Due to the way the two overseas weddings I was invited to were arranged, I had about a week between when I needed to be in Morocco and when I needed to be in Japan. Since this would be my first time in Morocco, my friend and I figured that we wanted to spend some time there, but we also didn’t quite want to plan the whole trip ourselves. After talking to some friends who had been to Morocco, they all recommended we take a tour and after talking to a few agencies (we found that the tour itinerary tends to be the same, what differs is the price), we decided to go with 4×4 Sahara Tours (website here).

And you know what? We had a fabulous time! I wasn’t really worried about the experience in the first place, since my friend had already gone on two tours with them, but I really appreciated how fuss-free they made the whole experience. We liaised with Said (who also helped us arrange for a half-day hot-air balloon experience before the tour) and our guide was Youssef, and the two of them helped to make our 1200km tour a very fuss-free experience.

On the first day, we were picked up from our riad and brought out of Marrakech. Our first stop was this cafe at the start of the route into the Atlas mountains where they served an amazing omelette – I highly recommend the Berber Omelette, it’s so wonderfully savoury and there’s a great view of the mountains as you eat.

Around noon, we arrived at Ben Ait Haddou where we visited the kasbah (fortified village) where many shows and movies have been shot before heading to lunch. I was quite surprised to learn that the building on the top of the kasbah was not a lookout post or anything similar but a money changer! The kasbah is meant for tourists so there are quite a few shops and you could spend some time there if you wanted to.

After a few more photo-stops (we opted not to go to the movie studio as we weren’t that interested), we ended up in a beautiful riad where we had our dinner and an early night; much needed as we barely slept the night before! The tour comes with dinner and breakfast included from the first night and the morning after onwards. The breakfast stop on the first day was not included, and neither are lunches, which will cost about 100 dirhams (about 10 euros).

The second day brought us to the Valley of the Roses, where sadly, there weren’t any roses as it was the wrong season. What I found much more impressive was Todra Gorge, which was magnificent and has a small, cold stream running through it. Since we mentioned wanting to know more about Moroccan rugs, Youssef also brought us to a Moroccan rug cooperative, where we learnt a bit more about the process of making a rug. By 5 pm, we had arrived at Merzouga, where our luggage was transferred to a different car and brought to the tent while we took a camel ride into the dunes. The camel ride includes a break to wander around a dune and even try some sand boarding! At night, the camp hosts built a fire and invited everyone to come and sing and dance with them.

For my part, I much preferred to look at the starry skies and rest in my tent. The tents were really comfortable, with toilets and showers with hot water attached! There’s also free wifi in the camp area, though I found that the signal was somewhat weak in the tents, so this is great time to take a break from social media and work.

I really think the desert was the highlight of the trip!

On our third day, which was also our last full day, Youssef brought us to a market near Merzouga. The market was an interesting experience as it was more for locals and we got to see the variety of things on sale. We also visited the Moulay Ali Cherif Mausoleum, where the first king of Alaouite dynasty rests, although since we are not Muslim, we were only allowed in the courtyard and to look through the doors to the mausoleum and the mosque. But because there was a guide, we did manage to get quite a bit of information about the building. We were also brought into the kasbah next door and shown a shop/cooperative, but though the shopkeeper was very enthusiastic, we didn’t feel pressured into buying anything.

We stayed at a riad in Ouarzazate for the third night and went back to Marrakech via an alternate route on the last day. This was really a 3.5 days trip (a modification from the 3-days trip that was proposed by Said) and we were dropped off at the airport around 1 pm. But before that, we needed to get something from the Medina, and so Youssef helped us plan and execute a detour that fit with our plans.

Overall, we had a great time on our tour! I think it’s important to calibrate expectations beforehand – this tour covers a total of 1200 km, which means that you WILL be spending a lot of time in the car. If there’s anything you’d like to get or see in more detail, it would be good to talk to the guide about it at the start and see how to best fit it into the schedule. Otherwise, I think the itinerary would be quite similar to pretty much any tour that tries to go to Merzouga and back in about three days; the advantage of the private tour was that we felt a lot more comfortable to be able to go at our own pace and we had more freedom to make or reject certain stops.