Al Tarfa, Dakhla Oasis

ight hundred kilometres from Cairo, the noise runs out. Al Tarfa stands in Dakhla — widely held to be the loveliest of Egypt's oases and among the least visited — on two hundred thousand square metres of private reserve, where palm groves give way to dune and Arabian horses graze loose. It was built the way the villages around it were built: local materials, mud plaster, old methods deliberately revived, ceilings woven from palm leaf. Twenty rooms and suites, no two alike, their lamps and carpets made for them, several with a fireplace and a plunge pool. Dar Al-Mona holds the high ground with the Explorers' Bar and a library; Dar Al-Hana, the spa, looks out across sand. Lonely Planet names it the Western Desert's top choice, and it has long appeared on world's-best lists. What it is, in truth, is a house in the Sahara, kept by a man who knows the desert.

It is genuinely far, and that is the point. Dakhla lies roughly 180km from Kharga's airport, six hours from Luxor, and a day's drive from Cairo. Private turboprop or jet charter into Dakhla airport, twenty minutes from the lodge, is the civilised solution and we will price it alongside the road route. Whichever you choose, the journey is part of the stay, not an obstacle to it.

Desert weather is two climates a day. Winter and spring are the kind seasons. Nights are cold, which is why there are fireplaces, and summer in the New Valley is uncompromising. Pack for both ends of the thermometer, and for sand.