What is the best month to visit Ouarzazate?

For Ouarzazate I give a clear answer: October and April are the best individual months, sitting inside a broader ideal window that runs October to April. Both peak months hand you warm, dry, gloriously sunny days of 26–30°C, cool comfortable nights, that famous luminous desert light on the kasbahs, and the southern valleys at their greenest. For a high pre-Sahara town that roasts in summer and turns cold-nighted in deep winter, these shoulder months are the unambiguous sweet spot.

April is the spring pick, and I love it for the contrast it offers: warm days, the Draa and Dades valleys lush and green after the winter rains, almond blossom early in the season, and the High Atlas behind the town often still snow-capped — that white-peak-over-ochre-kasbah image at its very best. The desert beyond, toward Merzouga and Zagora, is equally kind in April, so it's the ideal month to build a whole southern loop rather than just a stop.

October is the autumn pick and arguably my favourite of all. The summer heat has broken into beautiful 26–29°C days, the skies are reliably clear, and you arrive at the date harvest, when the palmeries are heavy and the oases abundant. The light is superb for Ait Ben Haddou and the studios, the crowds have thinned from the spring peak, and the night-time cold hasn't yet bitten hard. For weather, scenery and atmosphere together, mid-October is hard to beat in Ouarzazate.

What I steer people firmly away from is high summer. June, July and August routinely deliver 36–40°C and beyond, turning the shadeless kasbahs and the wider desert into a real endurance test that confines you to dawn, dusk and a shaded retreat in between. The depths of winter (December–January) are pleasant by day but genuinely cold at night — fine if you pack for it, but the shoulder months are simply more comfortable. So: aim for October or April, with the wider October-to-April band as your safe zone, and treat summer as a last resort.