desert candles tours

FROM M’HAMID: 4 Days Tour: Desert Nomadic Life

Our team is professional and experienced nomads who knows the desert by heart. They are happy to share experiences and traditions from their culture. By the end of the tour, they have become your friends.

The program consists of days with camel trekking through various landscapes of the desert. Before the sun sets, you find a suitable place to set up a provisional camp for the night. Cook tea and dinner on the camp fire. After dinner you sit together by the fire, share stories and play the traditional drums. Enjoy the unique desert atmosphere and a starlit sky beyond compare.

Every morning breakfast and tea is prepared on the fire, before you continue the trekking into the desert.

Desert Candles provides the necessary equipment, such as tents, cooking equipment, food, drinks etc. You only need to bring your personal belongings suited for the tour.

• From M’hamid
• Start/stop: At our office in M’hamid
• Duration: 4 days / 3 nights
• Transport: Camels and 4wd Landcruiser

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DAY 1: M’Hamid– Oued Naam

Day 2: oued naam – lotide, day 3: lotide – erg chigaga.

Lunch and a cup of tea are offered in the Sacred Oasis before we reach the dunes. In this oasis, we find palm trees and a source of water which is running the whole year around. It is used by the nomads and their herds.

After another 15 km of riding, we arrive to the big dunes of Erg Chigaga. The biggest dunes reach a height of 300 m and have a span of 40 km. Admire the sunset and experience a unique world, one made of calmness and tranquility.

DAY 4: Erg Chigaga – Bougarn Dunes

Price information.

• Transport in 4×4 Landcruiser
• Driver/guide
• Equipment for wild camp
• 3 breakfasts
• 2 lunches in the desert
• Sandboarding in the desert camp

Not included:

• Lunches on day 1 and day 4
• Travel insurance

Useful links

Packing for desert tour

Internet and Mobile

Moroccan Food

Other tours you might enjoy.

FROM M'HAMID: 2 Days Desert Tour to Erg Chigaga - Desert Camp

FROM M'HAMID: 6 Days Tour: Desert Nomadic Life

FROM MARRAKECH: 3 Days Desert Tour: Ait Ben Haddou – Erg Chigaga – Desert camp

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DESERT CANDLES: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

Desert Candles

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Very nice trip from Marrakech to Atlas... - Desert Candles

• Africa    
• Morocco    
• Souss-Massa    
• M'Hamid    
• M'Hamid - Things to Do    
• Desert Candles

We took the 2 days/1 night tour with Desert Candles Sahara Tours, starting in M’ Hamid, Morocco... read more

We had a very nice time at the tour and had a lot of fun discovering Morocco and the desert. Out... read more

Very nice trip from Marrakech to Atlas Mountains

It was very nice excursion! From Marrakech:Day trip Ourika -Three valleys in Atlas Mountains-Lake Takerkoust Beautiful view, colourful mountains, very safe journey with nice guide guy Esmail (hope didn’t mess up with his name if yes I am very sorry , and I am going to add picture of him ) very polite , very helpful It was private trip just me and my friend ,and we really liked it

Thank you for your review. We are happy that you enjoyed the trip. Esmail is the right name for the guide and driver 😁😁 Thank you 😃

Thanks to Desert Candles for a unforgettable trip to this magic place. We had tre great days with a very good guide, who took us to many exciting places along the way. Good food, english-speaking guides, a lot of history, hospitality and culture. Special thanks to Abdullah from all of us🐫🌴💫

Thank you for your nice review. We are very happy that you had a great time and you are always welcome back on new adventures 😊

As a solo female traveler I was nervous about going to this camp two hours out into the desert alone, but I had the greatest time with the owners of Desert Candles and felt so welcomed! It was a wonderful experience, the camp and food were amazing and I highly recommend this agency for your trip to Erg Chigaga ( or one of the many other trips they organize!)

Thank you very much for your review, Jamie. It was very nice to meet you and we enjoyed very much the time we spent togerher with you in the camp and the desert. Welcome back anytime.

We booked a tour for 4 people from Marrakesh to Quarzazate (Atlas film studio) via Ait-Ben-Haddou. The driver Abdellah was very friendly and reliable, the car was clean and in a really good visual and technical condition, we felt safe and comfortable. Pitty we had just 2,5 days in Marocco, otherwise we would definitely book the trip with overnight stay in the desert.

