going through the big Skoura palm forest. This is a beautiful place to look at all the palm trees and the kasbahs that have been built in the area. We’ll go through the Dades and Todra valleys, Tinejdad, and Touroug on our way to the desert and the beautiful dunes of Merzouga. Here, we’ll go camel trekking through the golden Erg Chebbi Sahara desert and stop to watch the amazing sunset over the dunes. If you’re interested, you can try sandboarding in the dunes and enjoy the beautiful scenery. You will be met with a drink of mint tea at Moroccan Desert Camp Merzouga, where you can rest until dinner. After dinner, you can listen to traditional Berber drumming music around the fire, enjoy a view of the stars, and sleep in a nomad tent camp.
Day 2: Erg Chebbi - Ziz Valley - Midelt - Middle Atlas – Cedar forest – Fes (470 km)
Get up with the sun to see it start its daily path across the sky with a cold blue sky that lights up the desert shadows and then changes into a bright ball of fire. Someone will drop you off at a nearby hotel and give you a hot shower and food. After that, we’ll go to Fes by going through Errachidia, across the beautiful Ziz Gorges, which were made by volcanic rock, and to Midelt via the Tizi Ntalghamt Pass.
Arrive at Zaida for a BBQ and a mint tea. Then, we’ll go to Azrou, a Berber town in the Middle Atlas Mountains, to see the Barbarian apes in the famous Cedar Forest. Next, stop in Ifran, also known as “the French village,” for a picture or a drink before continuing to Fes. Your 2-day desert trip from Marrakech to Fes will end there. We really hope that you had a great time with our group!
The 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes includes
- Pick up and drop off at your hotel
- Each person in Merzouga gets a camel ride
- Berber tents for sleeping.
- A vehicle with fuel
- Breakfast and dinner
2 days desert tour from Marrakech to Fes excludes
- Fees for monuments
- Meals for lunch
- Tips
- Soft drinks
A 2-day tour through the desert from Marrakech to Fes reviews
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Highlights of a 2-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes
Marrakech
It is one of Morocco’s royal towns, and it is sometimes called the “Red City.” In 1062, Yusuf ibn Tashfin, who was king of Morocco during the Almoravid dynasty, found it. After that, it was turned into the capital of the Almoravid Empire. In the 1100s, the Almoravids built a number of churches and schools based on the Quran in Marrakesh. These buildings had Andalusian styles. It has become a popular tourist spot because of its long past and beautiful old buildings. As a center for business and culture, it is the largest city in Morocco.
On the other hand, tourists can’t go to Marrakesh without finding the city’s hidden gems and depths. “Jamaa El-Fna” is the name of the large open area in the middle of the souq. It is also one of the most famous places to visit in Marrakech and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are snake charmers, street performers, and henna artists who are too eager to please. Also, the remains of Sultan Ahmed el-Badi can be found there. Is Mansour’s There are gardens underground and grand walls all around it, and crumbling towers offer great views of the medina. The Bahia Palace is also one of the most interesting places in Marrakech.
In the late 1800s, it was built as the private home of Grand Vizier Bou Ahmed. It has painted ceilings, zellige tiles, and a marble porch, all of which are beautiful works of art and building. Plus, the famous Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech was created by the French artist Jacques Majorelle. The public villa is home to both the Islamic art museum and the Berber museum, which has a collection of textiles from North Africa.
Take a two-day tour from Marrakech to Fes to see the Medina.
In Medina, you can walk through narrow streets and see traditional Moroccan houses with big walls and gates. Next is the Koutoubia Mosque, which is one of the best places to see. It’s also the biggest mosque in Marrakech. The traditional Almohad style was used to build it. The walls are painted, there are arches, carved windows, and pointed merinos. The Almoravid Koubba is also a famous building that was made by the Almoravid era. There may be more than one name for the building as well. One of the most interesting places to see in Marrakech is Koubba Ba’adiyn.
Merzouga:
Merzouga desert is a popular place for tourists to visit on desert tours in Morocco. When tourists go on trips from Marrakech, they might expect something different in the desert. To get a feel for Berber life, tourists ride horses across the hills to the camp. But on the way to the camp, the camel guide stops in the middle of the dunes to watch the beautiful sunset from the top of the dunes. At the entrance to the camp, the views of the dunes and the quiet of the desert are nice things to enjoy.
