What's it like to stay in a luxury desert camp in the Sahara?

You reach it the romantic way, by camel or 4x4 over the last ridge of dunes as the light goes gold, and then the camp simply appears below you — a cluster of cream-and-white tents arranged in a horseshoe around a sand courtyard, lanterns already glowing, carpets laid straight onto the desert floor. Someone walks out to meet you with a cool towel and a glass of tea, and you feel the day's grit and heat start to lift off you before you've even unpacked.

Inside your tent, the contrast is the whole point. Push back the heavy canvas flap and there's a real bed, a proper one, dressed in white linen and piled with Berber blankets, rugs underfoot, a writing table, a lantern, and — the detail that makes people laugh out loud — an en-suite bathroom with a flushing loo and a hot shower, all of it run quietly off solar and generators behind the scenes. You're in the middle of the largest desert on earth, and you can brush your teeth at a basin and climb into bed like you're at home.

Evening is when the camp earns its name. Dinner is several courses served by candlelight at a long table set out on the sand — a tagine, salads, fruit, mint tea — and afterwards the staff and local musicians gather around a fire and start to drum, the rhythm rolling out across the dunes while sparks climb into a sky that has, by now, completely filled with stars. You lie back on a low cushion with a blanket, the fire warm on one side and the cold desert night on the other, and time goes pleasantly soft.

Be clear-eyed about what it is and isn't. This is glamping, not survival; purists may find it tame, and it costs far more than a basic bivouac. But for most travellers it's the sweet spot — you get the silence so complete it rings, the dawn light pouring pink over the crests, the camel ride and the star-filled sky, and then you get to sleep on a real mattress and wake up rested rather than wrecked. The desert at its most generous, with none of the hardship to distract you from how astonishing it is.