Deserts are probably one of the harshest environments out there. With very little water and often extreme temperatures, they certainly aren’t places many ordinary people want to explore. Or are they?
You might be surprised to hear this, but today more than one billion people (yes, “billion” with a b) live in and around deserts. The reasons for that are a few, the most important of them being the fact that humans are simply very adaptable. We have figured out ways to survive and even thrive in places where very few animals can. Dubai, Casablanca, Phoenix, and Las Vegas are all desert cities with thousands of people enjoying their everyday lives.
Still, that doesn’t make the uninhabited parts of deserts any less menacing. Especially with all the weird things people come across there—such as the ones on this list. Scroll down to see the oddities that people have captured while out in the desert.
Read More: “Hotdog Stand”: 50 Unusual And Bizarre Discoveries That Stunned Desert Explorers
#1 A Desert Rose In Yemen
Image credits: marcograssiphoto
#2 Libyan Desert Glass
Image credits: Distinctboxes
#3 10,000-Year-Old Giraffe Engravings In The Sahara Desert
Image credits: reddit.com
#4 Swirling Patterns In Rock, Nevada Desert
Image credits: dustinwong
#5 Found This Little Guy Abandoned In The Desert
Image credits: joooloop
#6 Rare Super Blooms In The Desert Of Joshua Tree, CA
Image credits: abarker05
#7 Found A Wild Watermelon Plant In The Sahara Desert
Image credits: SuperFishy
#8 Bobcat Sitting On Top Of 40-Foot-Tall Cactus In The Arizona Desert After Being Chased By A Mountain Lion
Image credits: Sleeeepy_Hollow
#9 Walking Mesquite In The Sonoran Desert
Image credits: OctopussSevenTwo
#10 An Old Man I Met In The Desert Of California
Image credits: CStanMM
#11 Found A Rabbit Abandoned In The Desert, Taped In A Cereal Box
Image credits: Muppetrubber
#12 Million-Years-Old Whale Fossil Found In The Sahara Desert
Image credits: AhmedMosaad
#13 This Is Wonderstone. A Natural Rock Found In The Desert Of Utah
Image credits: Iamonly7
#14 A Desert Oasis In Peru
Image credits: Luciphyr729
#15 The Odd Yareta Plant, Grows In Chile In One Of The Driest Deserts In The World
Image credits: worldbeyondyourown
#16 This Shrine To Dogs That Have Passed, Stuck Randomly In A Desert Wash
Image credits: OakTeach
#17 Ships Of The Desert
Image credits: UrinalCakes
#18 A Wet Road I Found In The Desert
Image credits: BumbleBTuna
#19 Found “The Final Countdown” By Europe Cassette Tape In The Desert
Image credits: Johnickel2
#20 Some Iron Filings That We Collected With A Magnet Out In The Mohave Desert
Image credits: sMaMss
#21 A Prada Store In The West Texas Desert That Is Never Open For Business
Image credits: elizabethdanford
#22 Abandoned Star Wars’ Set In The Tunisian Desert
Image credits: Sheebzzzz
#23 Found This Skull While Out Riding My Quad In The Arizona Desert Today
Image credits: kazoo3179
#24 Hotdog Stand In The Middle Of The Desert
Image credits: Mattstack
#25 Abandoned Train Tracks In California
It was a 11-mile hike in a super cold windy desert but there were amazing tunnels and bridges everywhere it was definitely worth it to see what happens over time.
Image credits: Vincent_Baldwin
#26 A Train Sits Abandoned In The Arabian Desert Nearly 100 Years After Being Ambushed By T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence Of Arabia) And His Infamous Rebels
Image credits: AtlantisAI
#27 Stumbled Upon A Strange Doorway While Hiking In The High Desert Today
Image credits: m4rceline
#28 This Salt Mine Trench In The Mohave Desert
Image credits: codingclosure
#29 I Did Not Just Find Al Capone’s Old Hideout In The Desert. I Just Skated Al Capone’s Old Pool? I️ Love Living In My Van
Image credits: TheVanWithNoPlan
#30 House Abandoned And Retaken By The Desert In California
Image credits: DrFetusRN
#31 Obelisk In The Desert, USA, UT
Image credits: holy-shot
#32 Desert Finds
Image credits: Joe Reifer
#33 Abandoned Cinema In The Egyptian Desert. The End Of The World Cinema
Image credits: kaupokikkas
#34 These Mud Cracks In The Mojave Desert Were Pretty Cool
Image credits: ilikefishwaytoomuch
#35 Dozens Of People Have Left Frogs Near The Mojave Road In The Middle Of The Mojave Desert
Image credits: APKurt
#36 Staircase In The Desert Outside Las Vegas
Image credits: Apollyon1991
#37 This Sunflower We Found In Our Desert Garden
Image credits: Draco11242000
#38 An Outdoor Sculpture Of A Specter And A Bicycle In The Desert
Image credits: pawsplay36
#39 A Village In The Middle Of A Desert. By Far, One Of The Coolest Places I’ve Ever Seen
Image credits: eyeofshe_
#40 An Old Abandoned Miner Town Graveyard, That Is Bigger Than The Actual Town. In The Middle Of The Atacama Desert
Image credits: brocolima
#41 Chinese Lion Statue On The Side Of The Road In The Middle Of The Mojave Desert
Image credits: Howtodudes
#42 Ancient Rock Art I Found In The Desert In Israel: Hunter And Ibex
Image credits: Distaplia
#43 Off-Road And Hiking To Utah Monolith
Image credits: DeepOverland
#44 My Friend Traveled To Egypt And Found This Crazy Awesome-Looking Object In The Middle Of The Desert. Meteorite?
Image credits: alexseiji
#45 Found In The Nevada Desert
Image credits: Hairyhippies
#46 I Found A Notebook At A Burnt-Down House In The Desert
Image credits: Swiss6Army9Knife
#47 I Stumbled Upon This Tombstone Out In The Desert
Image credits: Paper_McGibblets
#48 Really Tall Mailbox In The Desert
You Might Also Like: From Relatable To Absurd: 33 Witty One-Panel Comics By The New Yorker Cartoonist
Image credits: enderval