Is the Sahara desert good to visit in summer?

I will not pretend summer is the easy season — it is the one I steer most people away from, and I would rather lose a booking than send someone into Erg Chebbi unprepared in July. Midday temperatures regularly hit 45°C and I have logged 48°C on the open dunes. The sand itself becomes too hot to walk on barefoot. This is not weather you fight; it is weather you organise your whole day around.

That said, summer works if you respect the rhythm. We do everything at the edges of the day. The camel trek leaves at 5am or after 6pm, never in between. From roughly 11am to 5pm you are resting in shade — a good camp has a cool common tent or even a small plunge pool, and the better fixed camps near Merzouga now run on solar with proper fans. The light at dawn in summer is extraordinary precisely because the air is so clear and the sun rises so early; I have had photographers tell me their best frames came in August.

The unexpected upside is the nights. Unlike winter, summer evenings stay warm — often 22 to 26°C — which means you can genuinely sleep out on a platform under the open sky without a single blanket, just the breeze and the stars. For some guests that experience alone justifies the heat. Crowds are also thinner, so you often have whole stretches of dune to yourself.

My honest take: if your dates are locked to July or August, come, but keep the desert portion short — a 2-day Merzouga run rather than a long crossing — drink far more water than feels necessary, and book a camp that takes cooling and shade seriously. If your dates are flexible, shift even to late September and the experience transforms.