The Way Back Filming Locations: Peter Weir's 2010 Trek

Peter Weir needed a desert that could pass for Mongolia, then for the Gobi. He found both in southern Morocco, and he shot the colder and greener ends of the story in Bulgaria and India. The Way Back filming locations run from Ouarzazate through the Dades to Merzouga, and they sit on one drivable road. The film was shot in Bulgaria, Morocco and India over roughly 66 days, with the Sahara doing the heaviest work.

In this guide, we will break down what each Moroccan location played, why a real sandstorm made the final cut, and how you can drive the route yourself.

Ouarzazate Cast as Mongolia

The shoot opened in Ouarzazate, where the plain outside town played the Central Asian steppe. Weir needed flat, pale, stony ground for the first weeks of the walk, and that is what the edge of the city gives you. The desert only arrives after the gulag escape, so these weeks needed open space. Atlas Studios lists the film among the productions that have passed through its gates.

If you are mapping The Way Back Morocco Ouarzazate scenes, this is the ground to picture: hard gravel, dry channels, and the High Atlas along the skyline. The city itself is a working Moroccan town at about 1,150 m, and nights stay cold even after a hot afternoon. The studio visit is a short detour, and our guide to the studios and their production list covers what is open to visitors.

The Dades Heights and Erfoud: Doubling for the Gobi

From Ouarzazate the unit moved east, first to the high ground above the Dades, then to Erfoud and Merzouga. The Gobi is gravel plain, salt pan, low ridge and sand sea, and Weir shot each of those in a different place.

• The Dades heights: rocky switchbacks and cold nights for the climb away from the gulag.
• Erfoud: the last town before the sand, where the unit based itself for the desert work.
• Erg Chebbi at Merzouga: the dune field that played the Gobi sand sea.

Erg Chebbi’s ridges rise to roughly 150 m, which is why the dune sequence reads as a wall of sand instead of a beach. The road between these places is the one travelers use, so the drive doubles as the location tour. For a second production that leaned on the same corridor, our breakdown of the Sahara film shoot follows it stop by stop.

Merzouga and the Sandstorm That Beat the Machines

Peter Weir The Way Back filming relied on wind machines for the storm that hits the men on the dunes. Then a real sandstorm rolled over the ridge set and the location manager pulled the crew out. Weir sent a second-unit cameraman back in to shoot cutaways, which stayed in the film.

The same ridge produced a smaller story that Weir still tells. A local man in long robes walked the set each morning to clear snakes and scorpions, and he told the director, “the desert is with you.”

Merzouga today is a dune village with camps at its edge. You can ride out at sunset, sleep in a tent, and be back on the road after breakfast. Camps range from simple tents to setups with hot showers, and a 4x4 transfer from the village takes about 20 minutes.

Siberia in Bulgaria, India in Darjeeling

Where was The Way Back filmed outside Morocco? Bulgaria carried the first act and India closed the walk. A full-scale gulag went up at Boyana Studios in Sofia, with snow machines and real snow for the Siberian exteriors at Vakarel. The cave arch where Ed Harris appears was shot at Prohodna.

• Boyana Studios, Sofia: the gulag, built at full scale and dressed for winter.
• Vakarel: exteriors for the march through Siberian snow.
• Prohodna Cave: the rock arch used for the cave sequence.
• Darjeeling, West Bengal: tea country between Nepal and Bhutan, standing in for the end of the route.

India was not Leh or Ladakh. Darjeeling took the crew into the tea hills at about 2,000 m, and a typhoon destroyed the base camp while shooting carried on almost without pause. Official notes put Tibet in Bulgaria too, so the mountain scenes have no Sahara in them.

The memoir behind the film is disputed. Records that surfaced later show that Slawomir Rawicz was released by the Soviets rather than escaping, and Weir now describes his own film as “essentially a fictional film.”

The Drive: Ouarzazate, Dades and Merzouga

The film route works as a road trip. The crew followed geography, and the drive passes the same landmarks in the same order. Ouarzazate to Merzouga is roughly 350 km, most of a day behind the wheel, with the Dades sitting halfway.

Stops worth building in:

• Ouarzazate: the studios and the ksar country around town.
• Boumalne Dades: the gorge road and the switchbacks above it.
• Todra Gorge: a short detour under walls that run to about 300 m.
• Erfoud and Rissani: fossil workshops and the last market before the dunes.
• Merzouga: Erg Chebbi, the camel trek and a night in camp.

Our 4-Day Morocco Desert Tour from Ouarzazate follows this ground, with Todra, Erfoud, Gara Medouar, Merzouga and Rissani on the way. If you would rather finish in Marrakech, the 4-Day Guided Morocco Tour from Ouarzazate to Marrakech takes in the Dades, Todra and Merzouga before crossing the Atlas. Most travelers sleep in Merzouga and drive back the next morning.

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