Great Sand Sea

The Great Sand Sea is exactly what it sounds like: an immense ocean of dunes rolling west from Siwa toward the Libyan border, some crests rising hundreds of metres, all of it shifting slowly with the wind. It is one of the largest dune fields on earth, and standing at its edge you feel the true scale of the Sahara in a way the pyramids can never convey.

This is Siwa's adventure playground. Guides take 4x4s bucking over the crests, hand out sandboards for the long slides down, and time the run so you crest a final dune as the sun sets over an unbroken sea of sand. Some safaris press deeper to find fossil beds and hot springs. Come for the exhilaration, stay for a silence and a night sky few places on the planet can match.