What is the Draa Valley / palm groves?

The Draa Valley is one of my favourite stretches of road in all of Morocco, and it's the classic southern route from Ouarzazate down toward the desert at Zagora and M'hamid. The Draa is Morocco's longest river, and for a long, winding section it nourishes an almost continuous belt of date-palm oases — a vivid green ribbon of palmeraie threading through stark, rust-coloured desert mountains. The contrast is extraordinary: bone-dry, rocky hills on either side, and between them this lush, shaded world of palms, fruit trees, little irrigated plots and ancient earthen villages.

What makes the drive so special is the density of kasbahs and ksour — fortified mud-brick villages and granaries the colour of the earth they're built from — dotted all along the valley. You pass through palmeraies where farmers still tend date palms, pomegranates, almonds and vegetables using centuries-old irrigation channels (khettara and seguia) fed by the river. Stop the car, walk a little way into a palm grove, and you step into deep shade, birdsong and a coolness that feels miraculous after the open desert. It's working agricultural land, not a show — which is exactly why it's so moving.

The valley is the natural overland gateway to the Sahara. Most desert trips toward Zagora and the Erg Chigaga dunes run down the Draa, so you experience the landscape gradually shifting — from the kasbahs and palms of the upper valley, past the date-palm capital around Zagora (famous for its "52 days to Timbuktu by camel" sign), to the point where the palms thin and the true desert begins. The date harvest in autumn is a particularly lovely time, with markets piled high with fresh dates of dozens of varieties.

Practically, the Draa is best enjoyed slowly. The road is good but winding in places, and the joy is in stopping — for photos at a kasbah viewpoint, for mint tea in a village, for a wander into a palmeria, for lunch in a riad built into an old ksar. I'd resist the urge to barrel straight through to the dunes; an overnight in the valley itself, in a kasbah guesthouse among the palms, is one of the quiet highlights of southern Morocco. Agdz and Zagora make good bases.

For travellers, I usually frame the Draa as the scenic, soulful first half of a Zagora desert trip from Ouarzazate, or as a leg of a longer loop down to the deep desert. It needs a private car and an unhurried pace to do it justice. Tell me you want to feel the land change as you head for the Sahara, and I'll route you down the Draa rather than rushing it.