Grand Erg Oriental

The Grand Erg Oriental is the larger of the two Algerian sand seas, covering close to two hundred thousand square kilometres across the east of the country and continuing over the border into Tunisia, with dune ridges that in places rise well over a hundred metres and long corridors of flat sand between them. Its northern edge is the Souf, the region around El Oued, where date palms are grown in hollows dug down toward the water table rather than planted on the surface, and where the town's domed roof architecture gave it the name of the town of a thousand domes. Deeper in there is nothing but sand and the occasional oil road.

What you actually see

• Dune ridges over a hundred metres - the scale of the eastern erg.
• Palms grown in dug hollows - the Souf method of reaching the water table.
• El Oued's domed roofs - the architecture of the northern edge.
• Corridors of flat sand - the ground between the ridges.

When to go

November to March; summer heat here is extreme and dangerous. Two to four days. Winter nights fall below freezing in the open desert.

Honest expectations

Travel into the erg requires guides and permissions; going alone is neither allowed nor survivable if anything fails. There is no water or shelter. Sandstorms in spring reduce visibility to nothing. Distances between fuel stops are long.

Nearby

El Oued is on the northern edge; the Tunisian border lies east.