Merzouga Desert Travel Tips
Six things travellers on this road get wrong, and none of them is a reason not to come. All six are cheap to fix once somebody tells you, which is what this page is for. Compare every Merzouga desert tour from Marrakech once you have the practical side sorted.
Pack for two climates in one day
The gap between afternoon and night is the thing nobody plans for. A January afternoon reaches about 19 °C and the night that follows it falls to around 6 °C. In July the day peaks near 43 °C and the night still sits at 29 °C.
| What to bring | Why |
|---|---|
| A proper warm layer | Every month. The camps have blankets, not heating, unless you booked a tier that states otherwise. |
| A scarf or chèche | Wind, sand and sun in one item. Sold everywhere in Merzouga and Rissani for very little. |
| Closed shoes you do not mind filling | Sand gets into everything. Sandals are worse, not better, on a dune. |
| Sunblock and sunglasses | There is no shade anywhere in the erg and the sand reflects. |
| A head torch | Camps switch the power off overnight and the tents are spread out. |
| A power bank | More useful than an adapter. Charge everything at dinner. |
Cash: what you need it for and where the last ATM is
Almost every fare on this road excludes lunches, drinks, tips and the guide at Ait Ben Haddou. That is four separate cash payments across a three-day trip, and there is no card machine in the dunes.
Draw what you need in your departure city or at Rissani, 35 km short of the village. A roadside set lunch runs roughly 110–130 dirhams, the Ait Ben Haddou guide two euros a head, and a customary tip 100–200 dirhams for a driver-guide over three days plus 20–50 for the camel handler. Visiting the Merzouga Desert breaks the whole fare down.
The camp you booked and the camp you get
Tent tiers are not standardised between operators. Standard, deluxe and luxury mean roughly the same ladder everywhere — shared washblock, private bathroom, private bathroom plus better furniture — but what any given camp puts under the word varies, and this is the single most common complaint on this road.
In the March-to-May and October peaks operators also move bookings between camps of the same tier. If a specific camp matters to you, say so when you book.
Sand, cameras and phones
Fine sand is the real nuisance out here and it is worse on windy days in spring. Keep a camera in a bag with a zip rather than a strap, change lenses inside the tent if at all, and put a phone in a pocket rather than a hand on the camel.
Signal reaches most camps on the western edge of the erg and thins going deeper in. Camps run on generators or solar and switch off overnight, so treat dinner as your charging window.
Water, food and the long driving days
Buy water in the departure city. Bottled water is excluded on almost every long trip and the roadside stops price it accordingly. Two litres a person a day is the sensible figure in winter and more in summer.
The driving is the part most people underestimate: seven or eight hours on day one from Marrakech and a single long push back on day three. Stops come roughly every two hours. If travel sickness is a problem for you, the switchbacks on Tizi n’Tichka are where it will show up.
What to bring for a night with no walls
A camp is a fixed tent with a bed, bedding and, at the upper tiers, a bathroom. What it does not have is a shop, a bar, a plug that works at three in the morning, or a light between your tent and the next one.
- Earplugs if the drumming round the fire is not your idea of a lullaby.
- A small daypack — you take one bag on the camel and leave the rest in the vehicle, and the handover is not always explained clearly.
- Wet wipes for the standard tiers, where the washblock is a walk away.
- Something to read by torchlight, because the evening between dinner and sleep is longer than you expect and there is nothing else in it.
Merzouga Desert Tours sets out what each trip covers so you know which of these you actually need to carry.