Is a spring or autumn desert trip better?

For a trip built specifically around the Sahara, spring and autumn are the two windows I steer almost everyone toward, because they dodge the brutal summer heat and the genuinely cold winter nights. So the good news first: you've already picked a good season either way. The differences between them are real but fine, and they show up as much on the drive to the dunes as in the desert itself.

Spring, roughly March into April, is the prettier approach. The winter rains leave the valleys you cross — the Draa, the Dades, the rose country around Kelaa M'Gouna — green and flowering, the Atlas peaks you climb over often still wear snow, and the whole journey south feels lush and photogenic. The desert nights are pleasantly cool rather than cold. The honest trade-off is wind: spring is when sandstorms and hazy days are most likely, so you may occasionally lose a clear horizon or a crisp sunset to blowing sand.

Autumn, around October into November, is what I'd call the desert connoisseur's season. The fierce summer heat has broken, the air tends to be at its most settled and clear, and the nights cool to that perfect sleeping temperature without dropping toward freezing. Stargazing is reliably superb because the skies are so stable. The landscape on the way down is drier and more golden than spring's green — less floral, but with a stark, classic desert beauty that many people actually prefer for a Sahara trip.

So I'd split it like this: if the scenery of the journey matters as much as the dunes — the green valleys, the roses, the snowy passes — lean spring, and simply keep your plans a touch flexible around the odd windy day. If your priority is the most dependable desert conditions, the clearest stargazing, and the steadiest comfortable nights, lean autumn. For the dunes alone, autumn has a slight edge; for the whole experience of getting there, spring is gorgeous. There's no wrong choice — only which half of the trip you most want to favour.