Thanksgiving in the Sahara
One long table in the dunes, the whole camp to your family, and nobody else for sixty kilometres
Thursday 26 November 2026
A table nobody has to host
Thanksgiving is the one week of the year the whole family is willing to move. It is also the week somebody spends three days in a kitchen and eats the meal standing up.
Here, the camp is yours and the cooking is ours. Our chef sets one long table on the sand, lights it, and serves your family under the darkest sky category there is. No other guests, no restaurant booking, no washing up. The organiser gets to be a guest for once.
Late November is also one of the best windows of the year at Erg Chegaga: warm days for camel treks and dune walks, cold clear nights, and light that photographers plan whole trips around.
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Included
What taking the whole camp means
The entire camp
Every tent, the majlis, the fire pit and the dunes around them, closed to everyone else for the length of your stay. Up to 20 guests.
Eight tents, eight bathrooms
One Noor suite and seven Saida tents, each with its own en-suite bathroom and hot shower. Tents are doubles as standard; extra beds go in for children as a supplement. Sixteen sleeps easily, twenty fits.
Full board by our chef
Every meal, including the Thanksgiving table itself, cooked on site. Traditional roast or Berber feast, your call.
A team of twelve
Kitchen, camp and guiding staff who stay invisible until they are needed, and who are used to older guests and small children.
The desert programme
Camel treks, dune walks, sandboarding, 4x4 excursions and a stargazing session, all included rather than sold as extras.
A Bortle Class 1 sky
The darkest classification on the scale. On a clear night the Milky Way casts a faint shadow on the sand. There is no phone signal to compete with it.
How the rate works
One figure for the whole camp
Whole camp, up to 20 guests. Minimum 2 nights.
The rate covers the camp per night, whatever the size of your party, so it does not change with headcount. The fuller the table, the less it costs each household. We quote on your dates rather than publish a figure, because Thanksgiving week books early and what a stay costs to run depends on the nights you take and what you want built around them.
Write with your dates and the number of people and you have a figure, and full terms, within 24 hours.
Full board, camp activities and airport transfers by 4x4 included. Flights, helicopter transfers and travel insurance are not. Longer stays and a Marrakech night either side are easy to add.
Practical
The questions families ask first
Getting there
Fly into Marrakech, directly or via Casablanca, Paris, Madrid or Lisbon. From there the camp is 1 hour 40 minutes by private helicopter, landing beside the tents, or a full day by private 4x4 through the Draa Valley. Plenty of families split it: grandparents and small children fly, everyone else takes the road.
If something goes wrong
The camp has its own helipad, so an emergency evacuation leaves by air rather than by piste. By road the nearest village is about 1 hour 30 minutes by 4x4. We carry a satellite phone and our team is briefed on emergency procedures, which we share with you before you arrive. We ask every guest to travel with medical and repatriation cover.
Weather in late November
Daytime around 22 to 30 degrees Celsius, comfortable for walking and camel treks. Nights are cold, which is what makes the fire and the blankets part of the evening rather than a formality. Rain is rare and skies are clear.
Children and grandparents
The camp works well from about four or five years old, and younger with notice. Walking distances inside camp are short and level. Tell us the ages and any mobility needs in your party and we will plan the arrival and the sleeping map around them.
Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday 26 November. Thanksgiving 2027 falls on Thursday 25 November, and we take reservations for it now.
Enquire
Hold your Thanksgiving dates
Tell us roughly how many of you there are and we will come back within 24 hours with dates, a sleeping plan and a full quote.
