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Independent retreat planning, rooted in the oasis

Siwa Oasis Retreats L.L.C. was founded in 2020 in Shali — the ancient mud-brick quarter of Siwa town — by people who had spent years working inside the oasis and wanted to do something simpler: help travellers arrive at the right place, at the right pace, with no agenda other than their rest.

Our story

How this desk started — and why it matters

Siwa rewards people who know it. The difference between a stay that truly restores and one that leaves you wishing you'd stayed longer usually comes down to three things: which lodge you're in, what rhythm of treatments and excursions you've built around it, and how prepared you were for the road in. We founded this planning desk because we had seen both outcomes many times — and because we had the knowledge to shift the odds decisively toward the first.

Founder Farida Hassan spent eight years working at Siwa's lodges before starting Siwa Oasis Retreats. During that time she watched guests arrive at entirely the wrong place for what they'd hoped for: honeymooners at a busy eco-camp suited for backpackers; solo retreaters at a family resort; wellness seekers at a lodge that only really offers beds. She knew which properties offered on-site salt-spring access, which had hammam facilities that were genuinely therapeutic rather than decorative, and which desert camp operators were careful and experienced rather than improvised. In 2020 she left employment and began offering that knowledge independently.

The desk operates from a small office in Shali, three minutes from Souq Street market, which has been the heart of Siwa commerce for centuries. From here we communicate with travellers before their arrival, liaise with lodge owners and treatment practitioners in the oasis, and coordinate the logistics that make a remote desert trip uncomplicated. We work six days a week — Saturday through Thursday, 09:00 to 18:00 — and we answer enquiries within one business day.

We take no commission from lodges. We have no lodges to fill. That means when we recommend the Adrère Amellal eco-lodge for a couple seeking complete seclusion and spring-fed pools, or the Taziry Ecolodge for a traveller who wants to be close to town and the Wednesday market, or one of the independent desert camp operators for a Sand Sea overnight, the recommendation is only about fit. This is our entire value proposition, and it is the reason past clients return and refer.

Since 2020 we have planned retreats for guests from more than thirty countries. Most come for between four and ten nights. Some come once and come back every winter. A few — especially those who were going through a significant life transition — have returned to tell us that the trip was more useful than they'd expected. We take that seriously. The oasis has something real to offer, and our job is to make sure people get it.

What we believe

Values that shape how we plan

Three principles run through every retreat plan we build — not as marketing language, but as genuine operating constraints.

The mud-brick Shali fortress rising above Siwa town at dusk

Independence

We own nothing, so we advise honestly

Every planning desk that runs its own lodge has a structural incentive to sell you that lodge. We don't. Our fee is a fixed planning fee — the same whether you stay at a $60-a-night guesthouse near the Cleopatra Spring or a $350-a-night private villa at Adrère Amellal. This means you get honest matching rather than upselling. We'll tell you if the premium lodge is genuinely worth it for your situation — and we'll tell you when it isn't.

Compare eco-lodges →

Visitors floating in a salt-rich lake near Siwa

Slowness

Restoration takes time and space

We resist the impulse to fill every day with activity. A Siwa retreat should include unscheduled afternoons, long sessions at the salt spring, and meals eaten slowly in shade. We plan for that. When we recommend treatments — sand baths, hammam, olive-oil massage, a session in a salt room — we space them so they can be absorbed rather than consumed. The oasis will not perform its work if you're rushing through a checklist. We build retreats that have room to breathe.

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An empty desert road through the Western Desert dunes

Specificity

No two retreats are the same plan

A solo traveller arriving for ten days in February to address burnout needs a different lodge, different treatment rhythm, and different daily structure than a couple celebrating an anniversary in November, or a small group of friends who want wellness days combined with a Sand Sea overnight. We don't work from templates. The plan we give you is specific to your situation, and we'll revise it if the first version doesn't feel right.

See retreat types →

How we know the lodges

Years spent inside the oasis, not reading about it

We know Siwa's accommodation because we have slept in it, eaten breakfast at its tables and watched what happens to different kinds of guests over the course of a stay. Farida Hassan's eight years as lodge manager gave her detailed operational knowledge of how the eco-lodges run: which have their own spring-fed pools and which route guests to the public Cleopatra Spring or the salt lakes at Birket Zeitoun; which hammam facilities are maintained by trained practitioners versus staffed casually; which desert camps use experienced Siwan guides who know the Great Sand Sea rather than hiring drivers by the week.

