The machine is the easy part. The ground under it is not.
Which Dubai safari really hands you the quad for an hour. What a Marrakech palm-grove ride costs before the tea. Whether a buggy beats a quad in Punta Cana mud. Reviews of every quad, ATV and buggy tour you can book.
Four quad rides worth planning a trip around.
The bookings people build a week of a holiday on. What each one costs, and what riders say once the helmet comes off.
01The red dunesDesert Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride & Al Khayma CampDune bashing first, then the quad hour, then a camp east of Dubai with the buffet already lit.
02The Agafay eveningAgafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner ShowStone desert forty minutes from Marrakech, a camel at golden hour and a dinner show after dark.
03The Mojave morningHalf-Day Mojave Desert ATV Tour from Las VegasHalf a day out of Las Vegas on dry lake bed and Joshua tree track. Go on the early departure.
04The island UTV runAruba UTV, ATV Adventure to Secret Beach and Cave PoolAruba by roll cage: broken coral, a cave pool and a beach nobody walks to.
Six countries where the quad is the reason people turn up.
A stone desert outside Marrakech, red sand east of Dubai, limestone jungle behind the Riviera Maya, gravel flats behind the Red Sea hotels, pine slopes above the Turkish coast, and mud that never dries in the Dominican interior.
Agafay, the Red Dunes or the Eastern Desert. Pick your sand first.
Three deserts take most of the world’s quad bookings and they ride nothing like each other. What each one costs to get on, and what the evening looks like when the engines are off.
The most-booked quad and buggy rides on earth.
Every machine on the site →The rides more travellers take than anything else, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Desert Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride & Al Khayma Camp
Leave Dubai for a guided Red Dunes safari with hotel pickup, 30 to 45 minutes of dune bashing, sandboarding, a short camel ride, and optional quad biking. Choose the seven-hour version for Al Khayma Camp, falcons, henna, dinner, and evening shows. Guides such as Adeel Awan, Shan, and Farman are praised for safe driving and helpful photography.
From · $32
Read our review →
2
Desert Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride and Sandboarding
from $29
3
Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride, and Buffet Dinner
from $46
4
Red Dune Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride, BBQ Dinner
from $29
5
Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner Show
from $24
6
Dubai Red Dunes ATV, Camels, Stargazing & 5* BBQ Al Khayma Camp
from $88
7
Desert Safari with BBQ Dinner & Quad Biking Options
from $30
8
Half-Day Desert Safari, Camel Ride, ATV & Dune Buggy
from $30
Buggy, UTV or a hard-topped 4x4. The machine changes the whole afternoon.
A quad puts you alone on the sand and covers you in it. A buggy seats two, takes mud better and keeps the roll cage between you and the ground. A 4x4 keeps the dust outside and somebody else drives.
Marrakech rides before breakfast, or once the heat has broken.
The Palmeraie is ten minutes out of the new town: palm tracks, irrigation ditches and dust, done in two hours. The Agafay is forty minutes further, a moonscape of grey stone, and it is where the evening rides with dinner go.
Every Marrakech ride →
Jungle mud, cenote water and a buggy built for both.
Riviera Maya runs pair a limestone jungle track with a swim in a flooded cave. Punta Cana adds red mud, a cacao stop and a beach. Aruba drops the sand altogether for broken coral, a natural pool and a roll cage.
- 1Guided ATV Quad Bike Jungle Adventure with Lunchfrom $22
- 2Cancun ATV Jungle Adventure, Ziplines, Cenote and Tequila Tastingfrom $49
- 3ATV Adventure, Interactive Bridges, Ziplines, Cenote and Lunchfrom $49
What an hour on the throttle actually costs.
Every ride on the site, grouped by what you pay to get on the machine. Plenty of the best ones cost less than the taxi out to the dunes.
Palm-grove hours, Hurghada desert runs and the quad slot bolted onto a group safari.
The full afternoon: a camp dinner, a private machine, or a jungle track with a cenote at the end.
Private guides, two-seat buggies with a driver, and the all-day runs into real Sahara.
Three rides that only exist where they happen.
Sand is everywhere. A pyramid on the skyline, a flooded limestone cave with a ladder into it, and a stone desert laid for dinner are not.
Quads on the Giza Plateau
The desert starts where the last Cairo street stops, and the ride runs along the ridge behind the pyramids rather than through the archaeological site. Most departures are timed for late afternoon, when the light comes across the plateau and the three silhouettes line up from the south. Expect an hour on the machine, a camel photographed at the turning point, and a lot of loose sand on the way back.
- 1Pyramids of Giza: 1-Hour Quad Bike Desert Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 930 reviews
- 2Giza pyramids, Sphinx, ATV bike, Lunch,Camel ride, Dinner cruise& shopping tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 798 reviews
- 3Pyramids Quad Bike Adventure & Optional Camel Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 430 reviews
Jungle Track, Flooded Cave
Behind the Riviera Maya hotels the limestone is riddled with collapsed caverns filled by the water table, and the buggy tracks link them. You ride a rough jungle trail, park, climb down a wooden stair into cold clear water under a hole in the roof, then ride back covered in white dust. Swimwear goes on before you leave, because there is nowhere to change at the cenote.
- 1Cancun ATV Jungle Adventure, Ziplines, Cenote and Tequila Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,873 reviews
- 2ATV Adventure, Interactive Bridges, Ziplines, Cenote and Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,903 reviews
- 3Cancun Best ATV Tour, Ziplines and Cenote Swim with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,406 reviews
The Desert Camp Dinner
The Gulf and Moroccan camps run the same shape of evening: the machines first while there is still light, then a low table, grilled meat and a fire act once the sun has gone. The quad slot is usually 20 or 30 minutes unless you pay for the hour, which is the single detail worth checking before you book.
- 1Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride, and Buffet Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 33,424 reviews
- 2Red Dune Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride, BBQ Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 32,185 reviews
- 3Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 27,382 reviews
Four kinds of sand, four completely different rides.
Riders book a desert by name and get surprised by the surface. Stone, dune, gravel and the real Sahara each want a different machine, a different length of day and a different price.
- 01Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner ShowThe Agafay is stone desert, not dune. The ground is hard and fast, and it sits forty minutes from Marrakech.
- 023Day Luxurious Merzouga Tour w/ Camel&Quad OptionMerzouga is the real Sahara. The dunes need a bigger machine and most of a day to reach from anywhere.
- 03Red Dune Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride, BBQ DinnerThe Red Dunes east of Dubai are soft and steep, which is why the quad hour is sold after the dune bashing.
- 04Quad Bike Tour of the Desert and Red SeaThe Eastern Desert behind Hurghada is flat gravel. The runs are long, dusty and the cheapest on the site.
The four things that decide whether a quad booking works.
Nobody asks these at the hotel desk and everybody wishes they had. Age and who drives, what you wear, when in the day you ride, and how you get to the track in the first place.
- Who actually drivesUnder-16s normally ride as a passenger, not a driver. A buggy seats two, a quad usually one, so count the drivers in your group before you count the machines.
- Getting to the trackDesert tracks sit well outside town, and a taxi back at dusk is nobody’s plan. If you are not on the main hotel strip, take a ride that includes the transfer.
- When in the dayGulf and Moroccan summers make midday unrideable. Sunrise and sunset departures exist for exactly that reason, and they are the good light anyway.
- How long you rideA safari with a quad option is not a quad tour. Check whether the machine is yours for 20 minutes, 30, or the full hour.
By country
Six towns where the quad is the main event, not the add-on.
Merzouga
Doha
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