Milestone Birthday · Erg Chegaga · Morocco
The one year
everyone comes
Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. Often the single occasion in a year when fifteen or twenty people from the same family clear the same week and travel together. When you take the whole camp, it is yours alone, and the rate is for the camp, not per head.
Ask For Your DatesWhat the camp gives a birthday
Six things a restaurant, a villa or a function room cannot
01
The whole camp, yours alone
When you take the whole camp, it is yours alone. No second seating, no shared lounge, no strangers at the next table and nobody filming from it. The team works for your group that week and for nobody else.
02
One rate for the whole camp
A single rate for the camp, set case by case against your dates and what you ask for, never per person. It does not move between a group of six and a group of eighteen, so a sibling who confirms late changes nothing.
03
A tent per couple, a bathroom per tent
Eight tent suites: the Noor Suite for 2 and up to 4 with extra beds, and seven Saida Berber tents for 2 and up to 3 with an extra bed. Each has its own bathroom with hot water, which quietly solves a great deal across three generations. See the camp.
04
Three nights, not two
The day itself needs an eve and a morning after. Two nights turns the whole thing into a transfer with a meal in the middle, and the people who flew furthest get the least of it.
05
A Bortle 1 sky
The darkest class on the scale, 60 kilometres beyond M’Hamid El Ghizlane. The toast happens at sunset on the big dune, and the evening ends flat on your back with the Milky Way reading as a band of light.
06
No wifi, no network in camp
For an important call, a signal can be found a short walk away, about twenty minutes there and back. Most guests make the walk once, or not at all.
The shape of three nights
The eve, the day itself, the morning after
The eve. The group reaches the camp, takes a welcome tea and settles into the tents. The first sunset is walked up the big dune together, which is the moment people who have not seen each other for years stop checking their phones. Dinner by candlelight, early night for whoever needs it.
The day itself. The morning stays free: the dunes on foot with a nomad guide, camels, sandboarding, or a terrace and nothing at all. Late afternoon, everyone climbs for the toast facing the sunset. Then the dinner: a long table under the stars or in the caidal tent, a menu built with our chef, the cake, Berber musicians around the fire, candles set along the dune.
The morning after. Sunrise for whoever wants it, a long breakfast, and the conversations that no dinner in town leaves room for. Then the road back, which many groups break with a night in Marrakech.
Everything in that shape is yours to move. A surprise ceremony, speeches staged at the top of the dune, a procession of lanterns, photographs projected under the stars. The private celebrations page sets out what else is possible.
Capacity. 2 to 18 guests, up to 20 with extra beds, in eight tent suites. No minimum. Take the whole camp to have it to yourselves, or book a few tents and share it with only a few other guests.
Season. September to June. Closed in July and in August. October to April the days sit between 18 and 28 degrees; December and January, 18 to 24 by day and 2 to 8 at night.
Getting everyone here. About 8 h 45 by road from Marrakech in our own 4x4s with our own drivers, of which 7 h 15 is tarmac as far as M’Hamid and 1 h 30 is piste over the last 60 kilometres. Or 1 h 40 by helicopter from Marrakech Menara, five or six seats per rotation, landing at the camp, which is what most groups put the guest of honour on.
How it is priced. One rate for the whole camp, set case by case against your dates and what you need, never per person.
How it is settled. A written answer within 24 hours, and a 20% deposit confirms. One person coordinates with you or with your event planner, in writing, with no call to schedule.
Why the whole family, and why now
The arithmetic that makes a birthday the right year to do this
A milestone birthday is usually the only occasion in a calendar year that moves fifteen or twenty people from the same family at once. Grown children fly in, cousins who never see each other book the same week, and a date that has been in the diary since January is the one thing nobody argues about. Weddings do it too, but weddings belong to two people. This one belongs to everybody who comes.
The rate follows the camp, not the heads. That is the part most hosts take a moment to believe: inviting six people or inviting eighteen leads to the same figure for the camp, set case by case against your dates. So the usual editing down of a guest list, which costs somebody their invitation, has no purpose here. If the tents are going to be standing, they may as well be full.
Three nights is the honest minimum, and most groups that stay four do not regret it. The decade turning is worth more than one dinner, and the people who crossed the Atlas to be there deserve a morning after. For a group that spans three generations, the comfort questions, a bathroom per tent, the helicopter for whoever should not do nine hours of road, are answered on the privatisation page.
All private celebrations · The eight tents · 40, 50 or 60: three different moods
Frequently asked questions
How many guests can come for a milestone birthday?
Does the rate change if we are eight rather than eighteen?
Why three nights at the minimum?
When is the camp open, and how cold are the nights?
How do guests reach the camp from Marrakech?
Will anyone else be at the camp during the celebration?
Is there wifi or phone signal at the camp?
How far ahead should we book, and how is it confirmed?
As Featured In
Private buyout
Ask for your dates
The whole camp for your group, from two guests to eighteen. Tell us when and how many of you: a written proposal for the whole camp comes back within 24 hours, with no commitment.
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2019
Open since
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4.8★
TripAdvisor
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8 tents
The camp to yourselves
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24h
A written proposal, no commitment
