Almost every Moroccan desert trip ends at one of two places, and the choice between them decides more about your trip than the operator you book with. They are not interchangeable, and the marketing photographs — which look identical — are no help at all.
The short version
Erg Chebbi is easier, more comfortable, and busier. Erg Chigaga is bigger, emptier, and considerably more effort to reach. Neither is the "real" Sahara and neither is a tourist trap; they are different products of their geography.
Erg Chebbi, near Merzouga
Chebbi is about 25 kilometres long and 5 wide, with individual dunes reaching around 150 metres — genuinely enormous, and the tallest sand in Morocco.
The decisive fact is that a paved road runs to the edge of it. You drive to Merzouga, and the dunes begin where the tarmac stops. There is no off-road section, no specialist vehicle, no additional transfer.
That access has produced an entire industry. There are something on the order of two hundred camps, ranging from a mattress in a shared tent to genuine luxury — private bathrooms, hot showers, proper beds. If you are travelling with older parents, with small children, on a honeymoon, or simply want the Sahara without surrendering comfort, this is the answer and it is not a compromise.
The cost is company. You will see other camps' lights at night and other people's camels in the morning.
Erg Chigaga, beyond M'Hamid
Chigaga is the larger sand sea: roughly 35 kilometres long and 15 wide. The dunes are lower than Chebbi's tallest but the field is far more expansive, and it feels less like a landmark and more like a region.
Getting there is the whole story. From M'Hamid it is about 60 kilometres of off-piste driving, and a 4×4 with a driver who knows the route is not optional — it is the only way. A saloon car cannot do it. A minibus cannot do it. This is worth stating plainly because people do try.
What that filter buys you is emptiness. Fewer camps, fewer vehicles, and a much better chance of standing on a dune at night with nothing man-made in view. The stargazing is the best in the country.
Choosing between them
Pick Chebbi if you are short on time, travelling with anyone who would find a rough two-hour transfer miserable, want a wide choice of comfort levels, or are coming via the Todra and Dadès gorges — it sits naturally at the end of that route.
Pick Chigaga if you have an extra day to spend, want the emptier experience, are already heading down the Drâa valley through Zagora, or if solitude is the specific thing you came for.
Two things true of both
The camel ride is short. An hour or so into the dunes at sunset, an hour back at dawn. It is a way of arriving, not a day's activity, and anyone selling you a multi-day camel expedition is selling you a sore trip.
Winter nights are cold. Genuinely cold — near freezing in December and January, on sand that gave up all its heat the moment the sun went. Camps provide blankets. Bring a layer anyway.
If you want the desert as a way of moving rather than a destination, the older answer is to walk it with the people who always did — see the piece on nomad routes and what a bivouac actually is.
