What do you actually do on a desert tour (typical itinerary)?

People often picture the desert night as one vague block of time, so let me walk you through how it actually unfolds. You'll typically reach the edge of the dunes in the late afternoon, around an hour or so before sunset, having dropped your big luggage at a hotel and packed an overnight bag. There you meet your camel handler (or your 4x4 driver if you've opted out of the camel), climb aboard, and set off into the Erg Chebbi dunes. The timing is deliberate: you're crossing the sand exactly as the light turns golden and the shadows of the dunes stretch out — it's the photograph everyone comes for.

The camel trek to camp takes roughly an hour to an hour and a half, and you arrive as the sun is setting or just after. The camp greets you with mint tea, you're shown to your tent to drop your bag, and then there's free time to climb a nearby dune and watch the last light or the first stars. Dinner is served communally — usually a harira soup, a tagine, bread, fruit and more tea — followed by the part people love most: the staff bring out drums around the fire and there's Berber and Gnaoua music, often with everyone joining in. After that it's stargazing, and the sky is extraordinary.

You sleep in the tent under those thick blankets, and the night is quiet in a way most people never experience. The wake-up is early — usually around 6am — because the whole point is to be up for sunrise. Some camps have you climb a dune to watch it; others you simply step outside as the sand glows pink and orange. Then a quick breakfast and the ride back out, camel or 4x4, reaching the dune edge in the cool of the morning before the day's onward drive.

Beyond that core arc, most tours offer extras you can build in. Sandboarding down the dunes is popular and good fun; some itineraries include a visit to a nomad family for tea, the Gnaoua musicians of nearby Khamlia village, fossil sites, or a quad-bike or 4x4 dune excursion. Then you either continue on to Fes or loop back towards Marrakech. So the 'desert tour' is really sunset ride, camp evening, sleep, sunrise, ride back — simple, but it's the rhythm of it, and the silence and the stars in the middle, that make it unforgettable.