Phylicia StitzelGet ready for this: a Sahara Luxury Tour🏜️! Yeah, you read that right! Not just your next-door park or beach but the gigantic Sahara! This includes a fabulous a tent for your “glamping” experience, meals included, a camel ride to the camp site, fire light music and a night under the stars that will take your breath away! So, let’s dive into the Sahara luxury tour!
Hey, my travel-savvy buddy! 🌴✨ Before I spill the beans on all this incredible free info, I’ve got a little favor to ask! 🙏🤩 How about using my affiliate links below to book your trip? It costs you absolutely nothing, and it gives my blog a little ✨boost✨ to keep the adventure train chugging along! 🚂 So, why not help a friend out, have an incredible trip, and keep the good vibes flowing?💃 Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
So, picture this: endless stretches of golden sand, the sky putting up its best show during sunrises 🌅 and sunsets 🌇, and you get to do all this without compromising your love for luxury. How’s that for an adventure?
Companies with Sahara Luxury Tours
Several companies offer this opportunity, including Morocco Vacations Travel Guide (who I worked with), Desert Luxury Camp, Yellow Zebra Safaris, and Luxury Sahara Travel. Each one offers a unique blend of excitement, comfort, and security, ensuring you enjoy this jaw-dropping wilderness responsible.
Morocco Vacations Travel Guide, for instance, set me and my daughter up with a luxury tent that slept 3 people, that were a surprising mix of glam and authentic desert vibes🌙⭐. With them, you don’t just survive but thrive in the Sahara!
I’m sure that there are more options, but I wanted to include other options for you to start your research prior to planning a trip. Once again, I worked with Morocco Vacations Travel Guide, and I had a very good experience with them!
My tour didn’t JUST consist of taking a wonderful luxury tour into the Sahara Desert. It was an entire 4-day package that began in the city of Fes and ended in Marrakesh.
This tour also includes:
- Private trip through the desert from Fes to Marrakech (4 days)
- Enjoying oasis towns of Erfoud and Merzouga
- Taking a camel ride into the Sahara Desert and dinner under the stars
- Explore the holy town of Rissani
- Visit Kelaa Mgouna (a famous rose plantation)
- Spend the night in Berber Luxury Desert Camp in Merzouga among the sand dunes
- Enjoy 1-hour walk through Todgha River and visit a local Berber village
- Explore the UNESCO Heritage-listed Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou
- Enjoy a drum show at the campfire in the desert camp
Our 4 Day Journey
After we were picked up from our Riad (hotel) in Fez we hit the road with our guide. We made our first stop outside of Irfane, there is a national park where you can stop and feed monkeys! This was such a cool experience, the last time we had seen monkeys in Gibraltar there was explicit instructions to NOT feed the monkeys, or even to have plastic bags because the monkeys associate that with food and they will try and take it from you to find food.
Whereas here we had the opportunity to feed them! My daughter was ecstatic to have the chance to feed the monkeys. I loved watching her look for the babies and make sure that they got their share of peanuts too and not just the adult monkeys. Seeing her love for animals and ensuring that even the children are fed just makes my heart happy.
Our journey continued! As we ventured on, we saw tall mountain peaks that were still covered in snow! This was a fun and familiar sight for me, one I hadn’t seen all winter, so it was nice to see a little frozen slice of “home” even from a world away.
Along the road we saw a lot of livestock! Mostly sheep but it wasn’t the number of livestock that I loved seeing, what I loved seeing was the makeshift huts that were scattered across the countryside. These are the homes of Nomads! Families that have followed their traditional herd routes for hundreds of years, before nomads would travel in tribes of several families but now most nomads stick with just their families. What an interesting way to live! I am totally fascinated with the nomads of Morocco now!
Our driver made sure that we stopped to see beautiful overlooks and interesting sights of the countryside, he didn’t want us to miss anything from his beautiful country. Then the best part of the day…lunch time! I don’t know if you know this about me or not, but I love food! And I have found that there is something about Moroccan food that I SUPER LOVE! So, on this trip I was so excited to be able to enjoy as much of the local food as I could.
To be expected, we stopped at a large tourist watering hole. But the location was something that couldn’t be beat! From the terrace where we ate you could enjoy the warm (or getting hot) sun and a view of the mountains that we had just descended! The view was spectacular! The more we were taken through the country the more I can see why the people here are so proud to be Moroccan and why they take such pride in their land and culture.
