Like Lawrence of Arabia, some mad men are drawn to the desert. Its unforgiving challenges, ability to both fry and chill, and yet breathtakingly sensuous dune lines are often compared by the poetically inclined, to a lover, usually female, and usually difficult. The endless, shapely and ever changing sand dunes radiate the romance of adventure and the sun beating against them creates enigmatic and confusing shapes to beguile those who dream of conquering her. Technology has got us to places once off limits, but technology still hasn’t totally beaten the desert, which makes it one of the few adventures we can embark on with the same gung-ho attitude as old explorer heroes like Lawrence. The desert bogs cars and trucks down in its unpredictable sands and you can easily become lost and run out of supplies, so the best way to traverse these great empty expanses is still by the ships of the desert, camels, and with a guide who has the directions from their GPS augmented by the stars.

The old ways of life and ancient cultures are another of desert’s temptations. The desert festivals and historic journeys of the Tuareg Salt Caravans promise quiet evenings of ancient stories told under the stars sipping mint tea, and days travelling the same un-marked routes as a thousand years worth of forebears. To capture all the sensuous majesty of the desert you need to see it from above, preferably from the cane basket of a balloon coasting silently above it—easily the most romantic journey around.