How to Travel the Sahara: Safety, Logistics, Routes

Spanning over 5,600km, from the shores of the Red Sea to Mauritania on the Atlantic coast, the Sahara is the size of the United States. It covers almost one-third of Africa. The world’s largest non-polar desert includes 11 countries, with Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt fronting the Mediterranean. To the south lie Niger, Chad, Mali and Sudan, which overlook the Sahel’s semi-arid grasslands and savannah. A short history of the Sahara Since the Book of Exodus in the sixth century BCE, which contains the earliest known accounts of desert travel, deserts have been frequently depicted as a soul-destroying sea of dunes, scorched earth and hellish nothingness. While large swathes of the Sahara are inhospitable –- there’s roughly one person per four square kilometres –- sand covers only 15 to 25 percent. The rest is gravelly plains, mountains, depressions and... .... Continue Reading at Explorers Web