Marrakech · Erg Chigaga · High Atlas

The Short Way In

Fly in over the Atlas. Drive out through everything you flew over.

3 days · 2 nights6-14 guests · fully private

The drive is only a chore in one direction.

Marrakech to Erg Chigaga is about four hundred and fifty kilometres of road and sixty of piste. Done both ways in a short trip, it eats the trip. Done once, in the right direction, it is the trip: the Draa valley, the ksour, Ait Ben Haddou, a pass at 2,260 metres and the villages on the far side of it.

So you fly in and drive out. The helicopter crosses the High Atlas and the Draa in a fraction of the time and lands at our own camp, which is the part most helicopter packages cannot do: they set down at Zagora and put you back in a vehicle for three and a half hours, two of them off-road. Ours has a helipad in the erg.

It runs to three days and two nights because that is what a diary can absorb without a fight, and it is built for people who decide alone: founders, chief executives, a board, a small leadership group. One group at a time, and nobody else on the camp.

Send an enquiry

What you'll experience

Helicopter from Marrakech, landing at our own helipad in the erg
The High Atlas and the Draa valley seen from above
An evening and a night with nomad families in Erg Chigaga
Sunrise on the crest before anyone else is awake
Out by 4x4 through the Draa palm groves and its ksour
Ait Ben Haddou, and a kasbah night near Ouarzazate
The Tizi n'Tichka pass at 2,260 metres on the way home
High Atlas Berber villages, and lunch in a house
An argan or rose cooperative, explained by the people pressing it
Six to fourteen guests, and nobody else on the camp

The programme

Day 1

Marrakech, and then the erg

Lift from Marrakech in the late morning and cross the High Atlas from above: the Tichka road as a thin line below, then Ouarzazate, then the Draa valley unrolling south until the palm groves stop and there is nothing but sand. You land at our camp, not at an airstrip three and a half hours away. Tea, the dunes at the hour they are worth seeing, and an evening that does not involve a schedule.

Day 2

A night with the nomads, and the long way out

The families who move through this erg are not a performance laid on for arrivals; they are the people who know where the wells are. Dinner and a fire with them, and the sky that comes with sixty kilometres of nothing in any direction. Sunrise on the crest before anyone else is awake, then out by 4x4: the piste, M'Hamid, and the Draa north through its palm groves and its ksour. Night in a kasbah near Ait Ben Haddou.

Day 3

The Atlas, the villages, and home by dusk

Up over the Tizi n'Tichka at 2,260 metres, stopping in High Atlas Berber villages where lunch is in a house rather than a restaurant. An argan or rose cooperative depending on what the season is producing, where the people pressing it explain it themselves. Back in Marrakech by late afternoon, which makes the following morning workable.

The retreat

Capacity
6-14 guests · full buyout
Base
Our own camp at Erg Chigaga, then a kasbah near Ait Ben Haddou
Transfer
Helicopter from Marrakech on the way in · private 4x4 convoy on the way out · reversible, or flown both ways as a two-day version
Season
Late September to early June. Not July or August: the Sahara is unusable in that heat.
Investment
On request

These weeks run with a partner

This retreat is not on open sale. We build it with a studio, a club or a clinic that brings its own group, and we open a date around their season rather than ours. Tell us who you would bring and when, and we will come back with a week.

Design this together

Not ready to book yet?

Get the 2027-2028 dates and prices

Leave your email and we send you the full calendar, the prices, and a first idea of the retreat that fits you. No pressure, one email.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Where you stay

Superior accommodation, chosen on the ground by our own experts.

Nothing on this site was booked from a catalogue. Every riad, camp, kasbah and guesthouse was found, visited and slept in by one of our experts before it was ever offered to a guest. The standard is superior throughout, and the reason is practical: after a day of walking, surfing or altitude, comfort is not a luxury, it is what makes the next day possible.

Visited before it is offered

Our team travels the country year-round. If one of us has not slept there, it does not go into a programme.

Original, never generic

Private riads, our own exclusive-use camp in the dunes, restored family kasbahs, guesthouses in Berber villages. Places you cannot book from a screen.

Comfort as a working tool

Real beds, hot water, quiet rooms, proper food. Recovery is part of the programme, not an afterthought.

Groups & circles

Coming as a group?

Six of you or more, and the whole retreat can be arranged around your circle. Tell us the size and the dates, and we prepare a proposal for you.

Request a group proposal

A departure for your circle alone

A private date set aside for your group, at the pace and in the season that suit you.

One group at a time, never mixed

You are never placed among strangers. The camp, the table and the guides are yours.

Group rate and privatisation on request

For six guests or more we prepare a tailored proposal. Simply ask.

Reserve this retreat

Three days, six to fourteen guests, flown in and driven out. Dates are built around the group, and the two published departures are a starting point rather than the only option.

WhatsApp