5 of the Worst Deserts You Could Possibly Wander Around In
Come join me in my world of imagination for a moment. Let’s say that you’re offered a truly kingly sum of money, but of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you want to earn this reward, you’ll be dropped smack-dab in the middle of one of the world’s deserts, and if you’re able to find your way out, a life of luxury is yours.
All in all, a highly unlikely scenario. By opening this article, though, you’re about to be uniquely prepared, should such a deal ever present itself. Well, sort of. You’ll, at the very least, know five deserts you absolutely shouldn’t choose.
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Here are five of the most deadly deserts on the planet…
The Danakil Depression
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The Danakil Depression, if you’ll excuse the pun, is the absolute pits. It’s located in the east of Africa, in both Ethiopia and Eritrea. Even if it was nothing but good old dirt, it wouldn’t be a great place to find yourself, since it, by year-round averages, is the hottest place on earth. In the summer, it pushes 131 degrees Fahrenheit. No tank top in the world can fight that kind of heat.
Worse, that extreme heat comes in part from the lava lakes in the area. There are also hot springs, but not the kind with capybaras balancing oranges on their head. These are toxic hot springs that emit strong sulfuric smells, meaning they stink of rotten eggs.
The Taklamakan Desert
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The Taklamakan Desert is the largest in China, and one of the largest deserts in the world. Covering almost as much area as all of Germany, even an ultra-marathon runner is likely to be found dead or deliriously hallucinating a folding table full of water cups. The name Taklamakan comes from Turkish, and it means “place of no return.” Basically, from the moment humans found it, they immediately pegged it as a place you don’t come out the other side of.
If you think that’s dark, it’s still better than its other nickname: “Sea of Death.” A bit redundant, given that we already have a sea of death: the regular sea. Still, I respect the poetry.
The Dasht-e-Lut
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The Dasht-e-Lut, or Lut Desert, is located in Iran. This name, too, gives you an idea of how many points of interest you can expect to stumble upon, as it means “Emptiness Plain.” You’ll find that the phrase “hottest desert on Earth” can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, and every single one of them would be deeply unpleasant to feel. The Dasht-e-Lut holds the crown when it comes to surface temperature, as the ground can hit 159 degrees Fahrenheit.
And you thought forgetting flip-flops on the boardwalk was bad. Being stuck without water, and your only option is to walk across the globe’s hottest bits? This is curse-level stuff.
The Skeleton Coast
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Speaking of poetically insulting ways to expire, how about dying of thirst on an ocean coast? For a second, your brain automatically thinks you’re surely fine, given how much open blue is in sight, before you remember saltwater is a thing. There are no Mai Tais or top-chopped coconuts available on the beaches of the ominously named Skeleton Coast, a name that’s superseded the name the indigenous people of Namibia originally gave it: “The Land God Made in Anger.”
The skeletons of the coast aren’t just animal in origin. The fogs also caused frequent shipwrecks, the crews of which would find themselves with hundreds of miles of swampland between them and the civilization they’d more than likely never see again.
McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica
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More of a winter person, but still looking for an incredibly hostile and dry environment to die and leave a desiccated corpse in? Have I got the location for you! Head right on over to Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys.
They get their name from Archibald McMurdo, a lieutenant on an 1840 expedition to the area, and not, as I first guessed, because it’s a place that will McMurder you. You’d think that in Antarctica, though you’re probably not living long, you’ll at least have ready access to clean, delicious glacier water. Not here. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are the largest ice-free area in Antarctica, thanks to strong winds. It’s such an unpleasant part of the planet to be a living thing on that it’s been described as closer to Mars' surface than Earth's.