Thank you for your review, it is highly appreciated. We are happy to hear that you had a good trip. You are always welcome back.

So happy we chose Desert Candles fr our trip to the desert -it was absolutely the best experience. We only did a 2 day trip and yes the drive is long but it was so worth it! We were lucky to have the very knowledgeable Katem as our guide who told us so many interesting facts aswell as keeping us entertained with his many riddles on the long drive. Our driver Abdul was fantastic too and we always felt very safe with them in our 4WD jeep. We left our Riad at 7:30am and drove over the high pass in the Atlas mountains making a tea stop and a lunch stop on the way. The last 2.5 hours or so are off road through the desert and there is not even a path to follow-no idea how they find their way!! We loved that part of the drive and found ourselves seeing mirages with the sea suddenly seemingly to appear!! Desert Candles camp is magical and exactly as in all the photographs. Our tent had a proper metal door to keep out the cold and even an electric light and was plenty warm enough under all the blankets. The toilets were much better than expected and my husband even braved a cold shower after his run in the desert! As soon as we arrived my daughter and I went on camels into the dunes and climbed up high to watch the incredible sunset-wow! My husband is an extreme endurance runner so absolutely loved the experience of running in his luna sandals in the desert! We returned and the New Year's Eve drums had already started and the locals continued singing and playing music all night around the camp fire until midnight. It was a truly memrable experience and one I would highly recommend. We were 3 vegetarians for the meal and were really well looked after all evening. Abdullah runs a really friendly camp and all his team seem very happy together which makes for a great atmosphere. It is as much the people who make a place as the place itself and Desert Candles seem to have got everything just right. This is the perfect place to spend your desert experience if you want to be away from many tourists and surrounded by the biggest sand dunes. Thank you so much to Abdullah, Katem and Abdul and all those who made our trip so memorable!

Thank you for a wonderful and valuable review. It is truly great to hear that you had a good trip. You are always welcome back.

Desert candles are highly recommended. They were really great at communicating before the trip and the meet-up and whole experience went really smoothly. We did lunch in the camp, a camel ride, sandboarding, a night in the camp and then left the next day. We enjoyed every single part.

Thank you for the nice review. We are very happy to hear that you enjoyed yourselves.

Desert Candles

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Magical 3-day tour to desert - Desert Candles

• Africa    
• Morocco    
• Souss-Massa    
• M'Hamid    
• M'Hamid - Places to Visit    
• Desert Candles

We took the 2 days/1 night tour with Desert Candles Sahara Tours, starting in M’ Hamid, Morocco... read more

We had a very nice time at the tour and had a lot of fun discovering Morocco and the desert. Out... read more

Magical 3-day tour to desert

We booked the 3-day tour Marrakech-Erg Chigaga. Our driver and guide Abdul was was great! A very knowledgeable and humble man. We felt very safe and comfortable in his presence. The overall experience was great. Such a nice way to experience south east Morocco. Food was good and Abdul knows the right places to visit and where to eat on the way. The desert camp was magical, positioned directly next to the great sand dunes. All the guides and owner Abdullah make sure you have a nice stay and they even make nomadic music at the campfire during the evening. We highly recommend this tour and our guide Abdul! Cheers, Jorg and Dana.

Thank you for your great review! We're so happy to hear you had a great time and would love to have you back for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

Loved every second! Our guide even discussed the plan and made chances to fit us even more. We went on the 4days desert tour from Marrakech and our guide changed it so we spent two nights in the Erg chigaga camp at the sand dunes. They even booked a quad tour in the sand dunes after we requested it and drove us to the quads from the camp. They all were very lovely, kind and helpful. The tour was amazing and I would recommend it to all my friends.

Thank you for your wonderful review! We're happy to hear you had such a great time. You are always welcome back for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

It was an amazing trip with our family and guide nouredine. The scenery was beautiful and nouredine was very kind and helpfull. The kids really liked him too! He knows a lot and is able to share all his knowledge. The food was also perfect. The kids also liked the camel trip and sandboarding.

