Is a private or shared (group) desert tour better?

This is the first real decision after you've decided to go, and I'm honest with everyone: it comes down to budget versus control. A shared desert tour is genuinely cheap — you'll see them advertised from around 70 to 130 dollars per person for two or three days out of Marrakech — because you're sharing a 12-to-16-seat minibus and a fixed itinerary with strangers. A private tour means your own vehicle and driver-guide, which costs several times more, but the whole trip bends to you rather than the other way around.

What you're really paying for with private is time and friction. On a shared run, the bus leaves when it leaves, stops where the operator has arrangements (including the occasional carpet or argan 'demonstration' that's really a sales stop), and you wait at every comfort break for the slowest person. With a family, that compounds fast — a toddler needing the toilet, a grandparent who wants ten quiet minutes at Aït Benhaddou, a photographer who needs to be at the dunes precisely at golden hour. Private lets you leave at dawn, linger at Todra Gorge, skip what bores you and stop for the view nobody else asked for.

Shared isn't a bad choice, though, and I won't pretend otherwise. If you're a solo traveller or a young couple on a budget, sociable, and flexible about the schedule, the group bus is sound value and you often meet good people — some of my favourite traveller friendships started crammed in a minibus over the Tizi n'Tichka. The vehicles and English-speaking drivers on the reputable operators are perfectly decent. You just trade autonomy for the saving.

My honest recommendation for most of the people I plan for: go private if you can stretch to it, especially for families, honeymooners, photographers, or anyone over three people where the per-person maths narrows anyway. The road to the Sahara is long, and the small irritations of group travel sit on top of an already big day. Pay for the control and the trip relaxes around you.