Almost everyone who travels to southeastern Morocco wants the same thing: to sleep a night in the desert. What almost nobody knows before booking is that there are two possible deserts and that the difference between them is not one of scenery but of effort.
01 Two ergs and one decision
An erg is a sand sea: an extensive, continuous dune field, different from the stone desert that covers most of this region. Morocco has two that can be visited with relative ease, and they are at opposite ends of Draa-Tafilalet.
Erg Chebbi is to the east, next to Merzouga. Erg Chigaga is to the southwest, at the end of the Drâa valley, beyond M'Hamid. Both offer a night in camp and both are sold with the same photographs.
But one has a tarmac road to the foot of the dune and the other is two hours of track from the last village. That changes who sleeps there, how many people are around and what you hear at night.
A hundred and fifty metres of dune at the end of the tarmac, or thirty-five kilometres of sand at the end of two hours of track.
02 Chebbi: a hundred and fifty metres at the end of the tarmac
Chebbi is over 25 kilometres long by around 5 wide and its dunes reach 150 metres, the tallest in the country. Visually it is the more spectacular of the two, without argument.
And it is also the easier one. The tarmac road reaches the edge of the sand, which means you can park an ordinary car, walk for ten minutes and be on a real dune. No 4x4 is needed, no camel, no full day of approach.
That ease comes at an obvious price. There is a high concentration of camps along the erg's western edge, quad and sand-bike traffic on the same stretch, and at sunrise a fair number of people gather on the most accessible crests. None of that ruins it, but it is worth knowing beforehand.
03 Chigaga: thirty-five kilometres and two hours of track
Chigaga is Morocco's largest erg: some 35 kilometres of dune field. Its crests, however, are lower than Chebbi's, around 60 to 120 metres. If height is the criterion, Chebbi wins.
What Chigaga has is extent and, above all, isolation. There is no road: from M'Hamid it takes around two hours by 4x4 on track, or several days if done by camel. That barrier completely filters the kind of visit.
And the journey there is part of the appeal, not a toll. M'Hamid is 8 or 9 hours from Marrakech down the whole Drâa valley: the continuous palm grove, the mud-brick ksars and the bed that runs out of water as you descend.
04 The night, which is the point
The night in the erg is the reason for the trip, and it should be prepared for with a realistic idea of what it is. The first surprise is usually the cold: this region's temperature range is around fourteen degrees, and on bare sand it drops further.
In January Zagora's average minimum is 3.8 degrees. In November, 9.6. Even in April, with highs of 30.7, the minimum is 13.6. Sleeping in a tent without warm clothing is a mistake you pay for in full.
The second thing is the silence, of an unusual quality: no leaves, no water, no night insects and no traffic. And the third is the sky, which here benefits from dry air, the total absence of artificial light and the lack of cloud for most of the year.
05 When, and with what
The good window runs from October to April. In that stretch southern highs go from 20.3 to 30.7 degrees and lows from 3.8 to 15.5. Outside it the problem is not discomfort: Zagora's average July maximum is 44.9 degrees, and that rules out any walking on sand.
Within the window there are nuances. March brings the strongest wind, which over sand means dust in suspension and reduced visibility. October and November give the best combination of mild day and still bearable night.
Packing comes down to three things that cannot be missing: real warm clothing for the night, sun protection and something to cover your head, and more water than you think you will drink. Everything else is surplus.
06 How to put it together
The commonest mistake is trying to do it in two days from Marrakech. With 8 or 9 hours of road each way, that leaves one night in the desert in exchange for two full days in a car, and the Drâa valley gets crossed without being seen.
Three days is the reasonable minimum and four or five is what the route asks for: a day to come down the valley stopping at the palm grove and the ksars, one or two nights in the erg, and the return by a different line instead of repeating the same one.
And one last honest consideration. If you only have two days, or if you are travelling with small children or with someone who does not handle rough tracks well, Chebbi is the right decision and not a watered-down version: they are the country's tallest dunes and you drive there. Chigaga is for when isolation matters more than height.
László Szalai Split-Dalmatia for someone who wants to go from the beach to seventeen hundred metres
César Pérez Salta for someone who wants to drink at three thousand metres and accepts the gravel
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