Marrakech: 2-Day Sahara & Ait-Benhaddou with Camel & Camp

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Free cancellation

1/13

Duration2d

GroupUp to 15

LanguagesEN · FR +1

PickupAt your hotel

Two Days in the Sahara: Camel Rides & a Night Under the Dunes

You get picked up from your hotel, driven to a UNESCO fortress and a desert town, ride camels at sunset and sunrise, sleep in a Berber camp, and return to Marrakech the next evening. The whole thing — transport, meals, camel rides, and accommodation — is arranged for you, so you're not figuring out logistics in a place where the roads change every few kilometers.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Marrakech to Zagora via Kasbah and Ouarzazate

Breakfast at hotel
Pickup from accommodation at 7:00am
Depart Marrakech at 7:30am
Travel over Atlas Mountains
Visit Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou
Continue to Ouarzazate for lunch
Visit Studio Cinema if possible
Travel along Draa Valley to Zagora
Meet camels for desert trek
1.5-hour camel ride to desert camp
Dinner at Berber camp

Day 2 — Zagora sunrise camel ride and return

Berber breakfast before sunrise
1.5-hour camel ride at sunrise
Return camel ride to Zagora
Shower and prepare for departure
Travel through Draa Valley and Atlas Mountains
Stops for photos and lunch
Return to Marrakech by early evening

The Experience

You don't expect the Atlas Mountains to feel so close when you're driving through them at 7:30 in the morning. The minibus picks you up from your Marrakech hotel, and within an hour the city is gone — replaced by switchbacks, valleys that drop away on both sides, and the kind of quiet that makes you realize how much noise you've been living in. The drive to Ait-Benhaddou takes about three hours total, and somewhere in the middle of it you stop at the Kasbah itself, the UNESCO fortress that's been used as a film set so many times it feels familiar even though you've never been there. You get free time to walk through it, which means you can move at your own pace instead of being herded through with a group.

After lunch in Ouarzazate — a real town, not a tourist stop, where the local cafés serve whatever's ready that day — the minibus heads south into the Drâa Valley. This is where the landscape starts to change. The valley is lined with kasbahs and ksour, old fortified villages that sit in the green strip where water still flows. Then the green stops. You reach Zagora in the late afternoon, and that's when the actual Sahara begins. A 1.5-hour camel trek takes you into the dunes to the Berber camp, and if you've never ridden a camel before, your legs will remind you of it the next morning. The sunset from the back of the camel is the thing people mean when they say "desert sunset" — the light goes orange, then red, then the sand cools down and everything turns quiet. Dinner at the camp is local food, eaten with other travelers or alone depending on the group that day.

You sleep in a tent at the camp, which sounds rougher than it is. The Berber hosts know what they're doing. Morning comes early — a traditional Berber breakfast before sunrise, then another 1.5-hour camel ride to watch the sun come up from the dunes. After that, you shower in Zagora and board the minibus for the return journey through the Drâa Valley and back over the Atlas Mountains. There are stops for photos and lunch along the way. You're back in Marrakech between 5 and 6 in the evening, which means you still have time to eat dinner somewhere that isn't a tent.

What’s included

Your two days include hotel pickup and drop-off, air-conditioned minibus transport over the Atlas Mountains, entry to the Kasbah Ait-Benhaddou, a stop in Ouarzazate, two camel rides (one at sunset, one at sunrise), overnight accommodation in a private Berber camp in the Zagora dunes with shower facilities, a local dinner, and a traditional Berber breakfast.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearby

Operated by Morocco Daily Trip

Is this one for you?This works well if you want to see the Sahara and a UNESCO fortress without arranging separate transport, guides, and camp bookings — the fixed itinerary and included meals mean you're not negotiating details in a new place.