Bishr Ali, our lead desert guide, has been leading excursions in the Western Desert for fourteen years. He grew up in Siwa, speaks Siwi (the Berber language of the oasis) alongside Arabic and English, and has a navigation knowledge of the Sand Sea and the road to the Qattara Depression that no outside guide can replicate. He pre-screens all desert camp operators we recommend, does not refer anyone he would not take his own family to, and updates his assessments each season.

Nada Kamel joined the team in 2022 after six years delivering wellness programmes at two of Egypt's better-known spa resorts on the Red Sea. She brought with her a practical understanding of what makes a treatment schedule therapeutically coherent rather than cosmetically pleasant — and she mapped that against what Siwa actually offers. Her wellness programme structures account for the specific properties of the oasis: the mineral content of the springs, the fine hot sand at the Dakrour dunes, the dry heat, the quality of the olive-oil and date products available locally. She advises on treatment pacing and which practitioners in the oasis are technically skilled.

Tarek Said manages everything that connects Siwa to the outside world: vehicle transfers from Marsa Matrouh and Cairo, reliable connectivity options, timing around the four-hour desert road that must not be started too late in the afternoon, and the supply and packing list for Sand Sea nights. His logistics work is invisible when it functions correctly, which it usually does — and it usually does because he has been doing it since 2021 and has the right contacts at every point in the journey.

Together we update our knowledge of the oasis each season. We visit in person between October and April, check in with lodge managers, try new treatments, and remove any property from our recommendations that has declined. We speak to every guest after their return. The feedback loop is short: a guest's account of their stay in November shapes the advice we give to the next guest enquiring in December.

The team

Four people, one oasis, since 2020

Founder & retreat director

Farida Hassan

Farida spent eight years managing wellness lodges in Siwa before founding this desk in 2020. Her career began at a small eco-guesthouse near Shali, where she learned the operations of a kershef-built property from the ground up — maintenance, seasonal staffing rhythms, the particular needs of guests who come specifically for the salt springs or the hammam. From there she moved to a larger property in the northwest of the oasis that served a higher proportion of international wellness travellers, managing both guest experience and practitioner scheduling. What she took from those years was not only detailed knowledge of Siwa's accommodation but a clear picture of where the gaps in the guest journey were — and where honest, independent advice would make the largest difference. She founded Siwa Oasis Retreats with the specific intention of being the planner she had wished existed for every confused or mismatched guest she had watched leave disappointed. She speaks English, Arabic and conversational Siwi, and leads all retreat planning consultations personally.

Talk to Farida →

Desert guide & oasis expert

Bishr Ali

Bishr was born in Siwa and has spent his adult life navigating the Western Desert in and around the oasis. He began guiding overland excursions at eighteen, initially for Egyptian travellers visiting the Sand Sea and the Oracle Temple of Amun at Aghurmi, then increasingly for international guests as the oasis became better known on the slow-travel circuit. Over fourteen years he has developed what he describes as a practitioner's rather than a tourist's understanding of the landscape: the shifting routes through the Great Sand Sea, the seasonal behaviour of the hot springs at Bir Wahed and the cold springs at Ein Qurayshat, the best hours for dune ascents and the right time to break camp. He pre-screens every desert camp operator who appears in our plans, assessing guide quality, vehicle condition, camp setup and safety practices. He updates that assessment each season. Bishr speaks Siwi, Arabic and English and handles all guest briefings before desert excursions.

About desert camps →

Wellness programmes

Nada Kamel

Nada came to the team in 2022 with six years of wellness programme development at two Red Sea resort properties — one a mid-market resort with a broad treatment menu, the other a smaller, boutique spa where she was the principal practitioner as well as the programme director. At both she developed an understanding of how treatment sequences work or fail: how rest and active treatments need to be spaced, how the body responds differently to heat treatments in different conditions, how to structure a multi-day programme that produces genuine recovery rather than a series of pleasant but unconnected experiences. She applied that understanding to what Siwa actually offers — and found that the oasis, used well, is among the more therapeutically coherent environments she had worked with. The mineral content of the springs, the specific quality of the silica-rich hot sand at Dakrour, the traditional hammam rhythm, the local olive oil and date preparations — these are not interchangeable with spa-hotel equivalents. She designs the treatment schedules within every Full Retreat Plan and Bespoke package and advises on which local practitioners are technically skilled and consistent.

