BEYOND THE KSAR
The Ounila Valley, Telouet Kasbah and the Road South
Aït Benhaddou is one stop on a longer story — the Ounila valley's other kasbahs, the Glaoui palace at Telouet, and the road on toward Morocco's south.
See Aït Benhaddou trips on GetYourGuide ↗The Ounila valley's other kasbahs
Aït Benhaddou is the most famous ksar on the Ounila river, but it's not the only earthen settlement in the valley — the river's course is lined with smaller kasbahs, palm groves and irrigated terraces that follow the same rammed-earth building tradition on a humbler scale. Travelling the older road along the valley, rather than the fast modern highway, shows how the ksar fits into a wider pattern of fortified settlements once strung along the caravan route, rather than sitting in isolation. None of these smaller kasbahs carry UNESCO status individually, but together they give a fuller sense of how densely this valley was once settled.
Telouet — the Glaoui's ruined palace
A detour off the Tizi n'Tichka road leads to Telouet, the ancestral kasbah of the Glaoui family, who controlled this stretch of trade route through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of the kasbah is now roofless and crumbling, but sections retain startlingly ornate painted ceilings, carved plaster and zellij tilework — a glimpse of the wealth the Glaoui accumulated from tolls and trade, in sharp contrast to Aït Benhaddou's plainer, communal architecture. It's usually visited as an add-on rather than a stand-alone destination, given the extra driving time.
Ouarzazate as a gateway
Most day trips continue past Aït Benhaddou to Ouarzazate, the largest town in the region and, historically, the last major stop before the desert proper — hence its old nickname, the door of the desert. Beyond its film-studio fame, Ouarzazate has its own kasbah, Taourirt, another Glaoui-era earthen fortress, and functions today as the practical hub for anyone continuing further south. Long before cinema arrived, its position at the edge of the mountains made it a natural staging point for caravans and later colonial administration — much the same logic of location that eventually drew film crews looking for a base near varied desert terrain.
The road toward the dunes
For travellers with more than a day, the route beyond Ouarzazate continues into the Dades and Draa valleys — more palm oases, gorges and kasbahs along the old caravan roads — and on to the Sahara dunes near Merzouga or Zagora. These multi-day loops effectively retrace, in reverse, the same trading route that once carried salt and gold north through Aït Benhaddou, ending where the caravans themselves once began their crossing. Which valley to choose largely comes down to time and interest — the Dades is best known for its gorge and rose cultivation, the Draa for its long palmery stretching almost to the desert's edge.
Building a longer itinerary
None of this needs to be decided in advance in fine detail — the point is simply that Aït Benhaddou sits at the start of a much longer regional route, not at the end of one. A single day from Marrakech covers the ksar itself and usually Ouarzazate; adding Telouet extends that day modestly; and a genuine multi-day southern loop is really a different, bigger trip. Deciding which scale suits your time in Morocco is the main planning question, more than any single stop along the way. There's no wrong choice here, only a trade-off between how much ground you cover and how much time you spend at any one place.
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