What is the Draa Valley like (deeper, as a region)?

The Draa is more than a road — it is a whole region defined by one river. Born from the snowmelt of the High Atlas, the Oued Draa runs south, then bends west toward the Atlantic, and along its upper course it threads the longest continuous palm grove in Morocco. Coming over the pass from Ouarzazate and dropping into Agdz, you suddenly find yourself driving beside an unbroken corridor of date palms with bare ochre mountains pressing in on either side — green and stone, oasis and desert, in constant dialogue. For nearly a hundred kilometres it barely lets up.

Life here still turns on the date harvest. In autumn the palmeries are heavy with fruit, families are up in the fronds, and the markets fill with sticky mounds of dozens of varieties. The valley is studded with ksour — fortified mud-brick villages — and grand old kasbahs, many half-melting back into the earth they were built from. Tamnougalt near Agdz is the standout: a restored Jewish-Berber fortified village with a labyrinth of passages and a small museum, and there are mellahs (former Jewish quarters) all down the valley, a reminder that this was a cosmopolitan trade artery for centuries.

Zagora is the valley's frontier town — not a beauty, but the place where the famous "Timbuktu 52 days" caravan signpost stands, marking where the trans-Saharan trade once set out. Beyond it the green thins and the road runs on to M'hamid, the last village, where the asphalt finally gives out at the edge of the real Sahara. From there it is 4x4 country out to the wild, empty dunes of Erg Chigaga — far less visited than Merzouga's Erg Chebbi and, for purists, the more authentic desert experience.

I send people down the Draa when they want oasis life and caravan history more than a single famous dune. It is quieter than the eastern Merzouga route, the kasbahs are easier to wander freely, and the sense of a living, working valley is strong. My honest caveat: the dunes immediately around Zagora are modest, so if towering sand is your priority, continue to M'hamid and Erg Chigaga, or pair the Draa with Merzouga on a loop. As a region to drink in slowly, the Draa is one of the south's great rewards.