By evening time, we had entered through the Gate of the Sahara! This is the part of the day/trip I was most looking forward too! Trekking through the Sahara desert on a sunset path that lead us to camp! I swear this couldn’t have been anymore picture perfect if it was in front of a green screen.
The lush and rich golden color of the Sahara as the setting sun began to enrich the contrast of the sand’s color even more. Golden rays of sun kissed our necks until we reached a dune where we stopped to enjoy the sunset’s final moments. As soon as I was off the camel, I took my sandals off! I wanted to dig my toes into the soft and silky sand of the Sahara as we climbed the dune to soak up the fleeting moments of the sun over the desert.
Once the sun had its final moments we loaded back up on the camels and trekked on to camp. Everything about camp was perfect! We were welcomed with mint tea and nuts while the Berber men were asking where everyone was from and asking how far they had traveled to be there.
We were shown to our tent and given time to settle in, change into traditional clothes (if we wanted) and then head to the dining tent for dinner. There are many things about Morocco that are going to have me keep coming back but one big thing is the FOOD, like I said earlier! Oh, my goodness, every meal, no matter how simple or complicated it seemed, the food was always ASTOUNDING!
After dinner we sat outside with our bottle of Moroccan wine outside our tent watching the stars before the campfire started where we would be able to enjoy local music. This was a chance to be immersed into the Berber culture. We stayed up well into the night listening to music and enjoying good company.
The next morning, we set off driving through winding roads and oasis’s – with beautiful overlooks into Berber territory. There were a lot of little stops throughout the day where we could enjoy the views, eat more food and get out to stretch our legs. We ended the night at Ksar Sultan Dades, where we had the chance to lay out in the sun, soak up the view, stretch our legs and be pampered! The service was outstanding, and the view couldn’t be challenged!
The Following morning our driver picked us up and we loaded up with our first stop going to a rose distillery factory. This factory was located in Kelaa-des-Mgouna town in Dades Valley or the Valley Of the Roses. We were given a tour of how they distill the rose pedals into rose water and other products!
Next was my favorite part of the day! Visiting the Kasbahs! The meaning of the word Kasbah is varied, including “keep”, “old city” and “watchtower” or “blockhouse”. The first one we visit was the Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou. If you like movies (which come on, who doesn’t) you might recognize this Kasbah from over 26 movies! Including, Lawrence of Arabia, Indiana Jones, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Prince of Persia, Game of Thrones and the Bible. Yeah…pretty impressive list for an 11th century Kasbah.
This was one of the few times during this tour we were able to get out and walk around a location. We visited a nice restaurant that looked out of over the Kasbah and after we were finished with lunch, I loaded up my daughter in the backpack carrier “Fernando” and we walked down a narrow dirt path that lead us to the bridge across a SALT river into the Kasbah.
There are only 10 families who still live in the Kasbah, yes take a look at the photo above, someone still calls this place home. An ancient stronghold from the 11th century and not many extras have been added to this UNESCO since then. Walking through the narrow streets reminded you how close everyone was to one another. Not just houses but the streets were barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast without someone having to give way.
From the top you can see why this location was so important as a stronghold, you could see for miles! Well into the valley so any enemy was at a disadvantage from the beginning because the people could prepare long before the attack would ever come to the citadel.
Lastly, we visited La Kasbah de Telouet, Telouet Kasbah is a Kasbah along the former route of the caravans from the Sahara over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech. The kasbah was the seat of the El Glaoui family’s power, thus sometimes also called the Palace of Glaoui, and it was built in the 18th and 19th centuries. Now the government asks for a small entry fee (which equals to about $2) per person to pay the watchman and to ensure that the site is maintained.
We were told by our driver, that we wouldn’t care about paying the entrance fee once we got inside, boy was he right! This was like an exclusive private tour of the Royal Alcázar of Seville, but better. There was only one other family in the entire Kasbah during our visit and we could come and go, no one was pushing us around or asking us to move out of their photos and we could touch everything!
Guess what’s the best part??🤔 These tours are perfect not just for the lone rangers but also for women travelling alone and families! A safe, fun, and one-of-a-kind experience for everyone, regardless of your travel party or preferences! Pretty cool, huh? 😎
Long story short: The Luxury Sahara Tour is a win-win for every wanderlust soul who dreams of thrilling adventures during the day and cozy, starlit nights. Highly recommend from this travel-loving friend to another!
