22 August 2026 · 6 min read · Desert
The gap between the best and worst camps in the Sahara is wider than in any other category of accommodation in Morocco.
Almost every Morocco itinerary includes a night in the desert, and almost every photograph of one looks the same: a tent, a dune, a sunset. The reality ranges from a genuinely remarkable night to a row of canvas boxes within earshot of a generator. Four questions separate them.
Interim art plate – replace with photography before launch.
1. How far from the road?
This matters more than anything else. At Erg Chebbi, the dune field is reachable by car, and the cheapest camps sit just inside the sand where the access track ends. You will see headlights, hear vehicles, and share your sunrise ridge with sixty other people.
Ask for the transfer time by 4×4 from the last paved road. Under fifteen minutes means you are on the edge. Thirty to forty minutes puts you properly inside the erg, where the horizon is unbroken in every direction.
2. Private use, or shared?
A camp of eight tents taking eight separate bookings is a small hotel with canvas walls. The same camp booked on a private-use basis, for your group alone, is something else entirely – dinner runs to your timing, the fire is yours, and the silence is not punctuated by other people conversations.
Private use is the single upgrade that most changes a desert night, and it costs less than people assume outside peak weeks.
3. What happens to the waste?
The ergs are fragile and there is no infrastructure. Well-run camps truck grey water out, use solar for lighting with a generator only for brief charging windows, and employ staff from the nearest village rather than importing them from Marrakech. Badly run camps bury what they cannot carry.
This is a fair question to ask directly, and the answer tells you a great deal about everything else. Operators who have thought about waste have usually thought about bedding, food safety and staff pay as well.
4. What is the bathroom, exactly?
En-suite in the desert covers everything from a plumbed bathroom with a hot shower to a chemical toilet behind a zip. Both can be fine – what matters is knowing which you are getting. Ask whether there is running water, whether the shower is hot, and whether it is attached to your tent or shared.
Chebbi or Chigaga?
Erg Chebbi is easier to reach and fits neatly into a route coming south from Fes. It is the right choice when the desert is one night of a longer journey. Erg Chigaga is two hours of piste from M Hamid, five times the size, and almost empty. It is the right choice when the desert is the reason you came.
Whichever you choose, ask to sleep outside. Every good camp will carry a bed out onto the sand for you, and nobody who has done it talks about the tent afterwards.
