What is the Marrakech to Sahara via Ait Ben Haddou route like?

When people picture the road to the Moroccan Sahara, this is the one — and Ait Ben Haddou is its postcard. The route leaves Marrakech and climbs the Tizi n'Tichka pass over the High Atlas, about four hours of switchbacks and mountain views, before descending into the pre-Saharan south. Just off the main road, roughly half an hour before Ouarzazate, sits the great fortified ksar, and I always time our arrival for the warm afternoon light.

Ait Ben Haddou stops everyone in their tracks. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a hillside city of interlocking earthen kasbahs and crenellated towers rising straight out of the riverbed, and you have almost certainly seen it on screen — Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, Game of Thrones and dozens more filmed here. We cross the river and climb up through its lanes to the agadir granary at the top, where the view back over the palmeraie and the snow-dusted Atlas is one of the best in the country.

From Ait Ben Haddou it is a short hop to Ouarzazate, the "Hollywood of Africa" with its film studios and the imposing Taourirt kasbah, where I usually overnight to break the journey. The next day follows the kasbah road and the gorges — Skoura's palms, the Dades switchbacks, the soaring walls of Todra — before the long, hypnotic run east through Erfoud and Rissani to the dunes.

The payoff is Merzouga and the great erg of Chebbi, where we trade the car for camels and ride into the sand for a night in a desert camp. Total distance from Marrakech is around 560 kilometres, and I always do it over a minimum of two driving days, ideally three, so that Ait Ben Haddou gets the time it deserves rather than a rushed photo stop. It is, quite simply, the definitive Marrakech-to-Sahara journey.