Dar Ahlam

A house without a front desk

Dar Ahlam ("house of dreams" in Arabic) opened in 2002, created by Thierry Teyssier. It occupies a kasbah — the fortified earthen house of southern Morocco — between its walls and gardens, in the douar (hamlet) of Oulad Cheik Ali in Skoura. Its 14 rooms and suites come in two kinds: seven "discreet refuges" and seven rooms open to nature.

The house runs on a simple principle: no reception, no key, no set timetable and no restaurant. There has been no fixed menu since it opened; meals are served in a different place each day, under a tree or by candlelight. The cooking is mostly vegetable-based, with produce largely grown in the palm grove.

Days are shaped by the team, whom the house calls "the butterflies": a treasure hunt through secrets hidden in the walls, workshops in dried flowers, cyanotype (a blue photographic print made in sunlight) or clay modelling, a vintage-style portrait session, stories told by Hannane, a night under the stars.

To unwind, there is a hammam and a shaded pool the house calls "L'Eau de VIE".

The Skoura palm grove

Skoura lies about 40 km from Ouarzazate. Its oasis covers nearly 25 km², watered by the Dadès and Hajjaj rivers and an old network of channels, and is part of the Southern Moroccan Oases Biosphere Reserve recognised by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

In the palm grove, the 17th-century Amridil kasbah is one of the best-preserved in Morocco; it appeared on the old 50-dirham notes and is partly open as a museum, with a terrace over the palms. The oasis is best explored on foot or by bike, ideally with a guide so as not to get lost.

The house has opened several places in the palm grove:

• the Food Lab, a 2,000 m² kitchen garden in around thirty plots (vegetables, aromatic and medicinal plants), ten minutes' walk away, where you taste grilled vegetables, learn to make sfenj (Moroccan doughnuts) and discover drying and fermenting;
• the Bread House, where bread is kneaded by hand and baked daily in a traditional oven;
• the Sky House, a trail around bees and honey designed with the artist Olivier Darné;
• the Earth House, for shaping clay in the valley's pottery tradition;
• Muusiiqaa, a recording and music studio opened in September 2026, whose first resident artist is Guillaume Sorge.

Two, three, four or five nights

The house offers four lengths of stay, each widening the circle around the kasbah.

• La Kasbah (2 nights): the house, its gardens, the hammam and the workshops.
• L'Oasis (3 nights): the palm grove and the bread, sky and earth houses, with the Food Lab.
• Les Vallées (4 nights): outings into the Atlas. In spring, between April and May, the Dadès valley fills with thousands of rosebuds, which you can distil into rosewater or essence; at the end of winter, it is the almond trees' turn. You hike or climb around Taghia, a mountain area home to Amazigh (Berber) communities, cross the canyon at Sidi Flah, an oasis where a few families farm, and picnic by the water.
• Le Grand Sud (5 nights or more): a roaming journey, with one night at the dune camp near Iriki.

Our reading: two nights are enough to understand the house, but Skoura's remoteness argues for three or four; the Grand Sud is for those with a week.

The dune camp and the Deep South

The camp is a nomad-style refuge around Iriki, a former salt lake ringed by dunes. The evening runs from the tea ceremony to dinner around the fire. In the hottest months, the house moves the camp to the Atlas foothills, where it is cooler.

Lake Iriki lies in Iriqui National Park, created in 1994, which covers about 123,000 hectares between the Draa valley and the Anti-Atlas, in the provinces of Zagora and Tata. The lake is a salt basin that fills only after rare rains, when it draws migrating birds.

The Grand Sud also includes two longer journeys. The "Route de mémoire" follows the Amazigh people from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the Sahara in five stages, limited to 50 couples a year. The village of Tizkmoudine, about 3 hours 30 by road from the kasbah, is a ksar (fortified village) left empty for some fifty years that its residents are bringing back to life; you sleep by lantern light next to a wood stove. The house presents it as the first project of its "700,000 hours Impact" programme.

Sabaro's view

For whom: couples who want the Deep South with bespoke service; families, since children are welcome and have a walled garden to play in; travellers with their dog.

Strengths: a 14-room house where nothing is fixed in advance; meals in a different place every day; the palm grove, the Atlas valleys and the desert from a single base; a 4.8/5 Tripadvisor rating from 275 reviews.

Good to know: room sizes are not published; the house displays no label; exactly what each package includes is not detailed on its site.