Thank you for your wonderful review! We're thrilled to hear you had such a great time and that Noureddine made the tour especially great. We would love to have you back for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

Said is the most amazing knowledgeable caring your guide. Very sensitive to each individual needs. Makes everything flow easily. He has made my experience an incredible one. Thank you

Thank you for your wonderful review and kind words! We're thrilled to hear that Said made your tour incredible. Welcome back any time for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

We travelled from Marrakesh to Erg Chigaga to Essaouira with guide Said and driver Abdul, who both took good care of us. Lots of interesting stops on the journey such as exploring a plantation with a local farmer, having a go at weaving a carpet and throwing a pot on a wheel with no pressure to buy anything. Good friendly accommodation on route. The night in the desert was wonderful. Snowboarding, camel ride to the dunes at sunset, sunrise watching and dancing to to the music played by berber nomads. Very special, we all loved it, thank you!

Thank you for your wonderful review! We're thrilled to hear you had such a great time and you are always welcome back for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

We really liked the desert experience of 2,5 days. With a top 4x4 driver Karim and excellent guide Ahmed, we visited the Erg Lihoudi and Erg Chigaga desert. We did camel rides, watched the sunset and sunrise, slept under the stars and visited some traditional villages and artisanal crafts. The camps were comfortable with bathroom facilities and fresh food. We also enjoyed the camp fire with some local songs. All the visits were included in the price so no unexpected costs.

Thank you for your wonderful review! We're thrilled to hear you had such a great time and would love to have you back for another adventure! Best regards from Desert Candles team

WORLD WANDERING KIWI

MAKING THE PAGES OF THE ATLAS REAL: A TRAVEL BLOG

Our Morocco Sahara desert adventure

Marrakech was a pleasure but I wanted the Wandering Kiwi family to get out of the city for a real Morocco desert adventure. It felt important to see something of the real Morocco during our week-long visit.

There are two places where tours take travellers to see the Moroccan Sahara desert, on two or three-day adventures from Marrakech. Erg Chebbi is the long-established contender  while Erg Chegaga is a more recent addition. I wasn’t sure which to choose until I read this useful blog post and talked to the Desert Candles tour company .

Ultimately the Erg Chegaga option was the most appealing. It is 45 kilometres from the nearest road, in the Sahara. Nomadic people still dwell there and this area still retains some of the charm of the real desert.

We took the road to Ouzarzarte in our 4X4 Landcruiser, getting to know Abdellah our guide, as we passed rows of pencil pines and palm trees, and the plush golf courses and villas of the Palmeraie.

As we climbed into the Atlas Mountains the hills became thickly forested with evergreen conifers that harbour wild boar. The road winds through green and red ranges, following the stony river with its brown trickle of water.

There are mud brick villages, the same colour as the hills, with silver olives and the square, single minarets of Moroccan mosques. Oleanders grow here beside the river, and prickly pears bowing under their load of fruit. Even what looks like a puddle of water seems to sustain small crops. In one valley there are orchards of apple trees and there are signs for cooperatives working in Morocco’s famous argan oil industry.

The wind whipped through the ravines when we stop for a coffee break. Gradually the landscape becomes more desert-like; incredibly dry, with dust-devils swirling. There are fewer and fewer toeholds of green but blue mountains are rising on the horizon.

After Ouzazarte the land is dry as far as the eye can see, the hills marked with great swirls and striations of sedimentary rock; monumental, table-topped peaks.

We climbed up to a pass with magnificent views through rocky gorges; rock struck through with patterns that look like the work of a divine artist. Then it was down the winding road to the beginning of the fabled Draa Valley.

I saw the green haze from far away. A vast ocean of waving palm trees under a lowering sky. The Draa strikes through the land for a thousand kilometres: all the way to the Sahara and then on through the desert to its rendezvous with the Atlantic Ocean.

Since ancient times agricultural communities have cultivated the rich soil of the river valley to grow dates. Close up the lush green contrasts dramatically with the bright reds of the fruit and yellow stalks.

Beneath the trees, overlooked by dramatic Mount Kissane, people till the soil for crops, women walk carrying baskets on their heads, and donkeys complain under loads that obscure them nearly completely. Beside some road works I saw a silver platter with a teapot and glasses – it’s always time for Moroccan mint tea.

The Draa Valley begins 150 miles south-east of Marrakesh, over the Atlas Mountains, and travels 160 miles to where it enters the Sahara near the oasis village of M’hamid. Here agricultural communities have cultivated the rich soil and dwelt in towered kasbahs amid a sea of waving date palm trees for millenia.

