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February 2012

This information is an informed but personal interpretation of travel access across the Sahara and believed to be correct at the date shown above. For the latest situation on Saharan travel in a specific country click this or visit the forum

For kidnapping in the Sahara, click this.
For Sahara Routes Map, click the map below right.

SHORT VERSION:
Easiest way to cross the Sahara right now is via Western Sahara and Mauritania
to Mali, or from Egypt to Sudan, assuming you get a visa to transit Libya.

Crossing the Sahara has for centuries been limited to a handful of routes linking the Mediterranean with sub-Saharan Africa. In the old days these caravan routes followed a string of reliable wells, while at the same time circumventing difficult terrain such as mountain ranges or sand seas. Prevailing routes also shifted according to regional political allegiances and the activity of nomadic bandits who would offer to guide a caravan across the desert for a fee, pillage it, or engage in a bit of both. It's not an exaggeration to say that today the situation is broadly similar, but with the added restrictions imposed by contemporary politics. The Sahara remains by and large, a vast and unpoliced region where the risks to the traveller are not to be underestimated, not just because the risks are great but because foreign travellers and tourists are now rare and therefore conspicuous.

Looking at the thin lines which criss-cross Michelin's 741 map or even the gaps in between, you might think there are an infinite number of possibilities for a trans-Saharan adventure. This is not the case. No longer can you roam around the desert with impunity or lately, even without an official escort or guide. As with Antarctica, it's an irony that legitimate recreational access to such a vast wilderness is limited by human intervention. The regularly updated Sahara Routes Map (above right) shows the main pistes, desert border crossing posts, which borders are porous and which are not.

The trans Sahara Highway is now sealed from Algiers all the way to the Niger border at In Guezzam. From there it's 150km of hard sandy piste to Arlit where the tarmac resumes, but security issues prevail in this part of Niger.

One idea people regularly come up with is travelling anticlockwise around the rim of the Mediterranean until they learn that the Moroccan/Algerian border has been closed for years (despite recent talk of it opening), the expense of escorts in Algeria and the situation in recently liberated Libya. The classic Tamanrasset-Agadez 'Hoggar Route' requires escorts in Algeria, but the northeast of Niger is not so safe, if not off-limits, not least since pro-Gaddafi elements have used this region as an escape route.

With Algeria closed in the 1990s, the flow of trans-Saharan traffic, both commercial and touristic, diverted to the west via Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania. This has become the easiest way of crossing the desert in both directions as in late 2005, baring a couple of kilometres of piste through the minefields in No Man's Land, the first sealed, all-weather route across the Sahara was completed. In Mauritania it runs inland from the former beach route down to Nouakchott, Dakar and so West Africa. Unless you slow down or head inland in Mauritania, the Atlantic Route is a relatively boring and unsatisfactory run if you're looking to experience the real Sahara. In November 2009 three Spanish were kidnapped from a moving convoy in the early evening while travelling on the this road down to Nouakchott and a few weeks later two Italians were kidnapped close to the Mali border south of Ayoun, so even this most popular route now has its risks. The Spanish were held for 9 months, but the Mauritanians have responded to the AQIm threat more than most countries - not least Mali.

Although it was never that popular following the 1990s, the Algerian part of the Tanezrouft route south of Reganne is again closed to tourists and even trying to get to Bordj Moktar from Tam was risky in 2011. The north Malian portion of the Tanezrouft route has long been closed tourists. Avoid this part of Mali, it's where all hostages end up in the hands of AQIM.

In the 1970s, crossing the Nubian desert from Egypt to Sudan and Uganda was the main route to East Africa until the escalation of the Sudanese civil war put an end to this. That war is over as Sudan separated in 2011, though another may be looming and tourists aren't rushing into South Sudan yet. The Wadi Halfa ferry is running, but Egyptian bureaucracy is as onerous as ever. There's talk of a finished road and a new a Sudan-Egypt land border, but don't hold your breath. In June 2011 the Venice-Alexandria ferry was suspended and the situation in Syria puts many people off getting to Egypt that way. However, in February 2012 came the first report of a transit of Libya from Tunisia to Egypt and back,

There are other TRANS SAHARA ROUTES that you might think possible from the sometimes misleading 741 Michelin map, but for first timers these are marginal, dangerous or impossible.