Are there toilets / showers at a desert camp?

This is the question I get asked most, and the honest answer is that "desert camp" covers a huge range. At the luxury end — the camps we use for honeymoons and most couples — each tent is a proper en-suite: a private bathroom partition with a flushing Western toilet, a sink, and a hot shower fed by a tank and a generator or solar setup. You would not feel you were roughing it at all; people are often surprised how comfortable it is out there.

Mid-range and standard camps are different. These typically have shared facilities — a separate block or a couple of dedicated toilet-and-shower tents that everyone in camp uses. The toilets are usually Western flush style, and there is a shower, but the hot water can be limited, sometimes solar-heated, so timing matters and a long hot shower is not guaranteed. It is perfectly clean and fine for a night, just communal rather than private.

At the basic, traditional bivouac end you should set expectations lower. Some very simple camps have only a shared toilet — occasionally a squat toilet — and no real shower at all, on the logic that you are only there one night. Water has to be trucked in across the dunes, so it is genuinely a scarce resource everywhere out here, and even good camps ask you to be sparing with it.

My advice is simple: decide what level of comfort you need and book accordingly, then confirm the specifics. If a private hot shower matters to you, say so explicitly and choose a luxury or premium camp — do not assume. For one night, plenty of people happily accept shared facilities to keep the cost down. Either way, pack wet wipes and hand sanitiser, because water is rationed in the Sahara no matter where you stay.