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Bring everyone. Take the whole camp. · Umnya Desert Camp, Erg Chegaga, Sahara Morocco

Bring everyone. Take the whole camp.

Eight to twenty people, one group at a time, sixty kilometres past the last road

Ask for a group proposal

Why a group works here

The camp was built for exactly your number.

Most places make a group fit around them: a block of rooms in a hotel that also has other guests, a restaurant table at eight, a coach with a microphone. Here the group is not fitted into anything. You take the whole camp, and for those days there is nobody else in it and nobody else anywhere near it.

Eight tents, each with its own bathroom, up to twenty people. That is the entire place. Below eight a group loses its energy, above twenty it stops being a group and becomes an audience, and the camp happens to sit exactly between the two.

Last reviewed 2026-09-12.

The camp costs the same whether you are six or sixteen.

Which means every person you add makes it cheaper for everybody already coming.

8

guests

highest per head

10

guests

12

guests

14

guests

16

guests

18

guests

20

guests

lowest per head

The bars show the cost per person relative to a group of eight. We quote one figure for the whole camp on your dates, so the arithmetic above is simply that figure divided by however many of you come. It is also why groups hesitating between twelve and sixteen nearly always end up at sixteen.

We do not publish rates. The season, the length of stay and the programme change what a stay costs to run, and a number on a public page becomes a ceiling in every conversation after it. Send dates and a head count and the written figure comes back within 24 hours.

Everyone has their own bathroom

The detail that decides whether a group of twelve is pleasant or an ordeal.

Eight tents
Each with a private en-suite bathroom, hot shower, a real bed and a terrace facing the dunes. Nothing shared, nothing communal, no bathroom queue at seven in the morning.
Two per tent
Sixteen people in couples or pairs, which is how most groups of friends arrive. Nobody is put with somebody they did not choose.
Up to twenty
Extra beds take a tent to three or four, which is how families with children and groups with a few singles reach the full twenty.
Fewer than eight
A group of six or eight takes the camp with tents to spare, and everybody gets their own. This is the quietest version of the place and the one couples in a group tend to remember.

Four things that decide whether it works

One person always organises it

In every group there is one person chasing eleven others for dates, deposits and dietary requirements. We are set up to make that person's job small: one contact, one written proposal with every line itemised, one invoice, and a payment structure you can split however your group splits things.

The group will not all arrive the same way

Some fly into Marrakech the night before, some come from Casablanca, one is late. We run our own 4x4s with our own drivers and we can collect from several points on the same day. Groups in a hurry put part of the party on a helicopter, one hour forty from Marrakech Menara, five to six seats per rotation, landing at the camp.

Mixed energy is the normal case

A group of twelve contains someone who wants to climb the big dune at dawn and someone who wants to read in the shade until lunch. The programme runs as a menu rather than a schedule: everything is offered, nothing is compulsory, and the two of them meet again at the table.

Nobody else is there

The camp takes one group at a time. There is no reception, no bar, no other guests and no day visitors, because there is no road for day visitors to arrive on. Your group is loud at dinner if it wants to be, and quiet at midnight if it wants that instead.

Six kinds of group, one arrangement

A milestone birthday

Forty, fifty, sixty. The kind of birthday where a restaurant will not do and a party at home is not the point.

A reunion

University friends, a team that worked together fifteen years ago, cousins scattered across three countries. The desert does something to a group that has not been in one room for a decade.

A wedding party

Not the wedding itself but the days around it, or the group trip instead of a wedding. Stag and hen parties that want something other than a city.

A family that has grown

Three generations, grandparents to grandchildren, in a place where nobody has to entertain anybody because the place does it.

A group of couples

Four or six couples who travel together every year and have run out of places nobody in the group has already seen.

A private club or circle

Members, alumni, collectors, riders, a small association. Groups with something in common and a reason to be somewhere no one can join uninvited.

Asked by whoever is organising

How many people does a group need to take the whole camp? +
There is no minimum in the sense of a number you must reach. The camp is priced whole rather than per person, so a group of six pays the same as a group of sixteen and simply enjoys more space. In practice groups of eight to sixteen get the best value, because the cost per head falls with every person you add while the camp cost stays where it is.
Does the price per person go down as the group grows? +
Yes, and steeply. We quote one figure for the whole camp for your dates. Divide it by six and it is one number; divide it by sixteen and it is a very different one. Nothing about the camp changes in between, which is why groups that hesitate between twelve and sixteen almost always end up taking sixteen.
How are the tents allocated in a group? +
Eight tents, each with its own bathroom, hot shower and terrace. Two guests per tent is the standard, which takes sixteen people, and extra beds bring a tent to three or four, which is how groups reach twenty. A group of six or eight has tents to spare and everyone can have their own. You tell us the rooming list and we set it up before you arrive.
Can the group arrive in separate waves? +
Yes, and most do. We run our own 4x4s with our own drivers and can collect from Marrakech, Ouarzazate or Zagora on the same day. Part of a group sometimes flies by helicopter, one hour forty from Marrakech Menara with five to six seats per rotation, landing at the camp itself while the rest arrive by road the same afternoon.
What does a group of twelve actually do for three days? +
Dunes at sunrise for whoever is awake, camel riding at sunset, sandboarding, 4x4 excursions and guided buggy raids across the piste, walking with the nomad families who move through the erg, bread baked in the sand, and guided stargazing with a telescope under a Bortle Class 1 sky. Everything is offered and nothing is compulsory, which is the only way a group of twelve stays a group.
How do we split the payment across the group? +
However your group splits things. We invoice the organiser once, itemised, and you divide it as you see fit; or we can take the deposit from one card and the balance from several. Tell us which in the first exchange and the proposal comes back written that way.
Can you handle very different dietary requirements in one group? +
Yes, with notice. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal and allergies are all normal here and the kitchen cooks around them rather than producing a separate sad plate. Send the list with the rooming list.
What is the best time of year for a group trip to the Sahara? +
October to April. Days run roughly 15 to 26 degrees and nights from about 2 degrees in midwinter to 15 in the shoulder months. October, November, March and April give the longest comfortable daylight, which matters when twelve people want to do different things with it. We do not take group bookings for the deep desert in high summer, and we will say so rather than sell you a week nobody enjoys.

Send the dates and roughly how many of you.

Roughly is enough to start. You will have a written figure for the whole camp, the itemised inclusions and a day-by-day outline within 24 hours, and you can take that back to the group before anyone commits to anything.

Ask for a group proposal

Related: taking the whole camp, milestone celebrations, arriving by helicopter.

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