4x4 off-road expedition tracing the Paris Dakar Rally

On the first day of travel, we meet with our off-road vehicles at 8:00 AM in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, built by Gustave Eiffel from 1887 to 1889. The official start will be there, just like at the Dakar Rally. You have the opportunity to join the guide from Germany with your off-road vehicle and arrive in Paris as a group. After a brief introduction and a few instructions, we will set off.

The day's destination is the highest dune in Europe, the Dune du Pilat, with a height of 110 m, a width of 500 m, and a length of 2.7 km from north to south near Bordeaux in Arcachon. Afterwards, we will head to our first hotel. In the evening, we will have dinner at a nice fish restaurant right by the harbor.

One does not know where one is right now. Northern Spain is sparsely populated, and the vastness of the landscape and the surroundings remind one of images one knows from 4x4 off-road trips in America.

On the evening of the third day, we spend the night in a hotel in Talavera de la Reina, from where we set off on the fourth day to our last destination on European soil. We need to cover kilometers so that we can reach the goal of the fourth day early and still have a few hours to enjoy beautiful Seville after we check into our hotel.

Spain's fourth-largest city has one of the largest old towns in the world, second only to Venice and Genoa.

Along the coast, we head to Rabat, the capital of Morocco and the seat of the royal house, and then take small roads toward the Atlas Mountains. The Atlas stretches about 2,300 km through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

Traffic is chaotic and takes getting used to, and driving demands a lot of concentration from us. We will make our way pleasantly through the foothills of the Atlas towards Ouzoud. The first mountain passes are already waiting for us. In the evening, we set up our camp at a small campsite in Ouzoud.

In Asni, a mountain village in the High Atlas at the foot of Jebel Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa at 4,167 m, we make our way together to the summit of Tizi n’Test. Even though it's not many kilometers, it takes almost a day for us to arrive at our destination for the day, the town of Taroudant, on the other side of the mountains with our 4x4 vehicles.

On the single-lane road, you can encounter everything from donkeys to 40-ton trucks.

The first major off-road stage lies ahead of us. For two days we will be driving through the western foothills of the great Sahara towards the desert town of Smara. On the way lies the disputed border between Morocco and the formerly Spanish-occupied Western Sahara.

You can still notice this today in the mentality of the inhabitants and in the language. While French is very common in Morocco, here suddenly you can get by with Spanish. Where we stay overnight depends on how far we get on each of the two days. We set up our wild camps wherever we like.

For two days, we will cross the desert along the Western Sahara and Mauritania. For this stage, depending on our progress and group dynamics, we also reserve the right to choose the more relaxing route along the coast towards Dakhla to the Atlantic.

For this stage, we have the option of "pure Sahara" and action or alternatively the relaxed route towards the Atlantic with a long coastal stretch along the beach and then back into the Sahara. On the Atlantic route, we can also make a stop in the surfer town of Dakhla if needed.

We follow the overall 700 km long route of the Mauritanian iron ore train for about 350 km off-road, to then head to Atar. The route is challenging, and we will need two days to reach the oasis. The legendary train transports iron ore from Zouerate to the Atlantic and is considered one of the longest freight trains in the world.

Atar was once an important city in the high culture of the Moors, who are the namesakes of the country.

Before the current road was built in 2006, the official route to Nouakchott ran along the beach along the Atlantic coast. The tides compact the sand there, making it firm and smooth, so sometimes it’s even possible to progress more evenly than on some tracks inland. We take advantage of this special route and continue our off-road journey on this historical path.

However, the drive requires good timing with the tides, as certain sections may become impassable at high tide and the ocean reaches close to the dunes. At the same time, we experience one of the most pristine coastal landscapes in West Africa, with endless beaches, fishing camps, and only a few settlements along the way.

Our daily goal is the capital Nouakchott, where about half of the Mauritanian population lives today and which is considered the political and economic center of the country.

We will depart from Saint-Louis in the morning and reach Dakar around noon. A part of the way we can drive again on the beach. Like in the Paris-Dakar, our journey ends at the shore of Lake Rose, the pink salt lake on the outskirts of Dakar.

There we will spend the last evening together and celebrate our arrival with good food. The expedition officially ends the next day. From here, you have the option to ship your off-road vehicle to Europe by container and fly home, or join the tour guides on the road back towards Morocco, where the guides usually take a little break.

From Marrakech, you can then drive back north on asphalt to the ferry port.