Agadir to Merzouga 4 Days Desert Tour: 3 Nights Through the Draa Valley

Please be at your hotel by 8:15 for an 8:30 departure. First stop is Taroudant, the "little Marrakech", where you can walk along the ramparts and through the old market. From there the road climbs east through Taliouine, saffron country, and Taznakht, where cooperatives sell Berber rugs. After a lunch stop on the road you walk through the UNESCO kasbah of Aït Benhaddou with a local guide, then visit the Ouarzazate film studios, where scenes from Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven and Game of Thrones were filmed. The night is in a guest-house overlooking the town.

After breakfast we head east. A stop in Skoura lets you wander the palm grove and the restored Kasbah Amridil, and then the road of a thousand kasbahs winds on to the Valley of Roses, where local cooperatives make rose water and perfumes. Lunch is at the Todgha Gorges, with time to explore the canyon on foot. In the late afternoon you reach Merzouga, where a camel takes you up toward the top of the Erg Chebbi dunes (about 250 m) for the sunset. At camp there's mint tea and Moroccan biscuits, then dinner under the stars, Berber singing and drumming around the fire, and a night in a private luxury tent among the dunes.

Climb the dunes early for sunrise, when the sand turns gold and the shadows are long. After breakfast the road leaves the dunes through Rissani, Alnif and Tazzarine to N'Qob, where you stop for lunch. In the afternoon you reach Tansikht and take the old caravan road through the Draa Valley, with views of green oases and fortified kasbahs standing among the palm trees. Dinner and the night are in a riad in Agdez.

After breakfast we drive to Taznakht for a last look at the rug workshops, then cross the Tizi n'Ikhsane and Tizi n'Tighatine passes. Lunch is in Taliouine, in the heart of Morocco's saffron country. In the afternoon we stop in Taroudant to walk the medina and the big walls, then make the final stretch to Agadir, arriving around 7pm.