Is Merzouga desert better than Zagora in Morocco? My experience from Sahara

When I was planning my trip to Morocco, I knew that I want to experience one thing. Riding a camel in Sahara desert. I checked that I have basically two options — go to Merzouga desert or Zagora desert. The two places are the most famous deserts in Morocco. So the question was: Is Merzouga desert better than Zagora?

A tour to Merzouga desert from Marrakech

Finally we decided to go to Merzouga desert. After discussion about the beauty of Africa and enjoying every moments of our life we chose Merzouga desert instead of Zargora simply because:

• We can see sand dunes in Merzouga desert all around us.
• The trip was 3 days and two nights, so we can enjoy Morroco longer.
• The price was reasonable.
• We read awesome feedback from people who already been to Merzouga desert.

My previous experience from Africa and deserts

I have already been to Africa once before, but it was many years ago in Egypt with my parents and we didn’t actually go to the desert. I have seen a small desert in Cambodia, there were few sand dunes but Sahara is totally different story. So being in Morocco I knew that I need to go to experience Sahara dunes and get the real desert feeling.

The price for an organized tour to Merzouga desert

There are different prices for an organized tour to Merzouga desert. We went to two different hostels and both of them had the same tour/trip, same activities during the day and night, but different price. One hostel offers this Merzouga desert tour for 800 Dh, the second one was just 700 Dh.

So we booked the organized tour to Merzouga desert for 700 Dh (that is around 70 Euro per person). The price includes:

• Transportation from Marrakech to Merzouga and back
• Accomodation for two nights
• Food except lunchs

The other option is to go to Merzouga desert on your own. There is a Supratours bus going from Marrakech to Merzouga. You better book a hotel beforehand otherwise they give you very high price. And if you do so, it is recommended to book a guide to the desert as well. If you start organizing your trip in Merzouga, you just gonna spend more money for it.

This trip is definitively cheaper, but you won’t stop to take pictures on the way, you won’t go to diferrent places on the way to see, it is just transport from Marrakech to Merzouga.

So it was nice that an organized tour has more stops so you can enjoy different places, such as the view at High Atlas with snow, the village El Kelaa M’Gouna (where the movie Gladiator, Prince of Persia or TV series Game of Thrones was shoted), Pradise Valley, canyon Gorges, etc.

What I would recommend the best option is to rent a car and go to the desert by yourself. A group of people with tant, lots of warm clothes and good sleeping bags that sounds perfect. Plan your trip, the routes in Merzouga desert and you are all set up to spend one of the most memorable moment from your life.

The reason why we didn’t rent a car and didn’t go to Merzouga desert by ourself is that we didn’t have much time. The organized tour looked full of activities and easy way how to travel to the desert and experience Sahara. If you have more than 4 days, I advise you to rent a car and go to Sahara desert (it doesn’t have to be Merzouga) by yourself, sleep in the car and don’t forget to brign a flashlight with you 🙂

Here is my overall experience from the organized tour to Merzouga desert.

Overall experience from Merzouga desert

Experience Merzouga desert for the first time was overall nice. I wouldn’t put five star feedback as many others on Tripadviser. To be honest if I could decide one more time, I wouldn’t go to Merzouga desert with an organized tour.

What I like in Merzouga desert

Merzouga desert is huge and we saw beautiful sand dunes surrounding us.

We rode a camel on the way to the camp and the next day from our camp to Merzouga village. The ride took about 35 minutes each way. It was more than enough to enjoy the ride and atmosphere in Sahara while riding a camel. Actually we didn’t want to ride a camel any longer, because our butt hurt like hell 🙂

Two berber guys were playing on drums and singing berber songs while we were sitting close to a fire.

We had very clear sky so we watched stars like crazy. That was incredible experience! We love this part the most about the whole Merzouga tour. We saw a falling star as well.

We had great group of people, other tourists travelling like us so we talked a lot and shared our life stories. We felt very nice among them.

The price for the tour wasn’t too high. It is affordable for students and backpackers as well.

What I didn’t like about Merzouga desert

We didn’t have time to explore the desert more. We came there, watched the sunset, it got dark quickly. We woke up at 5:30 the next morning and rode a camel back to Merzouga village out of the sand dunes. There wasn’t any time to walk in the desert on our own to take some cool pictures jumping, falling, rolling down, etc. We were very dissapointed about it.

We didn’t have a good spot for taking pictures during sunset. In front of our camp was some other camp so as we were watching the sunset, we saw the tants as well. We didn’t have time to go on the top of some other dune because we came late. That is standard timing for any other organized tour, so just to let you know about it. We saw same other group that went with camels on the top of the dunes to watch the sunset and they came to the camp after sunset. That is super cool. We don’t know why we didn’t go this way. Our guide for a camel ride couldn’t speak any english, any french — just arabic!

