The Most Beautiful Deserts in the World to Visit Once in a Lifetime

When you reach the gates of the Sahara Desert, in Tunisia at Douz, you find yourself in front of an old bar, a wooden hut, and trinkets from past travelers on motorcycles, in cars, on foot. You enter a sacred place, an immense place. In that world forgotten by the outside world, a new world begins. To define the desert as a kingdom is an understatement. Bruce Chatwin, in other deserts of South America, invented a travel literature (he, lost among the salt desert of Chile and the vast Patagonia), and the myth of desert travel remains one of seekers of peace. The most beautiful deserts, powerful in the imagination (of the senses)? They are. Where to go immediately.

Get lost in Salar de Uyuni. A salt desert that reflects all the beauty of the world. Destination: Bolivia, a stretch of salt and water that enchanted the Incas and has become a pilgrimage site for those who, at 3,600 meters above sea level, travel in the footsteps of Bruce Chatwin.

Waiting for night in the Namib Desert. A place of poignant beauty, its dunes that blend into white are a natural spectacle. An undisputed destination for riders who find a constant challenge in those dunes. Gigantic (over 80,000 square kilometers) it is one of the oldest areas in the world.

The road of life in the Great Victoria Desert. That iconic red land that not even Roland Garros can match, that color that burns just to look at it is the great wild soul of Australia. Follow the trails of eucalyptus that sweeten the hot air. Undeniably, the presence of the Aboriginal people (the Kogara and the Mirning) means that this will be a long journey into Australian culture.

Imagining the infinite (and living it) in the Gobi Desert. Immense, enormous, infinite, terrifyingly silent: the largest desert in Asia is the postcard of southern Mongolia, brushing against the borders of China. Waiting for dawn in a typical Mongolian tent, observing the extremely flat line of the horizon broken only by the sudden arrival of wild horses or Bactrian camels. No, we are not dreaming.