The top 10 deserts in the world

SIGHTSEEING Updated : Aug 19, 2014, 05.47 PM IST

Photo by:  Damien du Toit, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

A desert can be a truly awe-inspiring and life altering travel experience—nothing can beat the serenity of a night in the desert under the stars. Get away from it all into a sea of shifting dunes and moon-like rock formations—as well as evidence of long-dead civilisations—perhaps to find aspects of yourself that you didn't know existed? Everybody should experience a desert in this way at least once.

Technically a desert is a region that receives less than 25 cm of rain per year on average and so we’re not just talking sand. Only 15% of the world’s desert surface is pure sand and most of it is in the Sahara and the Arabian deserts. As for the rest, there are rocks, gravel, pebbles and in Antarctica it’s all ice, as far as the eye can see.

Whether it’s braving the baking sun during the day (and the freezing cold at night), the rocky road or the perpetual cold, crossing a desert is a unique and powerful emotional experience. This trip of a lifetime is best done on foot, including camping at night.
1

SIGHTSEEING, AFRICA

Sahara Desert

The world's largest desert apart from Antarctica, the Sahara Desert is bounded in the north by the Atlas Mountains and covers 8.6 million sq km—nearly all of North Africa. Despite the extreme temperatures (highest during...more

2

SIGHTSEEING, BOTSWANA

Kalahari Desert

Extending from Botswana into areas of South Africa and Namibia, the Kalahari Desert's 900,000 sq km area is unusually diverse in climatic and physical features. Only the southwest can be described as true desert, with gr...more

3

SIGHTSEEING, CHINA

Taklamakan Desert

The name alone promises an unparalleled adventure—loosely translated, it means the 'place of no return'. As the local story goes, the Taklamakan Desert was created by god for the imprisonment of a local Turkic man's youn...more

4

SIGHTSEEING, NAMIBIA

Namib Desert

Back-to-back with the Atlantic Ocean, the 50,000 sq km African Namib Desert makes up a large part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia and covers a corner of southwest Angola.

5

SIGHTSEEING, ANTARCTICA

Antarctica

There has never been a single permanent human resident in Antarctica—the coldest, driest and windiest of continents, centred around the South Pole. Haunted by tales of the doomed Scott expedition in 1912, the vast interi...more

6

SIGHTSEEING, ARGENTINA

Patagonian Desert

Long before the Andes soared skyward out of the Argentinean ground, the 670,000 sq km cold, frequently frost-covered Patagonian Desert of plains and basalt sheets was smothered in the dense rainforest. Much of this fores...more

7

SIGHTSEEING, UNITED STATES

Colorado Plateau

There are nine national parks within the Colorado Plateau, which straddles the corners of four southwestern states, and many national monuments, most of which are striking geological features such as multi-coloured cliff...more

8

SIGHTSEEING, MOROCCO

Erg Chebbi

These aching, rolling dunes of sand are the largest in Morocco—strange, smooth mountains that defy any sense of scale, rising out of the flat region that surrounds them. The way the great, 50-metre high pile of sand just...more

9

SIGHTSEEING, ASIA

Arabian Desert

Almost all of the Arabian Peninsula is encompassed by this desert, which is comprised of the world's most extensive area of unbroken sand as well as rocky plains and highlands. Vegetation is sparse due to hot days and fr...more

10

SIGHTSEEING, NORTH AMERICA

Chihuahuan Desert

Residing on both sides of the Mexico-US border, the Chihuahuan Desert or El Despoblado (the unpeopled land) is North America's largest desert. It incorporates several mountain ranges and a great deal of scrubland, bounde...more

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