Thanksgiving in the Sahara
The whole camp for your family, one long table in the dunes, and no village nearby
Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 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 whole camp is privatised for your family, on request and subject to availability, and the cooking is ours. On Thursday 26 November your private chef sets one long table on the sand, lit by torches, with the fire close by and a Bortle 1 sky overhead. No other guests, no restaurant booking, no washing up. The organiser gets to be a guest for once.
Three nights, Tuesday to Friday, give the family two full days in the dunes, with the dinner on the second. Late November is one of the best windows of the year at Erg Chegaga: warm days, cold clear nights, and long evenings by the fire. A longer stay starting before the 24th can be discussed on request.
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The stay
What taking the whole camp means
The entire camp
Every tent, the majlis, the fire and the dunes around them, for your family alone for the length of the stay. On request, subject to availability. From 2 to 18 guests, up to 20 with extra beds.
Eight tent suites, room to breathe
Seven twin tents with two single beds, and the Noor Suite, the largest. Each has its own en-suite bathroom and hot shower and is heated in winter. More than half stand alone on their own dune. Extra beds on request.
The Thanksgiving table
Cooked by your private chef: a traditional menu built around a roast bird, or a Berber feast. Every dietary need in the family is built into the menu, and into every other meal of the stay.
Every generation, its own pace
A camel ride at sunset, dune walks, sandboarding, baking Berber bread, music by the fire. Grandparents choose, children run, and nobody has to join everything.
Discretion
A non-disclosure agreement on request. No photos of guests, and we never publish the names of the families who stay with us.
No network, a Bortle 1 sky
No wifi and no mobile network, so nobody checks a phone at the table. A signal is a short walk away, about twenty minutes there and back. At night, the darkest sky class there is, with a telescope on request.
How the rate works
One figure for the whole camp
Thanksgiving 2026: 3 nights, 24 to 27 November. From 2 to 18 guests, up to 20 with extra beds.
There is one global rate for the whole camp, set case by case for your dates and for what you want built around them. We do not publish it.
Write with your dates and who is coming, and we send a written proposal within 24 hours, with the sleeping plan and full terms.
Full board by your private chef is part of the stay. Private 4x4 transfers, activities, the helicopter and a night in Marrakech either side are set out in the proposal. Flights and travel insurance are not included. Outside Thanksgiving week, a private stay starts at 2 nights.
Practical
The questions families ask first
Getting there from the United States
Royal Air Maroc flies nonstop to Casablanca from New York JFK, Washington Dulles, Miami and Montreal. From Casablanca, flights to Zagora run on Fridays and Mondays, sometimes Sundays, then about three hours by private 4x4. Or fly into Marrakech: the camp is 1 hour 40 by helicopter, landing at the camp helipad, or about 8 hours 45 by road. Plenty of families split it: grandparents and small children fly, everyone else takes the road.
Distance and health
There is no village nearby: by road the nearest one is about 1 hour 30 minutes by 4x4. Tell us about any health needs in the family when you write, and we plan the stay around them. We ask every guest to travel with medical and repatriation cover.
Weather in late November
From October to April, days run between 18 and 28 degrees Celsius, comfortable for walking and camel rides. Nights are cold, which is what makes the fire and the blankets part of the evening rather than a formality, and the tents are heated in winter.
Children and grandparents
The camp works well from about four or five years old, and younger with notice. Walking distances inside camp are short. The seven Saida tents are twins, so cousins share easily, and extra beds go in where a family wants to stay together. Tell us the ages and any mobility needs 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 enquiries 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 a written proposal and a sleeping plan.
