One of the high spots of my travel this year has been a trip into the Sahara desert in Morocco.

I visited the Sahara on a bus tour from Marrakesh; a bus took us to the desert frontier town of Erfoud, (with a lunch stop at the Kasbah at Ouarzazate), and from there we continued our journey to our camp on camels.

Ok; it’s a bit touristy and if I went again I would travel independently to Erfoud and organise a desert excursion from there.  I wasn’t sure if there would be transport connections there, which is why I took the tour. It turned out that there were plenty of buses and cheap transport to ferry you around between places, so it could be easily done independently.

Ah well, I’ll know next time.

Morocco is not the easiest of places for solo female travellers though,  plus I am not confident of my ability to communicate in French, so that is another reason why I decided on an organized trip.

Nearby frontier town

There are a couple of camps offering ‘the desert experience’ without the risk of getting lost.  The main one is Erg Chebbi Dunes, which is where I went.

The camp was not exactly remote (that illusion was shattered somewhat when I found I still had mobile phone signal), but I thought it was pretty amazing anyway, sleeping in Bedouin tents under the stars,  with our camels  waiting to take us back in the morning.

Sitting around the campfire in the evening

I travelled back to Marrakech the next day.  I would have preferred longer to explore Erfoud and the surrounding area at my own pace. We were supposed to stop at the nearby movie studio in Ouarzazate, but were low on time and didn’t stop, which was disappointing and yet another argument for travelling independently.

We missed sunset so I had to make do with dawn the next morning