Merzouga Desert Tour: Your Guide to the Erg Chebbi Desert in Morocco

What You Need to Know About the Erg Chebbi Desert near Merzouga

150-meter-high dunes, sand as far as the eye can see, long camel caravans, traditional and luxury desert camps, and you right in the middle of it all. That’s the Erg Chebbi — a sand dune landscape in Morocco unlike anything else.

People also just call it the Erg Chebbi Desert. This is where you’ll find the largest sand dunes in Morocco, which is why it’s also the most popular desert destination in the country among travelers.

Just before the desert lies the desert town of Merzouga — the starting point for almost all desert tours into the Erg Chebbi. Merzouga has a really solid tourist infrastructure and you can get there super easily by car.

From there, you’re about an hour away by camel or about 20 minutes by 4×4 from being right in the middle of the sand dunes — seriously cool!

There are actually three deserts where you can do your desert tour in Morocco. Besides the Erg Chebbi, there’s also the less touristy Erg Chegaga Desert and the small rocky desert of Agafay near Marrakech.

For your very first Merzouga desert tour, we definitely recommend the Erg Chebbi — here you get a real desert experience and the prices for tours are truly unbeatable.

The Erg Chegaga Desert is less touristy and the journey there is longer and more adventurous. Great if you’ve already been to the Erg Chebbi. However, the desert tours are significantly more expensive.

The Agafay Desert is only 40 minutes from Marrakech by car, but there’s no real sand desert here. Still great for a short day trip from Marrakech.

The Erg Chebbi Desert on a Map

The Erg Chebbi Desert is located in the far east of Morocco and borders directly on Algeria. From Marrakech, it’s about 550 kilometers away.

To help you get your bearings, we’ve marked the Erg Chebbi on a map. From Marrakech, you’ll need about nine to eleven hours to get there.

But don’t panic — with a well-planned road trip or a guided tour, the distance doesn’t feel quite as far as it looks on the map.

What Does Desert Tour Mean?

A desert tour is simply a big excursion into the desert. But with the journey there and the activities on-site, the one to two nights that most travelers spend in the Erg Chebbi usually feel like a complete trip in themselves.

After all, the journey from Merzouga into the desert and the activities at the desert camps are very similar for most visitors.

Getting there means riding on the back of a camel or going by jeep with a driver. We strongly advise against driving to your desert camp in a rental car.

At the camps, things also follow a similar pattern. Of course, you can decide for yourself what you want to do. Here are some cool activities to consider:

• Camel riding
• ATV/quad biking
• Sandboarding
• Watching the sunset and sunrise
• Stargazing
• Making music together with locals
• Desert tour with a nomad visit, visit to a palm grove, etc.

A Merzouga desert tour doesn’t necessarily have to be a guided trip with a guide. You can also plan each step really well on your own. We’ll now tell you exactly how both options work.

Merzouga Desert Tour: On Your Own or With a Guide?

Whether you do your Merzouga desert tour independently or book a guided tour depends entirely on what else you have planned for your Morocco vacation.

If you’re planning a road trip through Morocco, especially in the south, then you can plan your Erg Chebbi desert tour really well on your own.

However, if you’re only doing a city trip to Marrakech and want to experience a real desert, then we recommend booking a guided tour. That way you also won’t need a rental car. The same applies if you’re doing a city trip to Fès.

What Your Guided Merzouga Desert Tour Looks Like

Let’s start with the guided option. If you only have a few days for sightseeing in Marrakech or Fès, don’t have a ton of time, but still want to visit the Erg Chebbi Desert, we recommend booking a desert tour online.

Most guided Merzouga desert tours start in Marrakech. For that, you’ll definitely need to plan three full days.

What to expect on a guided Merzouga desert tour from Marrakech:

• Round-trip transportation to and from Marrakech
• One overnight stay on the way to the desert
• One overnight stay in the Erg Chebbi Desert at a desert camp
• Camel ride and/or jeep ride into the desert
• Dinner and breakfast included
• Stops at two to three other Morocco highlights along the way

You’ll set off early in the morning from your riad in Marrakech, heading straight toward the Atlas Mountains. The first destination is one of our absolute highlights in Morocco: the Ksar in Aït-Ben-Haddou, a so-called fortified city.

Aït-Ben-Haddou is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and famous for its ancient Ksar, which has already served as a film set for shows like Game of Thrones, Gladiator, and Lawrence of Arabia — seriously cool!

After lunch, you’ll head to the Dadès Valley, where you’ll spend your first night. The next morning, you’ll drive to the Todra Gorge, another top attraction in Morocco.

Around midday, you’ll finally head toward the desert, arriving in the afternoon. To get deeper into the dunes, you’ll go either by camel or by jeep. Once you arrive at your desert camp, you’ll be welcomed with a delicious mint tea.

