Merzouga & the Erg Chebbi Dunes Travel Guide

There is a moment on the drive to Merzouga that nobody forgets. For hours the road has crossed stony plains the colour of ash and rust, broken only by lines of palm trees along a riverbed and the odd mud-walled village. Then, low on the horizon, a ridge of orange appears. At first it looks like a range of hills. As you come closer it grows taller, smoother and brighter, until you realise that what you are looking at is sand: a single, enormous wave of dunes rising out of the flat desert like an island out of the sea.

That is Erg Chebbi, the most famous dune field in Morocco, and Merzouga is the village that sits at its western edge. Together they are the reason most travellers make the long journey to the far south-east of the country. Some come for one night in a desert camp, riding out on a dromedary at sunset and back at dawn. Others stay several days, walking the dunes in the cool of the morning, visiting the Gnawa musicians of Khamlia, bargaining in the old market town of Rissani and wandering among the ruins of Sijilmassa, a city that once sent caravans of gold and salt across the Sahara.

A desert with a history

It is easy to think of the desert as empty. The Tafilalet, the great oasis region of which Merzouga is the southern fringe, is anything but. For more than a thousand years this was one of the most important crossroads in North Africa. Caravans set out from here for the markets of West Africa and returned with gold, ivory and enslaved people; merchants, scholars and pilgrims passed through its walled villages; and in the seventeenth century a family from the Tafilalet rose to found the Alaouite dynasty, which still reigns in Morocco today.

Around Merzouga, that history is close to the surface. You see it in the earthen ksour (fortified villages) of the palm groves, in the music of Khamlia, whose families trace their roots to sub-Saharan Africa, and in the nomadic families who still move their tents and herds across the stony plains around the dunes. Even the rocks have a story: the black stones of the surrounding desert are packed with fossils from a time, hundreds of millions of years ago, when this was the floor of a warm sea.

The character of the place

Merzouga itself is a modest, spread-out village of low earth-coloured houses, a few small shops and cafés, a mosque, a school and a growing number of guesthouses along the edge of the sand. To its north, Hassilabied is another dune-edge village; to its south lies Khamlia. Life here moves with the sun. Mornings are busy, the hottest hours are for resting, and the late afternoon belongs to the dunes, when everyone, from camel drivers to children playing football, seems to drift towards the sand.

Tourism is now the main source of income for many families, but it sits alongside older ways of life: date palms and small gardens watered by channels, herds of goats and dromedaries, and family ties that stretch across the desert. Many of the people you will meet, as guides, drivers, cooks or camel handlers, grew up in nomadic families or in the villages nearby, and they know this landscape intimately.

Who Merzouga suits best

• First-time visitors to the Sahara who want to see classic, towering sand dunes without a multi-day expedition.
• Photographers and stargazers, drawn by the changing light on the sand and some of the darkest night skies in North Africa.
• Families with children old enough to cope with long road journeys, for whom a night under the stars is a lifelong memory.
• Travellers on a south Morocco loop linking Marrakech, Ouarzazate, the Dades and Todra gorges and Fes.
• Curious travellers interested in oasis life, trans-Saharan history, music and geology as well as scenery.

Merzouga is less suited to travellers with very little time. The journey from Marrakech or Fes takes the best part of a day each way, and a single night in the desert squeezed between two marathon drives can feel exhausting. If you can give the region three nights or more, including stops along the way, you will enjoy it far more.

How to use this book

The chapters follow the order in which most people plan a trip. We start with history, because the dunes make more sense once you know about the caravans, the oasis towns and the people who live here. Then come the practical chapters on the long journey in and on choosing where to sleep, including how to pick a desert camp responsibly. After that you will find the sights, the quieter corners, ready-made itineraries, food, customs and shopping, with a special section on fossils. The final chapters cover day trips, desert safety and practical information, useful phrases and a checklist.

Throughout the book you will find three kinds of highlighted box. Local tip boxes share the small things our team has learned on many trips to the desert. Good to know boxes explain customs or practical details. Avoid this boxes point out common mistakes, some of them dangerous. We deliberately do not print prices, opening hours, phone numbers or the names of hotels, camps or tour companies: they change too often, and we want you to choose with your own eyes using the criteria we give you.

However long you stay, give the desert a little patience. Its beauty is quiet and slow: the shadow of a ridge creeping across the sand, the first star after sunset, the sound of a drum from a distant camp, the cold, perfect stillness just before dawn.