How do I plan around a desert trip's long drives?

The first thing to make peace with is that the deep Sahara is genuinely far. From Marrakech to the great dunes at Merzouga is a full, long day of driving over the High Atlas, and the same coming back — there is no shortcut, and any tour selling you Merzouga as an overnight sprint is selling you two exhausting days in a vehicle. So I plan the desert as a journey in its own right, ideally three days and two nights, where the driving is part of the experience rather than dead time to be endured.

The trick that transforms those drives is breaking them with stops that are destinations in themselves. The route south is studded with them: Ait Ben Haddou's film-famous earthen kasbah, the dramatic Todra and Dades gorges, the rose valley, the Skoura palm groves, fossil workshops and Berber villages. I build the itinerary so the car stops every couple of hours for something genuinely worth seeing, which turns a daunting transfer into a string of small adventures. Done this way, the journey to the dunes becomes many people's favourite part of the whole trip.

Pacing around the desert is where plans go wrong. The cardinal rule is never to follow a long desert driving day with another long transfer — your body and patience need a recovery day. So after you return from the dunes to Marrakech, I leave the next day gentle: a slow morning, the medina on foot, no early start. If your itinerary then continues to Fes or the coast, put a buffer day in between rather than chaining the big drives. Two long days back to back is the fastest way to arrive somewhere beautiful too tired to enjoy it.

If your total trip is short, choose your dunes to suit the time you have. Zagora and the Draa valley are a meaningfully shorter drive from Marrakech than Merzouga — reachable as a tighter two-day round trip — and while the dunes are smaller, the desert experience, the camp and the stars are still wonderful. Reserve Merzouga's towering ergs for when you can give the journey three days. And if driving really isn't for you, there are short internal flights and the option of a private driver who handles every kilometre while you watch Morocco unfold through the window. Match the route to your days and the long drives stop being a problem and start being the point.