Before or after checking in, your guide will take you to one of the dunes where you can watch the sunset — a truly unforgettable experience!

Then comes dinner at the camp — usually a tagine as the main course, for us the best food in Morocco. In the evening, you can sit by the campfire while the staff play traditional music — really special!

The next morning, get up early to watch the sunrise among the sand dunes. After breakfast, it’s a direct drive back to Marrakech.

Be prepared for the return trip to be quite long. Sometimes on the guided tour you’ll also stop at one or two Berber villages with market stalls.

Friends of ours have done exactly this kind of guided Merzouga desert tour and were truly thrilled. The tour usually costs around 100 euros — an unbeatable price. Totally worth it!

3-day desert tour from Marrakech to Merzouga
Note: When booking, you can choose between a standard camp and a luxury camp. The luxury camp is more expensive, but you’ll have your own bathroom and a more stylish setup.

Even if you’re doing a city trip to Fès, you can still do a guided Merzouga desert tour. For the tour from Fès, you’ll need two full days, since the drive isn’t quite as long. You’ll also be picked up from your riad in Fès.

From Fès to Merzouga takes about seven hours, and along the way you’ll make two to three stops at beautiful spots. You won’t be visiting Aït-Ben-Haddou and the Todra Gorge on this route, of course.

2-day desert tour from Fès to Merzouga

What Your Merzouga Desert Tour on Your Own Looks Like

If you’re doing a road trip through Morocco or want to stay in the Erg Chebbi Desert for more than one night, we recommend planning your Merzouga desert tour independently. It’s really super easy!

The most important things to take care of in advance:

• Book a desert camp in the Erg Chebbi Desert
• Through the booked camp, arrange a transfer by 4×4 or camel from Merzouga to the camp
• Have a rental car
• Plan at least one night in the desert
• If needed, plan a night in Merzouga before and/or after the tour

Before your trip into the desert, you should book a desert camp in the Erg Chebbi. We chose the Authentic Luxury Camp for one night and felt really great there.

After booking, we were able to arrange a transfer from Merzouga to the camp directly through the camp. Almost all camps offer this, but it costs extra. You have the choice between a camel and a jeep. For us, the round-trip cost 60 euros per person.

So when planning your own Sahara desert tour near Merzouga, Merzouga is your starting point. The drive there in a rental car was super easy for us, as the roads are in pretty good condition.

Read our tips on driving in Morocco here

Once we arrived in Merzouga, we drove straight to the camp’s free parking lot. Our desert adventure then really got started in the afternoon.

For the trip in, we chose a camel ride. That was by far one of the best experiences on all of our travels. And we felt that the animals were genuinely well cared for.

In a small caravan, we rode over the sand and through the dunes until there was nothing but desert around us. Simply incredible!

After about an hour, we stopped at a large dune where many other tourists like us were already sitting. From up there, we watched the breathtaking sunset.

After that, we checked into our tent and were served a really delicious three-course dinner. There was harira soup, chicken tagine, and caramel crème — so good!

After dinner, we walked out on our own to a small dune to do some stargazing. In the distance, we could see a campfire at our camp — the staff were playing traditional music. Of course we went and joined them.

The next morning, we set an early alarm to watch the sunrise in the Erg Chebbi Desert. Even though it was a bit cloudy, it was truly magical. We also grabbed a few sandboards.

After breakfast, most people headed back to Merzouga on camelback or by jeep. But we did a one-hour quad bike tour first.

That ride was by far one of the coolest activities in Morocco for us. It cost 70 euros for two people and we booked it the evening before at the camp. Prices like that are pretty normal in Morocco these days.

On the quads, we zoomed back and forth across the sand dunes. With our guide, we were simply the only people out there. That was honestly one of the most incredible moments of the whole trip — highly recommended. Afterward, we headed back to Merzouga by jeep.

When you plan your Merzouga desert tour independently, you can usually decide for yourself when you want to head back. Since we weren’t tied to a fixed itinerary, we had time for the quad tour.

On the way there and back, you can also make great stops at Aït-Ben-Haddou, the Todra Gorge, the Dadès Gorge, and Setti Fatma.

The Coolest Merzouga Desert Camps

When planning your own desert tour, you get to choose your own camp in the Erg Chebbi. You have the choice between a more affordable standard camp or a luxury camp.

The tents at standard camps are furnished more simply — most of the time there’s no heating and only shared bathrooms. Luxury camps are styled more elegantly and always come with a private bathroom.

When booking, make sure to check whether breakfast and dinner are included. Otherwise you’ll have to pay for them separately on-site. There are no restaurants outside the camp.

The Authentic Luxury Camp is our absolute top pick. This is where we stayed. The tents are super spacious and decorated in a truly authentic and cozy style. The evening tagine was delicious and the staff were really great.

