8 Days Motorcycle Tour from Ouarzazate

Your trip begins in Ouarzazate. We pick you up at Ouarzazate airport and drive you to your hotel. Coming from Marrakech? We include a free private transfer to Ouarzazate, about 4 hours by road. Later in the day your guide hands over the motorcycles, checks the paperwork and walks you through the route and the group riding signals. Dinner is served at the hotel.

A short stretch of tarmac leads out of town, and then the first track begins. The next 80 km or so stay off the road, giving you time to get a feel for the bike and the ground. The trail twists, climbs and drops, with some patches of loose stone. After a break back on the asphalt, you ride a long section of firm, quick sand trail that keeps changing direction, so stay alert. In the afternoon the route crosses gentle desert hills and a plateau before dropping into Foum Zguid, where a hotel with a big pool waits at the end of the day.

Today is all about sand. After refuelling in Foum Zguid, rocky ground soon gives way to the dry bed of Lake Iriqui, which you cross at speed for around 40 km to reach the western edge of the Erg Chegaga (opens in a new tab) dunes. Confident riders can tackle a stretch of medium dunes on the way to the lunch camp, while others follow an easier track around them. A long sandy riverbed comes before lunch. In the afternoon you cross a plateau and a few small dunes, meet the asphalt again at M’Hamid, and ride a few kilometres on to your hotel with a pool.

A fast day close to the Algerian border. After fuel in M’Hamid, small dunes and sandy riverbeds lead north through the palm groves of the Draa Valley. Back in the open desert, expect a few routine army checkpoints, so keep your passport within reach. The route then follows wide, fast desert tracks once used by the Dakar Rally (opens in a new tab), passing a stone cairn that remembers a rider who lost his life here in 2007. Lunch is at a lodge on the edge of Lac Maider, a huge dry lake. The last 60 km cross sand and fine fesh-fesh dust to the Ouzina camp, where you can climb a tall dune for sunset, then enjoy dinner around the fire with local drummers.

A shorter riding day, so you have more time in the dunes. The track from camp crosses a wide plain dotted with acacia trees that looks more like East Africa than Morocco, with sandy and rocky sections along the way. You reach Merzouga in the late morning, settle into your hotel and head straight out onto the sand of Erg Chebbi (opens in a new tab), the tallest dunes in Morocco, with some rising more than 150 metres. After lunch and a rest by the pool, you ride back into the dunes in the late afternoon and watch the sunset from one of the high crests.

The longest day of the tour, quick in the desert and slower in the mountains. The first part retraces a section of yesterday’s route, and then new trails take over. Before lunch you face a tough stretch along the Gheris riverbed, followed by fast rides across open plateaus and some big sand climbs where dunes spill over the hills. Lunch is a homemade tagine at a small inn in a desert village. In the afternoon, hard sand tracks and a long sandy riverbed lead into the Jebel Saghro mountains. Tonight’s hotel in the Dades Gorge has a rooftop pool and a buffet dinner.

The last riding day heads west through the Dades Gorge along the foothills of the High Atlas. Quick tracks alternate with rocky paths through deep gorges and ravines until you reach a plateau for a picnic lunch. A winding sandy riverbed and a final fast run across a flat plateau bring you back to Ouarzazate and the hotel from the first night. The bikes are returned and checked, and the evening is free for a farewell dinner.

After breakfast we drive you to Ouarzazate airport. If you prefer, we take you back to Marrakech instead with a free private transfer, about 4 hours by road.