Dar Ahlam

Dar Ahlam, the house of dreams, occupies a nineteenth-century pise kasbah in the Skoura oasis east of Ouarzazate, on the old caravan route towards the Sahara. The French designer Thierry Teyssier reworked it into fourteen rooms wrapped around gardens of roses, olives and date palms, with earth walls, open fires and almost no signage or hotel apparatus at all.

The operating model is unusual. There is no menu, no restaurant and no timetable; staff learn what guests like and then arrange each meal in a different place, a garden corner, a rooftop, a candlelit ruin, a picnic laid out in the dunes or a Draa valley gorge. Excursions to Ait Benhaddou, the Todra gorges and the Dades valley are built around the guests rather than a schedule.

Rates are effectively all-inclusive of meals, drinks and most excursions, which explains the headline figure. It suits travellers who want a base in southern Morocco and would rather not make decisions for a few days.