Merzouga is a small town in southeastern Morocco, close to the Algerian border, built along the edge of the Erg Chebbi dune field. The dunes themselves rise to around 150 meters (490 feet) in places and stretch roughly 22 km north to south, making them the most accessible and most visited stretch of Sahara Desert in Morocco.
The town exists almost entirely to support desert tourism: guesthouses, small hotels (“auberges”) and tour operators line the main road, and most face directly onto the dunes. From Merzouga, the standard way to experience the desert is a late-afternoon camel trek to a fixed or mobile camp inside the dunes, an overnight stay, and a return trek the following morning — often timed around sunset and sunrise, when the light on the sand is most dramatic and temperatures are lower.
Because Merzouga sits at the end of a long drive from any major city, almost nobody visits it on its own. It is typically the final stop of a private multi-day tour that starts in Marrakech, Fes, Ouarzazate or Errachidia and works through the Atlas Mountains, Ait Ben Haddou, the Dades Valley and the Todra Gorge along the way. Nearby Khamlia village, home to a community of Gnawa musicians, and the black volcanic hills near the dunes, are common half-day additions once you are based in the area.