The towered kasbahs are walled berber villages that were once resting places along the caravan trail between the Mediterranean and faraway Timbuktu. The traditional four towers were used for security and food storage.

At last we reached Ait Benhaddou, probably the world’s most famous Kasbah. A local guide showed us this spectacular hill town and even welcomed us into the traditional home of his family. We walked up to the high point of the village and posed against the rising wind. Maybe rain is coming. This stark beauty has been well utilised as the backdrop in hundreds of films and there are two large movie lots nearby.

We stopped for the night at the magical Riad Lemane in the town of Zagora. This beautiful riad is set in a garden overhung by the palm groves. The room is comfortable and spacious but we couldn’t enjoy the lovely pool because the earlier wind storm had indeed presaged rain. It was pouring steadily and under our feet the desert was turning into churning mud! A delicious meal and a good night’s sleep were just what we needed.

On day two of our Moroccan desert adventure we crossed the valley and continued to Tamegroute, where we stopped to watch the creation of Morocco’s famous ceramic wares.

We drove on through blackened, basalt-shard steppes scattered with thorny acacia trees. The backdrop was the buttresses of the Madwar range. The land looks even less hospitable than yesterdays views but it has a blasted magnificence that kept me mesmerised.

There would be nothing but the occasional goat herd and his flock for miles and then suddenly, in the middle of nowhere would be a modern building – a high school – with ranks of bicycles lined up outside. Students must remain at school in Morocco until they are 18 these days and the teenagers cycle from surrounding villages to attend.

The settlement of M’Hamid is the end of the road and the beginning of the true desert.  Where the sand dunes rise high, shaped into waves by the wind.

The Wandering Kiwi family ran and climbed in the dunes and my daughter gathered up her courage and rode on a camel in the Sahara Desert .

We ate a delicious meal prepared seemingly by magic in this isolated place, and listened to the infectious rhythms of Sahrawi music into the night. We had our Sahara desert experience.

But more importantly, on this trip I felt like I had been given a glimpse of the real Morocco.

Seen the colour of the landscape change from red to black, to green, and back to red again; seen the children going to school and the ancient agriculture that is the backbone of the land. Felt a little of the rugged isolation and harsh environment of this beautiful country.

A perfect example of how the journey is more important than the destination.

On the return journey the river valleys were churning with brown water. The landscape was transformed. It will be a good year for the farmers of the Draa.

By Natasha von Geldern

I travelled to the Sahara in Morocco with Desert Candles , a Moroccan/Norwegian partnership tour company. Desert Candles offer a wide range of tours and the Morocco desert adventure we chose was the three-day, two-night trip to their luxury desert camp at Erg Chegaga costs € 245 per person.

Have you experienced a Morocco desert adventure?

If you liked this post why not pin it for future reference?

By Natasha von Geldern on March 26, 2021 .

Wow, I love some of those photos. The red town with walls (Ait Benhaddou ?) looks incredible, something out of Indiana Jones. And I really like the photo of the dunes outside the door. I was in Morocco (Marrakesh and Agadir) many, many years ago as a teenager but never saw the desert. I’ve actually never seen the desert and a place I’ve always wanted to go was Namibia for that reason alone. Morocco might be a much more accessible location. Love this kind of geography.

Beautiful post.

Frank (bbqboy)

The red dunes in Namibia are really spectacular and I would also recommend them if you can get there. But Morocco and the Sahara are a unique and wonderful place. Thanks for your comment Frank!

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Natasha von Geldern

Hi I'm the Wandering Kiwi, a travel writer and blogger passionate about making the pages of the atlas real. I have travelled in over 50 countries and hope my tales inspire you to live your travel dreams!

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5 of the Best Morocco Desert Tours

Climb lofty sand dunes and gaze out over expanses of Martian-esque sandscapes that seem to stretch on forever on one of these top Morocco desert tours.

(Photo: Tourradar.com)

Morocco’s landscapes vary from the fertile Mediterranean shores, to the lofty Atlas Mountains and down to completely inhospitable (for humans, at least) mile after mile of desert. Head south or southeast from Morocco and there is nothing but Saharan sand. But with the right tour company, a trusty camel and some top-notch logistics you can travel like Lawrence of Arabia through the Moroccan desert. Here are five of the best tour options based on factors such as safety, itinerary and duration.

