What's a good desert-focused Morocco itinerary?

When the desert is the whole reason for the trip, I don't treat it as a one-night box to tick — I build the entire route to deliver it slowly and properly. From Marrakech we cross the High Atlas over the Tizi n'Tichka, stopping at the great earthen fortress of Aït Ben Haddou and the film studios of Ouarzazate. Already the landscape is turning: palm oases, red rock, and the first feeling of vastness. I like a night in the Skoura palmeraie or near the Dades so the approach to the Sahara becomes part of the experience, not a slog.

The next day is the Route of a Thousand Kasbahs through the Dades and Todra gorges — towering canyon walls, a riverbed walk between cliffs, and Berber villages clinging to the rock. We push on to Merzouga as the dunes of Erg Chebbi rise on the horizon, which is genuinely jaw-dropping the first time you see them. I always plan to arrive with enough daylight for a sunset camel trek up into the dunes and a first night in a comfortable tented camp.

Here's where a desert-focused trip pays off: instead of leaving at dawn, we stay two nights. That second full day is pure Sahara — a 4x4 run to the Khamlia village for Gnawa music, a visit to a nomad family still living in the dunes, a stop at a dry lake bed and the old mining settlements, and time to simply sit on a high dune and watch the light change. A single night never lets the desert sink in; two nights is when the silence and scale finally land.

We return westward via a different line where possible — through the Draa valley's endless palm groves toward Zagora, or back over the Atlas with fresh stops — so you're not retracing the exact same road. Across seven or eight days the desert isn't a detour bolted onto a city break; it's the spine of the trip, approached with anticipation and left with reluctance. For travellers who came to Morocco for the Sahara, that makes all the difference.