They provided us just one blanket and everyone was very cold during the night. It gets super chilly during the night in Sahara desert. Unfortunatelly they provide just one blanket per person. Everyone was cold. I slept in pants, jacket, hood and eventhough woke up at 4 am because of cold.

The guide in Merzouga desert didn’t participate much. We felt like there isn’t any guide. He didn’t tell us any instruction, any time schedule, plan for activities. We really didn’t know what is going on.

The guide in Merzouga desert couldn’t speak good english. We were told that the guide can speak english, french, german, spanish,…but we found pretty hard to communicate with him in english. Unfortunatelly we can’t speak french. If you can speak french, it is very helpfull in the whole Morroco.

They didn’t create a good atmosphere in the tant in the Merzouga desert. One guy shouted “Dinner!” after couple minutes when the sun was already down. We came to the tant and they start serving a dinner. It was very quiet there. We ate it and were waiting what is going to happen next. After 20 minutes we saw some people leaving the tant so we moved afterwards to them. No one was telling us that there is a fire outside…

We had to ask what time we wake up tomorrow and how the program looks like. If we didn’t ask, no one from guides talked to us.

We were riding a camel with a group of 25–30 people. That is maybe fine, I understand it is touristic attraction. But we were told that the group will be about 10 people. We especially ask that question because we saw pictures on google how tourists ride camels in crazy groups, so we wanted to avoid it. And the lady at the hostel lied to us.

Our guide on camel didn’t take a picture of us on the way back and at the end he put a small carpet on the sand and ask for a tip. He didn’t smile the whole time, he didn’t talked the whole time, he just walked down, couldn’t speak any english or french. I can’t understand how he can ask for more money when he didn’t do anything special. He actually didn’t do his job properly. Of course we didn’t give him any money, how could we?!

Our bus driver couldn’t speak any english. From my experience it is very important when your bus driver can speak english so he can tell you more about places that you go through and answer your questions. Our bus driver hardly said that the break is “10 minutes”.

Don’t get me wrong about Merzouga desert

Yes, there were too many bad things that happened to us during our organized tour in Merzouga desert. I am sure that there are many tours to Merzouga desert and they all might have different quality. I know that we didn’t pay a lot of money for our trip, so maybe that was the issue as well.

From our experience in Central America we think that the price is not always a good idea to messuare with. They often set up a bigger price just because they want to get more money but the activites and program is the same.

I liked the experience from Sahara desert. I am glad that we chose Merzouga desert instead of Zagora desert so we could see huge sand dunes. The night when we were watching the stars was absolutely fabulous. If we have a cloudy night I would be so pissed off 🙂 But we were lucky at this point.

After reading all possitive feedbacks from people in TripAdvisor I had very difficult emotions. So I decided to write this blog post and spend some time to explain what we experienced in Merzouga desert. I would like to warn some of you guys and inform you how the tour to Merzouga desert can look like.

I was very excited to go to sand dunes to Sahara but as you can see, it is not just sweet and sugar. There are some rough edges in this trip so make sure you do a right call.

Here is quite usefull link from TripAdvisor: Attraction review Marzouga desert.

Zagora desert: what you should know

Before we went to Sahara desert in Morocco we did quite a big research. Eventhough we didn’t go to Zagora desert, we would like to share some usefull information about the Zagora desert and trip there.

Most of the tourist agencies offer a trip to Zagora desert for 400–600 Dh. For sure you can get the price 400 Dh (aproximatelly 40 Euros). On our way to east of Morroco we met one guy saying that he paid 250 Dh for an organized trip to Zagora desert. I’m not sure if that is the same trip, same activities, but there might be still a place for negotioation.

A trip to Zagora desert takes two days and one night.

The price includes transportation, guides and food (except lunch).

Zagora desert is rocky and there are not as many sand dunes. Don’t get me wrong, you will see sand dunes there but when you look around 360 degree, you want see sand dunes surrounding you. Let’s put it this way. In Zagora desert are just few sand dunes, just few small hills of sand. And don’t imagine huge sand dunes that are bigger than you and you need to climb them.

In Zagora desert you will see black rocky surface as well. To be authentic, that is a real desert as well. A desert is not just beautiful sand dunes like you have seen in the hollywood movies.

If you want to see beautiful sand dunes that are big and all around you, you definitively need to go to Merzouga desert instead of Zagora desert.

Here are a very usefull link from TripAdvisor that I recommend to go through so you know what to expect from Zagora desert.

Is Merzouga desert better than Zagora desert?

Here is the question! It is actually very hard to say if Merzouga desert is better than Zagora. Both deserts are different. Your experiences will depend on the tour you take or how you gonna do your trip there. It depends on people you meet. It is not just about the Sahara desert, Morroco or the village Merzouga or Zagora. It is more about your feelings, your travelling backgroud, your expectation.