3-Day Sahara Desert Tour from Fès to Marrakech

Both Fès and Marrakech are located on the more fertile northern side of the Atlas Mountains, but a route between the two passes through the lofty range of peaks to the arid desert on the southern side. This three-day tour is a great initiation into Saharan life without the hardship. You’ll spend the first day exploring the villages of the Ziz Valley before a night in the desert at the Merzouga Camp, surrounded by sand dunes. Escape the sun the next day in a deep gorge before working your way back through the Atlas towards Marrakech. From $509 per person.

Book at Tourradar.com

(Photo: Bookmundi.com)

Moroccan Desert Adventure

Longer tours mean a deeper dive into the desert and a better appreciation of the Sahara’s beauty and the customs that have developed as a result of the challenges of living on the fringes of it. This seven-day tour, starting and ending in Marrakech, is a great way to see much of the landscape, and towns and villages dotting the southern foothills of the Atlas Mountains, such as the magnificent Aït Ben Haddou, with its UNESCO-listed kasbah. You will spend a night also at the Merzouga Camp and ride a camel on the dunes there. From $525 per person.

Book at Gadventures.com

Moroccan Desert and Beaches Tour

There’s another type of much sought-after sand in Morocco beyond the desert: that of the beautiful Atlantic coast beaches, such as at Essaouira. Highlights of the tour, which heads out from Marrakech, include the red rock of Todra Gorge, a camel ride on the Mergouza sand dunes, a short hike near the highest mountains of the Atlas range, and a surfing lesson on the waves off Taghazout. As with all tours, accommodation is provided. As this is a lower-priced tour, accommodation is basic, in one-star hotels and hostels. From $769 per person.

Morocco Kasbahs & Desert Tour

Another open-jaws tour option, ideal for anybody wanting to slot a guided experience into a broader Morocco or North Africa trip, begins in Casablanca and ends in Marrakech. The itinerary is packed with experiences and activities from camel riding on Saharan dunes to a lesson in cooking the perfect tagine. The tour also stops at Fès, another major hub of the backpacker trail, and includes guided tours and dinner in an old Moroccan palace. Accommodation quality is a step above the previous tours on this list. From $899 per person.

Book at Bookmundi.com

Imperial Cities & Sahara Desert Experience

If you’d prefer to take a private tour of the cities, landmarks and desert of Morocco, this is a great eight-day option. You’ll also find yourself on a trip that maintains a high standard of comfort throughout; with the exception of your stay in the desert at the Merzouga Berber Camp, which is worth the sacrifice for the open canopy of stars and Lawrence of Arabia vibe, you can expect to stay in three- or four-star hotels. Highlights of the tour include a camel ride on the dunes of Erg Chebbi, and private guided tours of Fès, Volubilis and Marrakech. From $1,715 per person.

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PGA TOUR to return to Utah after 60 years, coming to Black Desert Resort

S T. GEORGE, Utah ( ABC4 ) — The Black Desert Championship 2024 Professional Golf Association TOUR FedEx Fall Cup in October will mark the historic return of the PGA TOUR to Utah after more than six decades.

The event — which is set to take place on the Black Desert Resort ‘s 19-hole championship golf course designed by Tom Weiskopf — will run from Oct. 9 through Oct. 13. This is the inaugural tournament in the four-year agreement between Black Desert and the PGA TOUR.

VIP weekly hospitality tickets for the championship are now available online . Public general admission passes and daily hospitality tickets are scheduled to be available in June. Manning told ABC4.com that the only place ticket sales will be guaranteed will be from blackdesertevents.com .

“We are delighted to bring top-tier professional golf back to this region and look forward to making history with an unforgettable tournament experience,” Patrick Manning, managing partner of Black Desert said.

Manning said volunteer spots for the event filled up within two hours.

“The tournament is an opportunity for our team and community to come together and represent our hometown,” Manning said.

The event schedule

• Official Pro-Am, open to the public
• Opening day, full field competition
• Second round of competition, full field competition
• Third round of competition, player field after the cut
• Final championship round
• Trophy presentation

“The Black Desert Championship is a landmark event for both the PGA TOUR and the state of Utah,” Manning said.

VIP tickets and exclusive hospitality opportunities are available online and include packages with varying levels of benefits and experiences.