A more affordable but still lovely option is the Sahara Wellness Camp. The tents are simple but super cozy. The shared bathrooms are clean and you can add a delicious dinner. Excellent value for the money.

Our desert camp recommendations:

The Best Accommodations in Merzouga

As mentioned above, you don’t necessarily have to spend the night in Merzouga before or after your desert tour. You can easily make it by rental car all the way to the Atlas Mountains.

But if you have the time and want to travel at a more relaxed pace, staying in Merzouga is a great option and lets you soak up the desert atmosphere a little longer. Merzouga has a large and lovely selection of places to stay.

Our accommodation recommendations:

Is a Desert Tour Dangerous?

Generally speaking, a Merzouga desert tour into the Erg Chebbi is not dangerous and you shouldn’t worry too much about your safety in Morocco. That said, to keep it that way, you should prepare well and follow a few basic rules.

Weather and temperatures in the desert

One of the biggest hazards in the desert is the weather. The temperatures are highly variable. During the day it can get really hot, especially in summer. At night, however, it can get quite cold — especially in winter.

What that means for you: pack sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat, a neck scarf, and long, breathable clothing for daytime — especially when you’re riding a camel in the blazing sun. For the night, you’ll need a sweater, socks, long pajamas, and — depending on the camp — ideally a beanie as well.

A second hazard is desert sand and sandstorms. Even in light wind, sand can blow into your face and end up in your mouth or eyes. Always protect both very well.

Real sandstorms are more serious. They can get so bad that you can sink completely into loosely piled desert sand.

Don’t panic just yet, though — that truly is the worst-case scenario. If conditions are really too bad, no camel guide or jeep driver will take you into the Erg Chebbi Desert.

Since none of us can predict desert weather, we’ll say it one more time: we strongly recommend not driving to your desert camp on your own in a rental car.

Camels and wild animals in the desert

The camels in the Erg Chebbi Desert are very used to people, which is why riding them through the desert should be pretty safe. Always listen to your guide and try not to touch the camels without asking first.

There can also be wild animals in the desert, such as scorpions, lizards, snakes, insects, arachnids, or even wild camels. Your best bet is to steer clear of them and, if in doubt, talk to a guide or camp staff member.

On our Merzouga desert tour, we didn’t encounter any of the animals mentioned above. But on trips to places like Malaysia, we’ve seen wild scorpions, and in Colombia we’ve encountered snakes — and we know that they generally don’t directly attack people.

Illness and injury in the Erg Chebbi Desert

If an animal does bite you, let a guide or a staff member at your desert camp know right away. Chances are they grew up in the desert and know exactly what to do.

Also keep in mind that the Erg Chebbi Desert is only about 20 minutes by jeep from Merzouga.

Gastrointestinal illness is an additional risk, though honestly you can pick that up anywhere in the world. Following a few simple rules can significantly reduce your chances of getting sick.

Don’t drink tap water. Only drink water from sealed plastic bottles bought at a supermarket.

Use drinking water for brushing your teeth too.

Wash your hands before eating.

Only eat salad or raw foods if you feel good about the hygiene standards. When in doubt, skip it.

Before your trip, you can also get an oral vaccine against gastrointestinal illness and cholera. It’s best to discuss this with your doctor first.
Venturing out alone in the desert

If you want to stay safe, you should not explore the really tall sand dunes on your own. That’s also why a guide accompanies you on the quad tour rather than letting you ride around alone.

When you go out to stargaze or watch the sunrise, we recommend always staying close to the camp and not wandering too far on your own. And of course, don’t drive into the desert alone.

Packing List for Your Merzouga Desert Tour

The weather and temperatures in the Moroccan desert are often quite different from the rest of the country. Here’s a packing list for your desert tour into the Erg Chebbi Desert.

These are all things you’ll need in addition to your standard items for your Morocco trip.

• An extra daypack to pack your clothes for one to two nights in the desert. You often can’t bring your large suitcase into the desert camp — you’ll leave it at the base camp.
• A head covering: cap, hat, or scarf.
• Sunglasses
• A neck scarf to protect against wind and sand on your Sahara desert tour
• A thick sweater or fleece jacket
• Long, comfortable pants for camel riding
• Comfortable, sturdy sandals — sand gets into sneakers and never comes out
• Long pajamas, in case it gets cold at night in the desert camp
• Thick socks
• Beanie and gloves in winter
• A rain jacket, just in case
• Sunscreen
• A small towel and/or wet wipes
• Toilet paper and/or tissues if you’re staying at a basic camp
• A power bank
• A camera and/or phone — keep it protected from sand!
• A flashlight or headlamp
• Motion sickness tablets, in case the camel ride or car ride gets too bumpy
• Enough water or a bottle to refill (depending on whether it’s included in the tour)
• A plastic bag for trash

Frequently Asked Questions About the Merzouga Desert Tour in Morocco