Merzouga Desert Attractions and Activities
Almost everything worth doing here happens within about twenty kilometres of Merzouga village, and most of it is free once you have got yourself out here. The things that are not free are the camel, the camp and the 4x4, which is exactly what a tour fare covers. If you would rather start from the trips, compare every best Merzouga Desert tour in one place.
Erg Chebbi — 28 km of sand on a stone plain
The erg is the reason anybody comes. It runs roughly 28 kilometres north to south and 5–7 kilometres across, and its highest crests stand about 150 metres above the hamada — the flat, stony desert that surrounds it and runs on to the Algerian border fifty kilometres east.
What makes it unusual is that boundary. This is not the edge of a sand sea thinning out into scrub; it is an island of sand with a hard line around it, and you can stand with one foot on gravel and one on the dune. Other sources publish 22 kilometres and a 160-metre high point rather than 28 and 150. No Moroccan authority publishes a survey, because the erg is not a managed park and there is no body whose job that would be.
Who it suits: Everyone. It is the attraction.
How long: A full night is the standard unit; a half-day 4x4 run covers the edges.
Included on: Every trip listed here.
The camel trek, and how long it really is
The camels are transport, not a fairground ride. The camps sit inside the erg where no road goes, and the camel is how the operators move you across the sand to them. Expect forty-five minutes to an hour and a half each way, out at sunset and back before first light.
Several listings state one camel per person explicitly, which is worth checking if you are travelling as a pair. Reviewers who found the saddle hard say so cheerfully and would do it again; one recommends padded cycling shorts, which is better advice than it sounds.
Who it suits: Anyone who can mount and dismount with a hand from the handler.
How long: 45 minutes to 1 hour 30 each way.
Included on: Every trip here except the four-hour 4x4 excursion.
Sandboarding on the slip faces
Boards are kept at the camps and at the vehicles, and the slip face — the steep, shaded side of a dune where the sand piles at the angle of repose — is where they work. It is closer to sledging than to snowboarding, and nobody is teaching you technique.
Who it suits: Anyone who does not mind walking back up a dune.
How long: Twenty minutes to an hour, usually in the light before dinner.
Included on: Eight listings state it in their inclusions; on two more it is an optional extra.
Khamlia and the Gnawa musicians
Khamlia is seven kilometres south of Merzouga, and its musicians are descendants of people brought north across the Sahara through the slave trade. UNESCO inscribed Gnawa on its Representative List of Intangible Heritage in 2019, describing a practice that combines ancestral African, Arab-Muslim and Amazigh performance.
A session is tea, a short explanation of the guembri, the qraqeb and the drums, and half an hour or so of playing. It is a working village rather than a stage set, and the sessions are how the musicians are paid.
Who it suits: Anyone interested in why this corner of Morocco sounds different from the rest.
How long: About an hour, including the tea.
Included on: The two four-day trips and the 4x4 excursions reach it. No three-day trip does.
Dayet Srji, when there is water in it
Dayet Srji is a shallow seasonal lake a few kilometres north-west of the village. In a dry year it is a white salt pan you would drive past without noticing. After real rain — most often between November and April — it fills, and flamingos and migrating ducks arrive with the water.
Nobody can promise you the lake. Merzouga averages 63 mm of rain across an entire year, and whether Dayet Srji is a lake or a pan on the week you visit is a matter of what fell in the preceding months.
Who it suits: Birdwatchers, and anyone who likes the idea of a lake in the Sahara.
How long: Half an hour, usually as a stop rather than a destination.
Included on: The 4x4 excursions and the four-day trips, when there is water to see.
Four-wheel drive across the erg
A 4x4 goes where a camel does not: out to the far side of the dunes, past the nomad encampments, to Khamlia and the fossil beds, and up to the viewpoints on the eastern edge. It is also the answer for anyone who does not want to ride.
The short excursions run about four hours with a private driver-guide and cap at six passengers. On the longer trips a 4x4 sometimes replaces the camel in one direction, which is stated on the listing where it applies.
Who it suits: Anyone who would rather not ride, and anyone short of time.
How long: Four hours for the standalone excursion.
Included on: One standalone excursion; a stated camel alternative on one Marrakech trip.
Quad bikes and buggies
Quads run from the western edge of the erg on tracks that keep clear of the camps. They are almost never in the fare. You arrange one at the camp or in the village and pay for it separately, and it is the extra travellers most often say was worth it.
Who it suits: Anyone who wants an hour of noise in the middle of a very quiet trip.
How long: One to two hours.
Included on: Nothing here includes it. Arrange and pay for it locally.
The night sky, and why it is this good here
There is no city within 150 kilometres, the air is dry, and the camps run their generators for a few hours and then switch off. The result is the clearest sky most visitors will ever stand under, and after the camel it is the thing travellers write about most.
Take a warm layer for it. The stars are best two hours after dinner, which in January is the coldest part of an evening that started at 6 °C. The month-by-month page sets out what each month does to the temperature.
Who it suits: Everybody, and it costs nothing.
How long: As long as you can stay awake.
Included on: Every overnight trip. This is the part nobody has to sell you.
Fossils at Erfoud and the souk at Rissani
Erfoud, 55 km north, sits on Devonian marine beds and the town has cut and polished black fossil marble for a century. The workshops take visitors, and the orthoceras and goniatite slabs are genuine even where the prices are negotiable.
Rissani, 35 km away, holds one of the largest souks in southern Morocco on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is a working market rather than a tourist one, and if your trip passes on the right day it is worth the stop. Travel tips covers the cash you will want for both.
Who it suits: Anyone with an afternoon spare and an interest in what the region actually does.
How long: An hour at a workshop; two at the souk.
Included on: The four-day trips and the one-way crossings that exit via Rissani.
Which trips reach which of these?
The four-day tours get to Khamlia and the nomad camps; the three-day ones give you the dunes and the camp night. Compare them side by side.
Merzouga Desert Tours lists every departure with what its fare covers and how many hours it actually spends at the sand.