Questions

Three days is the shortest run to Erg Chebbi that is worth taking, and the third day of it is a long drive home. Four days puts a second night on the way back and turns the trip from an endurance test into a holiday.

If you have five, you stop rushing the gorges. If you have ten, you can join the desert to the coast and the Rif and never repeat a road.

It changes the trip more than the number of days does. Marrakech is closest to the High Atlas, the Tichka pass and the kasbah valleys, and it is the easiest place to start a short desert run.

Fes puts you at the top of the Ziz corridor, which is the better road to the sand and much less driven. Tangier is for anyone who wants the Rif and the Mediterranean first. Casablanca is the biggest airport and the least interesting city on the list — it works best as the start of a long circuit rather than a short one.

October to April for anything involving the desert or the south: clear light, workable temperatures, and nights at the erg cold enough that a jacket is not optional.

March to May is the best all-round window — the Rif is green, the roses are out in the M’Gouna valley and the interior has not turned yet. July and August are hard work anywhere inland and perfect on the Atlantic coast. Snow can close the Tizi n’Tichka for a day at a time between December and February; there is a longer way round and Izil knows it.

Yes, and most are. Every route on this site can be lengthened, shortened, reversed, started from a different city or thrown out entirely in favour of something you describe. The published versions exist so there is something concrete to argue with.

Because none have been set for publication yet. Rather than print an indicative figure that would be wrong for most parties, every route shows a marker where the price would go, and nothing anywhere on this site is a quotation.

Send the dates and the party size and you will get a real number in MAD and euros, with what it covers written next to it.

They are not published here yet. Ask when you enquire and you will have them in writing before you are asked to pay anything.

The routes on this site are written as private departures: your party, one vehicle, one driver-guide. The party size Izil runs per departure has not been fixed for publication, which is why every route shows a marker instead of a number.

More than most itineraries admit. Morocco is large, the interesting parts are far apart, and the roads between them are mountain roads.

The routes here are built to break the long days at things worth stopping for, and to avoid putting two of the longest days back to back. Each written itinerary says which day is the hardest, on the page, before you book.

No. The crossing into the erg is done on camelback because a vehicle cannot do it quietly, but you can be driven in instead and nobody will make a thing of it.

Canvas tents pitched in a hollow out of the wind, lit with lanterns, with dinner and breakfast cooked on site. There is no mains power and no reliable mobile signal — charge what you need at the previous night’s stop.

Nights are cold from November through March. Colder than people expect, every single time.

In Fes, yes, and it is included on the routes that stay there. Fes el Bali is the largest car-free urban area in the world and a guide is the difference between seeing the madrasas, the tanneries and the fondouks and spending the day walking in circles being sold things.

Chefchaouen you can walk yourself, and the guided morning up to the Spanish mosque is still worth it.

For most routes, not very — they are long drives and short walks. Each one carries a rating on its page: easy means no fitness requirement, moderate means uneven ground, early starts and a night under canvas, and demanding means sustained walking at altitude or consecutive long driving days.

The High Atlas day trip is the one where the shoes you brought genuinely matter.

Morocco runs on Darija and Tamazight day to day, with French almost everywhere in business and English common in tourism. Izil guides in English.

Tamazight is not one language but a family of them — Tashelhit in the south and the High Atlas, Tamazight in the Middle Atlas, Tarifit in the Rif. The greeting that works everywhere is azul.

The dirham is a closed currency: you are not supposed to take it in or out, so you change money on arrival. Cards work in cities and in hotels and are close to useless in a village souk. Carry cash for the road.

A warm layer, whatever the forecast for Marrakech says — the erg loses its heat the moment the sun goes. Shoes you do not mind filling with sand, something to keep it out of your camera, and more water than you think.

Ask first, and expect the answer to sometimes be no. The villages on these routes are lived in, not exhibited, and the difference shows immediately in how you are received.

Everything still runs, and the days feel different: quieter until sunset, then a city that comes properly alive. Restaurants in tourist areas stay open through the day. If your dates fall in Ramadan, say so when you enquire and the schedule will be built around it rather than in spite of it.