VIP experience breakdown

• Multi-level club overlooking 16th green and par-3 17th hole
• Starts at $1,750
• Club on the 18th green over two levels, including covered open-air spaces and rooftop deck
• Starts at $2,250
• Grants VIP access throughout the day — both at the resort and on-course — across all five tournament days
• Starts at $7,500
• Access to walk inside the ropes for an entire round of competition with PGA TOUR players
• Starts at $10,000
• Join a PGA TOUR professional for 18 holes at the Black Desert Resort, including post-round reception
• Starts at $20,000 per team
• Play alongside two PGA TOUR professionals at Black Desert
• Starts at $30,000 per team

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.

A $450 million casino under construction in the West Valley near Loop 303 and Northern Avenue is on track to open by the end of the year, representatives from the Tohono O'odham Gaming Enterprise said Tuesday during a tour of the work.

The casino, called Desert Diamond Casino White Tanks at San Lucy, will include 900 slot machines, 48 table games, high-limit slots and table games, a VIP lounge, sportsbook and several food venues, including a Starbucks, Mike Bean, CEO of the Tohono O'odham Gaming Enterprise, said.

The casino is near Glendale on land that has been taken into trust for the tribe. The city of Surprise will be providing emergency services for the site.

The interior theme of the casino was designed to mimic a butterfly, with the ceiling designed to invoke the patterns on a butterfly’s wings.

High-end steakhouse, pub will be anchor restaurants

A Morton’s The Steakhouse will take one of the spaces for a large, sit-down restaurant. The high-end steakhouse will have indoor and outdoor dining and a wine room. The other sit-down restaurant space will be a pub-style restaurant called Pub Stop, which will also have indoor and outdoor seating.

The casino will also have a five-venue food hall with four restaurant options and a bar. The restaurants will offer different options, including rotisserie chicken, tacos, burgers and sandwiches. Bean said the development team is working on a system that will enable patrons to order food from different restaurants in the food hall in one order at a kiosk.

Indoor cigarette smoking will not be allowed, but there is a smoking area outside.

The project will create about 5,500 construction jobs, and the casino’s operations will create about 1,000 permanent jobs.

The casino and accompanying parking garage are the first phase of development for Desert Diamond Casino White Tanks at San Lucy.

The second phase planned at the site will include a 350-room hotel with convention and meeting space, a rooftop bar, a 2,500-seat entertainment venue and a hotel pool. After the hotel, Bean said future phases would be aimed at creating an “entertainment district” to complement the casino and neighboring attractions like the Wildlife World Zoo, which is across the street.

Construction on the first phase will last about 19 months, Randy Howe, project development director for the enterprise, said.  

The newest casino will be the fifth for the Tohono O'odham nation, which operates three casinos in southern Arizona, in Sahuarita, Tucson and Why, and a fourth location in the Phoenix metro near Westgate.

VAI Resort, Caesars, Ritz-Carlton: Biggest new hotels and renos opening in Arizona in 2024

Tribe allowed to expand land after flood

The nation was allowed to expand its reservation space to include by about 10,000 acres because of a settlement in the 1980s. The deal replaced land on the reservation that was destroyed by flooding when Painted Rock Dam was built. The nation was allowed to identify sites on unincorporated land in Maricopa, Pima or Pinal counties, according to the settlement. The newest casino is being built on 110 acres of that land.

The casino and accompanying development are planned for about 80 acres of the site, Howe said. The remainder of the land can be used by the nation as it sees fit, but the project development team will come up with several different ideas for possible planning that the tribe can use or modify, he said.

Next phase of Desert Diamond West Valley coming first

Bean said the next phase of the new casino is planned to come after the second phase of development at the Desert Diamond West Valley casino, which is near Westgate at Loop 101 and Northern Avenue. That expansion will also be a hotel, which will be 19 stories tall, with 450 rooms, a rooftop bar and convention space. A timeline for that development has not been finalized, he said.

The West Valley location sees about 10,000 patrons a day, Bean said. The new location will be smaller, so he anticipates slightly fewer customers per day.

Reach the reporter at  [email protected] . Follow her on X, formerly Twitter  @CorinaVanek .

From an amateur win to rain, desert's golf season was wild and unexpected

The snowbirds are heading home for the summer, the temperatures have been approaching 100 degrees and a number of Coachella Valley golf courses are preparing to close all or parts of their layouts for the summer for some major capital improvements.