Wellness treatments →

Logistics & transport

Tarek Said

Tarek joined the desk in 2021 and takes responsibility for everything that happens between a traveller's departure airport and the moment they check in to their Siwa lodge. That involves a surprisingly large scope of work. The road to Siwa — whether from Marsa Matrouh in the north or from Cairo in the east — is long, unmarked in places, and subject to seasonal timing constraints: a late-afternoon start from Matrouh in October can mean arriving in the dark, which is a different and less welcoming experience than arriving with an hour of light. Tarek coordinates private vehicle transfers with vetted drivers, advises on the bus schedule from Matrouh, manages packing lists for Sand Sea overnights where temperature drop is significant, and handles the practical details — SIM cards, cash, the right footwear for the springs — that guests don't know to ask about. He has been making this journey repeatedly since 2021 and has reliable contacts at every waypoint. His prep notes for the road are among the most practically useful things we give to guests.

Getting to Siwa →

Our journey

Six years in the oasis: a timeline

2020

Founded in Shali

Farida Hassan opens Siwa Oasis Retreats L.L.C. with a business registration in Marsa Matrouh Governorate and a small office in Shali. The first planning fee service launches in October, at the start of the cool-season. The first twelve clients are sourced entirely by word of mouth from Farida's professional network in the oasis. The desk plans retreats focused entirely on eco-lodge stay matching and salt-spring itineraries.

2021

Desert services added

Tarek Said joins full-time, and Bishr Ali begins his formal association with the desk as desert guide and camp-operator assessor. The first Sand Sea overnight packages are added to the services menu. Transfer coordination — previously informal — becomes a structured part of every planning document. Guest volumes double year-on-year through the October–April season.

2022

Wellness programmes formalised

Nada Kamel joins and begins the work of creating coherent, multi-day treatment schedules mapped to Siwa's actual offerings — sand baths, hammam, salt rooms, spring protocols. Previously wellness planning had been advisory and informal; from 2022 it becomes a structured element of Full Retreat Plans. Guest satisfaction scores for wellness outcomes improve measurably.

2023

Group retreats and international reach

The first group wellness retreat is coordinated — nine guests from three countries, seven nights, combining lodge stays with daily treatments and a two-night Sand Sea camp. Lessons from the logistics of a group trip reshape the Bespoke and Group planning tier. At this point guests have arrived from thirty-one countries. The desk is referenced in two international slow-travel publications.

2024

Seasonal assessment system

Bishr and Farida introduce a formal twice-yearly review of all lodge and camp operators in the recommendation portfolio. Properties are assessed in October before the season opens and in March as it closes. One lodge is removed from active recommendations following a change in management that affected treatment quality. The assessment methodology is shared with guests on request as a trust signal.

2025–26

Expanded retreats menu

The services page now covers twelve distinct retreat and planning types, from a simple one-night Stay Match lodge booking through to a ten-night bespoke group programme. Repeat-client rates are above forty percent for guests who have made at least one previous trip to Siwa through the desk. Planning enquiries are now answered within twenty-four hours year-round.

By the numbers

What six seasons looks like

Metric	Figure (to 2026)
Countries of origin (guests)	31+
Average stay planned	6.4 nights
Repeat-client rate	>40 %
Eco-lodges in active portfolio	9
Desert camp operators vetted	6
Retreat types offered	12
Seasons operating	6 (since Oct 2020)

These numbers tell a straightforward story: most people who plan a Siwa retreat with us once come back, and most come back for longer. The oasis is that kind of place — once properly reached, it draws people. Our job is to make sure the first trip is the one that earns that return.

For details on the specific retreats we plan, visit the retreats and services page. For planning fees and what each tier includes, see the pricing page. To start a conversation about your own Siwa escape, the simplest step is to send us a message with your dates and a sense of what you're seeking.

You can also read more about the destination itself — the oasis guide, the salt springs, the wellness treatments and the desert camps — before you reach out. The more context you arrive with, the sharper the plan we can build.

Ready to plan your retreat?

Tell us your dates, what you're carrying, and how much stillness versus adventure you want. We'll start from there.

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