Smara is not a town built for sightseeing. Most travellers come to see one specific thing — the ruins of Ma El Ainin's Zawiya — and to experience the strange isolation of a desert garrison town deep in disputed territory. A half-day is enough.
What there is to do beyond the ruins is mostly atmospheric: walk the dusty central streets, watch the camel traders at the edge of town, drink mint tea while the wind moves sand across the road. The desert beyond Smara is what it is in this part of the world — vast, monochrome, almost completely empty. The town itself is the encounter.