What is there to do around Ouarzazate?

Ouarzazate's real value is as a hub, and the country around it is some of the most photogenic in Morocco. Closest and most essential is Aït Benhaddou, the UNESCO ksar about 30 kilometres away — I never let anyone skip it. In town you have the Taourirt Kasbah to explore and, on the outskirts, the Atlas and CLA film studios for the movie-history side of the region. Those three alone justify a full day based here.

Push a little further and the landscapes open up spectacularly. East of town lies the Skoura oasis, a dense palmeraie hiding the beautifully restored Kasbah Amridil — one of the most picturesque earthen fortresses in the country and a lovely, calmer alternative to Aït Benhaddou's crowds. Beyond Skoura the road runs along the "Route of a Thousand Kasbahs" toward the Dades Gorge, with its rippling rock formations and the famous switchback road, and onward to the towering Todra Gorge, where sheer canyon walls rise hundreds of metres above a narrow river path.

Heading south instead, the Draa Valley unfurls from Ouarzazate toward Zagora and the desert — an endless ribbon of palm groves, mud-brick villages and old kasbahs following the river, and the classic overland approach to the Sahara dunes at M'Hamid or Erg Chigaga. This is genuinely one of my favourite drives in Morocco; you can feel the country tipping over into desert with every kilometre.

And do not overlook the journey itself. The drive between Marrakech and Ouarzazate crosses the Tizi n'Tichka, the highest major mountain pass in Morocco, a serpentine route through the High Atlas with staggering views, Berber villages and argan-oil and craft stops along the way. My standard advice: treat Ouarzazate as a base for one or two nights, pick the loops that match your time — kasbahs and gorges to the east, oasis and dunes to the south — and let the scenery be the main event.