The short answer. For a leadership offsite in Morocco, choose Marrakech when the agenda is full, the group is large and the trip is short; choose an Atlas Mountains lodge when you want fresh air and walks within about an hour and a half of the airport; choose the Sahara when the purpose is a few important decisions or a reset of the team, and you can give it four nights or more. The desert asks for a longer journey and gives back what the other two cannot easily offer: no network and nothing else going on.
At a glance
| Marrakech riad or hotel | Atlas Mountains lodge | Agafay, near Marrakech | Sahara, Erg Chegaga | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time from Marrakech airport | 15 to 30 minutes | About 1 hour 30 | About 40 minutes to 1 hour | About 8 hours 45 by road; or Casablanca to Zagora by air, then about 3 hours by 4x4; or about 1 hour 40 by helicopter |
| Network | Wifi and mobile signal | Usually wifi | Usually mobile signal | No wifi, no signal; a signal a short walk away, about twenty minutes there and back |
| Where the work happens | Meeting rooms, riad salons | Terraces, lodge rooms | Tents in a stony desert | A tent, a shaded terrace or the open dunes |
| Evenings | Restaurants, the medina | Quiet, mountain views | Dinner under the sky, city lights on the horizon | Fire, dinner together, a Bortle 1 sky |
| Natural length | 2 to 3 nights | 2 to 4 nights | 1 to 2 nights | 4 to 6 nights |
| Best for | Kick-offs, large teams, mixed agendas | Strategy with walks, mid-size teams | A taste of the desert close to the city | Hard decisions, new teams, boards, founders |
Why the setting changes the offsite
Most leadership teams do not lack meeting rooms. They lack uninterrupted time. The setting decides how much of the day belongs to the agenda and how much leaks back to inboxes, calls and the city. Each of the three Moroccan settings answers that question differently, and none is right for every team.
Marrakech: when it is the right choice
Marrakech is the easiest option to organise. International flights land a short drive from the hotels, the city has properties of every size with meeting rooms and good connectivity, and evenings can be spent in restaurants or the medina.
It is the right choice for a two or three night offsite with a dense agenda, for a large team that needs breakout rooms, or when some participants can only join for one day. The trade-off is attention: the city is lively, everyone stays connected, and the offsite competes with both.
The Atlas Mountains: air and walks, close to the airport
The valleys of the High Atlas are about an hour and a half from Marrakech. Lodges there offer terraces, mountain views and walks between villages, with wifi in most of them. It is a good middle ground for a team that wants to step out of the city without a long journey: work in the morning, walk in the afternoon, back in Marrakech within a couple of hours if needed.
Agafay: the desert look, near the city
The Agafay plateau, south west of Marrakech, is a stony desert rather than a sea of dunes. Camps there are close to the city and usually within mobile coverage. It works well for a single evening or a night out of town at the end of a Marrakech offsite. We compare the two deserts in detail on Agafay or the Sahara.
The Sahara: when distance is the point
Erg Chegaga is one of the two great dune seas of Morocco, at the end of the road beyond M’Hamid El Ghizlane, the last village. The final stretch is sixty kilometres of piste, about an hour and a half by 4x4. There is no village near the camp, only scattered tents of nomad families, and no network.
That is the reason teams come. With no signal, the offsite does not compete with anything. Conversations run longer, people listen to the end of a sentence, and decisions that were deferred for months tend to come back to the table. We describe what leadership teams notice in what changes when a leadership team does an offsite in the Sahara.
The trade-off is time. The journey takes most of a day by road, so the desert makes sense from four nights onward. For shorter windows, a Marrakech or Atlas venue will serve you better.
Combining two settings
Many teams do both. A shape that works well:
- Night one, Marrakech. Participants arrive on different flights and gather for dinner.
- Day two. The group travels south together, by road with a stop in Ouarzazate, or by air via Casablanca and Zagora, or by helicopter from Marrakech.
- Nights two to five, the desert. The core of the work, with the agenda kept to a few questions.
- Last night, Marrakech. A dinner in town, then flights home.
Read how to move twelve to twenty people to the Sahara for the arrival windows, luggage and vehicles.
What a day looks like at a desert offsite
- Early morning. A walk in the dunes at sunrise for those who want it, then breakfast.
- Morning. The main working session, in a tent or on a shaded terrace.
- Lunch and early afternoon. A long lunch, then free time in a quiet camp: reading, a nap, a conversation that did not fit into the session.
- Late afternoon. A shorter session, or an activity: a camel ride at sunset, sandboarding, a walk with a nomad guide.
- Evening. Dinner together, a fire, and a sky rated Bortle 1, the darkest class on the scale.
Practical points for the person organising it
- Capacity. Eight tent suites, each with a private bathroom: from 2 to 18 guests, up to 20 with extra beds.
- Shared or private. The camp is shared by default, each guest booking a tent. Privatisation of the whole camp is possible for any request, subject to availability, and quoted on request.
- Season. The camp is open from September to June. October to April is the most pleasant period for a working offsite.
- Confidentiality. A non-disclosure agreement on request, and no photographs of guests.
- Dietary and religious needs. Halal meat, an alcohol-free stay on request, the qibla direction and a space for prayer.
- Getting there. Every route is detailed on how to get to Erg Chegaga and, for the helicopter, on helicopter to the desert.
Next step
If the desert fits your agenda, send us your dates, the size of the group and the questions the offsite needs to answer, at reservations@umnyadesertcamp.com or through the contact page. A written proposal comes back within 24 hours. You will find the formats for boards and executive committees on board offsite in Morocco and executive offsite in Morocco.
