Travel guide
Featured on September 25, 2026
Bou Craa’s phosphate reaches the coast on a conveyor across the desert.
Places
This is where you see how the territory works in ordinary time: wide avenues, the Spanish-era St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral, the market, and the dry course of the Saguia el-Hamra. Come for tea houses and the daily administrative hum, not monuments alone.
Tip: Give the centre half a day; late afternoon is better than midday.
The peninsula puts flat lagoon water on one side and open Atlantic surf on the other. People come to kitesurf, watch birds in the shallows, and drive out until town gives way to dune, rock, and wind.
Tip: Stay at least two nights; if you want a lesson or a lagoon excursion, book ahead.
This inland town matters because it was the old religious and caravan centre. You come for the remains associated with Ma al-Aynayn and for a sense of Sahrawi life away from the coast.
Tip: Best as a long day trip or overnight from Laayoune; ask locally about road conditions before setting out.
The lagoon, salt flats, dunes, and low cliffs make one of the strangest landscapes on the Atlantic route south. Birdlife is the draw, especially when flamingos turn the waterline into a moving seam.
Tip: Go in the cooler months and carry your own water; first and last light are best.
This is where Laayoune goes for sea air. Walk the beach, watch families settle in with tea, and see how the coast feels when it belongs to residents on an ordinary evening.
Tip: Come near sunset, when the light softens and more locals arrive.
Eat
Green tea is brewed strong with mint and heavy sugar, then poured back and forth until it foams.
Where: Everywhere people sit for a while: homes, workshops, offices, and roadside cafés; often before any real conversation starts.
Camel or cow milk is whisked with water and sugar into a cold, lightly tangy drink, sometimes with a hint of fermentation behind it.
Where: At family tables and simple lunch places, especially on hot days and more often inland.
A round bread is buried under hot sand and embers, baked, knocked clean, and torn apart to eat with meat, olive oil, or tea.
Where: On desert outings and camp-style meals outside town, more often by arrangement than off a menu.
Camel meat cooks slowly with onions, tomatoes, and spices until it softens, with bread nearby to drag through the sauce.
Where: In plain lunch restaurants in Laayoune or Smara, and at family meals when there is time to cook.
Story
In Laayoune, afternoons empty out, then fill again when the tea trays come. On the road south, the air smells of hot dust, diesel, and Atlantic salt before you see the water. What stays with you is the rhythm: checkpoint, long straight road, wind in the window, then mint and sugar poured from high above the glass.
In 1898, Ma al-Aynayn chose an inland site and founded Smara. He built a religious centre, and caravans began stopping there with books, salt, cloth, and news. Spain had posts on the coast, but authority inland still travelled by tribe, scholar, and camel. The desert town mattered because it was not coastal.
In November 1975, King Hassan II called the Green March. Columns of civilians moved toward the territory carrying Moroccan flags and Qurans, while Spain prepared to leave. The Madrid Accords followed. Polisario fighters kept fighting, and many Sahrawi families fled east toward Algeria.
Now the approach to Laayoune has a checkpoint rhythm: brake lights, papers, a nod, the road again. In the city, business pauses for atay, and conversations stretch longer than the pour. Morocco administers the Atlantic towns and the long highway west of the sand berm; Polisario controls a smaller eastern area, and many Sahrawis still live in camps near Tindouf. The argument is old. The waiting is daily.
Say hello
شنه خبارك؟
How are you?; literally, what is your news?
Say: she-nuh khbaarak?
مرحب بيك
Welcome; good to have you here
Say: marh-ba beek
أبغيت أتاي
I'd like some tea
Say: ab-gheet a-tie
ماني فاهم
I don't understand
Say: maa-nee faa-hem
Surprises
Spain did not create a single colony called Spanish Sahara until 1958. Before that, Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro were administered separately.
Western Sahara has the internet code .eh, but it is only reserved, not delegated for ordinary public use.
The African Union includes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as a member. Morocco left the Organization of African Unity in 1984 over the issue and returned to the African Union in 2017.
Quiz
What does the name Laayoune, also written El Aaiún, refer to?
It comes from the Arabic root for springs or water sources, literally 'the little eyes.' The Spanish form El Aaiún kept the same meaning in a colonial spelling.
3 days
Day 1
Morning in Laayoune around the cathedral, market, and central streets; afternoon rest; late afternoon and sunset at Foum El Oued, then tea back in Laayoune.
Day 2
Leave Laayoune early, stop at Khenifiss National Park for the lagoon and birdlife, then continue south to Dakhla for an evening walk by the water.
Day 3
Spend the morning on the Dakhla Peninsula, take the afternoon detour to Imlili, and return to Dakhla for tea and a last windy sunset.
At a glance
At a glance
Neighbouring countries
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Listen
The song of the day
Haiyu
Mariem Hassan
Mariem Hassan is the voice many people start with in Sahrawi music, and this track carries the handclap pulse and desert swing that define her sound.
Play a 30-second preview30-second clip via Apple Music
Before you go, watch or read
Hamada
Film
It turns the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf from an abstract dispute into rooms, jokes, dust, and stalled time.
From the community
🇪🇭 Today's country is Western Sahara. Bou Craa’s phosphate reaches the coast on a conveyor across the desert. In Laayoune, afternoons empty out, then fill again when the tea trays come. On the road south, the air smells of hot dust, diesel, and Atlantic salt before you see the water. What stays with you is the rhythm: checkpoint, long straight road, wind in the window, then mint and sugar poured from high above the glass. 📍 Places to visit • Laayoune — This is where you see how the…
Questions
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