Also, after dinner at the camp, the locals will play drums for the guests around a campfire while the stars shine. Also, people who visit Khamlia hamlet love the music of black people. People from the area came to Mali with their native gnaoua music and played it for tourists. The wandering family is another thing that brings people there. In contrast, tourists go to the Mifis mine in the middle of the desert to see tribal groups of people living in hand-made houses with their animals. It gives you a chance to learn about Berber traditions and the ins and outs of living in the desert, like how to take care of sheep, goats, and working horses.
An off-road car museum is another one of the strangest places to see in Merzouga. At this free attraction, there is a small group of 44 vehicles, such as Jeeps, Fords, Land Rovers, Range Rovers, Toyotas, Moroccan army vehicles, and some more unusual ones, like a one-seater car and an inflatable vehicle. The Erg Chebbi dunes on the border between Morocco and Algeria are everyone’s ideal picture of the Sahara.
Ait Benhaddou Kasbah:
Our 2-day tour from Marrakech to Fes via Merzouga takes you to see the Kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou. It is the biggest kasbah in Morocco. Also, there are a lot of kasbahs and clay houses there where many people still live in a traditional way. For most of them, tourism is their main source of income. It is also the best example of southeast architectural building style, and since 1987, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This place has been a town since 757. It was also once the trade road between Sudan and Marrakesh. Travelers still stop at this station to see this old UNESCO site in the High Atlas Mountains on their way to the desert. Also, this Kasbah was and still is a great place to make many movies. Because of this, a number of important movies were shot here. They made the dramatic movies “The Jewel of the Nile” in 1985, “The Living Daylights” in 1987, “Kundun” in 1994, “The Mummy” in 1999, and “The Mummy” again in 2000.
When you visit this old Kasbah, you can not only enjoy its beautiful building, but you can also see a place where some of your favorite movies were filmed.
Ouarzazate:
Ouarzazate was a simple meeting point for African merchants going to and from northern Morocco and Europe. The “Gateway to the Sahara” is what this city is called because it is on the other side of the high Atlas Mountains to the southeast. The Berbers and tribes who live in these parts of Morocco call this place Hamada, which means “desert scrubland.” That’s why the name “Ouarzazate” means “noiseless” in Tamazight, which describes how quiet and remote the area is. It is also known as the film city of Morocco because of its many well-known movie companies.
With its beautiful views of old mud-brick Kasbahs and landscapes, Ouarzazate, home of the ancient Kasbah of Ait Ben Haddou, was picked as the perfect place for a Hollywood movie to be filmed. It was used to shoot Game of Thrones, Gladiator, and other movies. Also, mountains and valleys with beautiful wind-shaped shapes roll by, hiding palm groves and amazing views, making it one of the best places to visit. There are also many souks, tourist shops, cooperatives, and markets in the city, making it a popular place to shop. In Ouarzazate, the world’s biggest solar power plant stands tall above the desert.
Cedar forest and Ifrane
The Cedar Forest is a forest area in the Middle Atlas Mountains, close to the city of Azrou. It used to be home to many wild animals, but most of them have disappeared. So, it’s now a tourist spot where people can see the savage apes and feed them. It’s also a picnic area where people go to unwind under the tall trees while being surrounded by apes. Feeding the apes and taking pictures with them are the most fun things to do.
Ifrane is also one of the most beautiful towns in Morocco’s Middle Atlas. The city is called Morocco’s Switzerland because many of the homes look like they were built in the Alpine style.
People come from all over the world to visit the city because of its beautiful scenery, warm weather, and parks. The Lion, which was built in the 1930s, is also one of the most photographed landmarks in Ifrane. A German soldier carved a sleeping lion during World War II. Local legend says that the statue is for the last wild Atlas lion, which was killed near Ifrane a few years before the statue was put up.
Rissani and Erfoud:
On a 2-day tour from Marrakech to Fes via Merzouga, the southeast Moroccan towns of Erfoud and Rissani are given extra attention. We go through Erfoud on our way to the desert. It is known as the fossil city and the home of dates. It is the main place where Moroccan fossils are bought and sold. It exports and distributes different kinds of decorative fossils, such as those used for tables, sinks, pools, kitchen and bath design elements, and hotel and hospitality settings. The town also has a date show every year that brings in farmers, growers, and tourists. After a camel riding trip, the two-day desert tour from Marrakech to Fes goes through Merzouga and Rissani.
One of the oldest and most original souks in Morocco can be seen by tourists. People from inside and outside the country shop for foods, crafts, and jewelry most on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
People from the area also bring goods to this market on horses and goats. Madfouna pizza is what the town is famous for, and guests can order it with mint tea at places in the area.