This private 5-day tour from Fes to Marrakech is the complete crossing of southern Morocco Atlas mountains, valleys, kasbahs and a proper stretch of the Sahara Desert. Two nights near the Erg Chebbi dunes of Merzouga give you time for a sunset camel trek, a full desert day, and a real feel for nomad life before you continue west to Marrakech.
Along the way you’ll walk the Todra and Dades gorges, drive the fragrant Valley of Roses, explore UNESCO-listed Ait Ben Haddou and the film city of Ouarzazate. It’s fully private, unhurried and easy to tailor to your interests and budget.
Around 8:30 am your driver collects you in Fes and sets off for the Sahara. You’ll cross the Middle Atlas with frequent stops — the mountain town of Ifrane, the Azrou cedar forest and its monkeys, Midelt for lunch, and the sweeping palm panorama of the Ziz Valley.
By late afternoon the golden Erg Chebbi dunes appear on the horizon. You’ll ride a camel over the sand to a high dune for sunset, then settle into a comfortable hotel or camp along the dune line for dinner and your first desert night.
Today is devoted to the desert around Erg Chebbi. On a 4×4 tour you’ll see how nomads live and how the light transforms the dunes hour by hour.
You’ll hear the Gnawa musicians of the “black village” of Khamlia, share a classic Berber pizza in historic Rissani, and watch the afternoon sun sink over the sand before a camel ride back to camp. Dinner is a traditional tagine with mint tea and Berber music under a sky thick with stars — a night to remember.
Wake for a final desert sunrise — shadows and colours stretching across Morocco’s highest dunes — before breakfast and the drive on to Tinghir and the breathtaking Todra Gorge, one of the country’s tallest and narrowest canyons, perfect for a riverside walk.
After lunch in the gorge you’ll travel through the Dades Valley, ending the day at a hotel set high above its dramatic rock formations. Dinner and overnight in the Dades.
Following breakfast you’ll set off along the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, past magnificent old fortified homes. An off-road stretch climbs into Berber villages where a few families still live in caves — a chance to glimpse daily life tending goats and sheep.
The colourful Valley of Roses leaves a lasting impression before you reach the Skoura palm grove and, 45 km on, the film city of Ouarzazate, where you’ll have dinner and spend the night.
After breakfast you’ll visit Taourirt Kasbah, then the UNESCO World Heritage ksar of Ait Ben Haddou, with an optional stop at the classic High Atlas Berber village of Telouet and its Glaoui kasbah.
A lunch stop in the mountains breaks the drive before you climb the Tizi n’Tichka pass and descend to Marrakech, where your 5-day tour from Fes comes to an end at your accommodation.
Note:
Please If the itineraries we offer do not meet your needs, contact us. and tell us about your ideas, and one of our experts will contact you to help you create a one-of-a-kind trip…
Five days is the ideal length to link Fes and Marrakech through the desert: enough time for two Sahara nights, the great gorges and the Valley of Roses without long, tiring single-day drives.
You’ll travel privately at your own pace, with a driver-guide who shapes each day around you — the perfect way to see the sights, sounds and silence of southern Morocco between its two most famous cities.
