Morocco · Guelmim-Oued Noun
Where to Stay in Guelmim, Guelmim-Oued Noun
Guelmim is a town of southern Morocco on the edge of the Sahara, an old caravan stop long known for its great camel market.
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Where to stay in Guelmim
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Guelmim turns on the town or the oasis. The streets around the souk keep the market, the cafés, and the bus yards within a walk, and staying in the centre suits anyone here for the town. The desert lies just beyond.
Traders load their camels at dawn. Out toward Aït Bekkou and the springs, the town gives way to the palm oasis, the warm baths of Abaynou, and the tracks into the Sahara. A room out of town trades the streets for the date groves, the quiet springs, and the wide silence of the desert.
The sand runs on for days. Stay in the centre for the souk, or out for the oasis. The camel market and the palms hold the edge of the desert.
About Guelmim
Guelmim is the camel-market town of the Moroccan south.
What is Guelmim known for?
On the edge of the desert in the south of Morocco, it grew as a caravan stop of the Saharan trade, and it keeps the great weekly camel souk, the palm oasis of Aït Bekkou to the south, the warm springs of Abaynou in the hills, and the road on into the Sahara. The desert stretches away to the south. Camels crowd the market ground.
What are the main landmarks in Guelmim?
The camel souk is the pride of Guelmim. The great weekly market where nomads trade their camels, the largest of the desert's edge, is the emblem of the town, downtown. Palms shade a spring.
The oasis of Aït Bekkou spreads its date groves south of the town nearby, while the Abaynou springs, the caravan road, and the dunes of the Sahara mark the country around Guelmim.
What is the history of Guelmim?
Guelmim rose on the caravan roads. For ages the camel trains of the Sahara passed through the Oued Noun, bearing salt and gold between the desert and the sea, and the town grew as a market of the trade. The desert men gathered to trade.
Each week the nomads of the south drove their camels to Guelmim, and the great souk became a byword across Morocco. The old trade slowly faded. When the caravans gave way to roads and lorries, the salt-and-gold trade died away, yet the camel market lived on into our own age.
The oases kept the water. Around the town lay the palm groves of Aït Bekkou and the warm springs of Abaynou, fed from the hills, and Guelmim held its place at the desert's edge, keeping its market, its oases, and its nomad ways. The camels still fill the souk.
Guelmim keeps its caravan town on the way to the Sahara.
Where is Guelmim?
Guelmim lies in the south of Morocco, where the Anti-Atlas falls away to the Sahara. The town sits in the dry valley of the Oued Noun, ringed by bare stony hills, on the last watered ground before the sand, with the mountains behind to the north and the desert opening wide to the south. Bare hills stand around the town.
The desert runs on past the palms.
What is the climate of Guelmim?
Guelmim's climate is that of the pre-Sahara, hot and arid. Baking summers and mild winters hold on the desert's edge, with fierce heat off the Sahara and scant rain in any season. Dry heat sears the summer.
Cool nights follow the sun.
How do you get to Guelmim?
Guelmim lies in the south of Morocco, at the desert's edge below the Anti-Atlas. The road south from Agadir runs to it over the mountains, and highways lead on to Tan-Tan and the Sahara. A small airport serves the town.
Agadir lies north over the passes.
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Updated August 2026