How long does it take to travel from Fes to the Sahara (Merzouga)?

Fes is the other great launch point for the Sahara, and many travellers actually prefer approaching the dunes from here rather than Marrakech. Fes to Merzouga is around 470 kilometres and roughly 7 to 8 hours of driving — and like the Marrakech route, it is almost always broken across two days, because the scenery and the altitude changes deserve more than a single marathon sitting.

The drive is wonderful and very different from the Marrakech–Sahara road. You climb south out of Fes into the Middle Atlas, through the cedar forests around Ifrane and Azrou — where Barbary macaques gather by the roadside and the alpine, Swiss-chalet look of Ifrane surprises everyone — then over high plateaus to Midelt, the traditional halfway overnight stop. Day two takes you down through the Ziz Valley's spectacular palm gorge and date-palm oases to Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes, arriving in time for the sunset camel trek.

There is no train to Merzouga and no useful airport, so it is road the whole way. The split most operators use is Fes to Midelt or Erfoud on day one (around 4–5 hours with stops in the cedar forests), then on to Merzouga on day two (another 2.5–3 hours). A private driver is the standard luxury arrangement; the Supratours bus does run Fes toward the desert but, as with Marrakech, you sacrifice all the scenic stops that make this drive special.

My favourite way to use this route is as half of a grand loop: into the Sahara from Marrakech over the Tizi n'Tichka and the Dades/Todra gorges, a night in the dunes, then out northward to Fes via the Ziz Valley and the cedar forests — so you never double back and you see two completely different mountain landscapes. Whichever direction you travel it, give the desert at least one night in the middle and treat the Fes–Merzouga leg as the scenic two-day journey it deserves to be.