That must mean the golf season in the desert is just about over for another cycle. There still might be some fireworks at the high school level, but for the most part, the desert golf season is closing.

And what a season it was, from totally unexpected winners to totally unexpected weather.

Here’s a look at the 2023-24 golf season in the desert:

Nick Dunlap wins

Until Scottie Scheffler decided to go crazy and win four of his last five tournaments including the Masters and The Players Championship, Dunlap was the feel-good story of the PGA Tour for 2024. An amateur playing on a sponsor’s exemption at The American Express in January, Dunlap, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, started well in La Quinta looking for his first made cut in his fourth pro tournament. But a third-round 60 at La Quinta Country Club put him in contention, and a final-round 70 at the Stadium Course at PGA West gave him a one-shot victory, making him the first amateur to win on tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991. Christiaan Bezuidenhout won the first-prize money, but Dunlap won the title. He decided to turn pro a few days later and has struggled since, but he has his full tour exemption.

PGA Tour/LIV battles continue

Dunlap’s win masked a week where the ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV golf was still center stage. The American Express was without its defending champion, Jon Rahm, who had made the jump to LIV just one month earlier. Rahm was the second defending champion in La Quinta in a row who missed the next year’s event because of LIV ties, joining Hudson Swafford. In addition, players like Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, believed to be big players in the ongoing PGA Tour evolution to a for-profit entity, talked about how the game could change and heal during the desert tournament.

More: Unlikely finish! Retief Goosen survives chaos of final holes to win soggy Galleri Classic

Rain at the Galleri

The Galleri Classic brought the PGA Tour Champions back to Rancho Mirage for the second consecutive year, and the tournament was again a success, bringing out fans and spreading the message of the cancer detection test Galleri. But something strange happened during the tournament, which was won in remarkable fashion by Retief Goosen. Rain, cold and wind hit the tournament in both the second and third rounds, something that rarely happens in the desert. Play was never stopped for the weather, and a final hour of play that included bogeys from most of the contenders led to a one-shot win for Goosen, who played the final round bogey free. Steven Alker bogeyed the final two holes, including a head-scratching bogey on the par-5 18th.

Opening of Ladera

Most people in the Coachella Valley will never get a chance to play Ladera, the stunning 18-hole course in Thermal on what once was a 306-acre lemon farm. But the course, owned by music mogul Irving Azoff and Apple executive Eddy Cue, is the first regulation course to open in the golf-rich desert since 2008. It is also the first design in the desert by noted architect Gil Hanse. Golf Digest called Ladera the best new private course in the country for 2023, but perhaps Ladera showed that a few more golf courses might be coming to the desert in coming years.

Epson Tour coming to the desert

It’s been a while since this happened, but the city of Indian Wells decided it needed a showcase for its Player Course at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, and what better way to do that than bring professional golf to the resort. The result is the Epson Tour Championship, the finale of the season for the LPGA’s developmental tour, will be played on the course in October. Is this the first step toward the city and the LPGA finding a way to bring the LPGA back to the Coachella Valley after the tour left following the 2022 Chevron Championship? The city hopes so, and perhaps enough desert fans will like that idea enough to come out to the Epson Tour and root on women who hope next year they will be on the big tour.

Testimonial

"A very enjoybale day in Moscow. We had a very nice and knowledgeable guide Anastasia.(Nastia) She was very passionate about the City and we learnt so much in our brief four hours walk with her! Certainly this walking tour added a lot of value to our Moscow Holiday. A great idea to educate visitors about Russia and Moscow. The group was intimate enough to ask questions and stop for snacks etc..we thoriughly enjoyed it and would highly reccomend it.Carry on doing a great job!"

"I really enjoyed the tour, it was a great experience, very informative and fun. I will definitely tell everybody about that tour, keep it it is a fantastic idea!"

"Sorry I do not remember the names :( ... They were very talkative and very into everything. I think they both really love the city, and they made me feel like this to. They knew much about History, which was very informative! Great guides!!!"

"We partook of the fantastic Petersburg Free Tour. Due to our timing during the low season (shockingly not everyone is flocking to Moscow while the average temperature is 15F), it ended up being just us and Sonia, the afore-mentioned super-guide. She quickly ascertained the limited scope of our wanderings.."