The most striking and forbidding feature of the country; the vast desert comprises more than four-fifths of Algeria's total area. It also provides a breathtaking landscape of shifting sands, dotted with pleasant oasis villages. The best way to enter the south of the Sahara is to cross the El Kautara Gorges, located just to the south of Constantine. These gorges separate the winter areas from the land of everlasting summer and are called Fouur Es Sahra ('the Sahara's mouth') by the inhabitants. The sudden glimpse of the Sahara through the El Kautara Gorges is breathtaking.

Algiers

The vibrant capital of the country has been a port since Roman times. The dry climate has preserved a number of impressive Roman, Punic and Christian ruins, including those at Djemila, Timgad and Tipasa. Algiers retains a Maghreb feel, with zig-zagging alleyways, mosques and an interesting casbah. The Bardo Ethnographic and Local Art Museum and the National Museum of Fine Arts are among the finest in North Africa.

Ghardaia

This distinctive Saharan town is inhabited by a Muslim fundamentalist sect called the Mozabites. The town is coiled within a group of bare, ochre rocks and is home to a characteristic Mozabite minaret with four spires.

Turquoise Coast

An area of rocky coves and long beaches, to the east of Algiers, where visitors can enjoy watersports and cruises.

Atlas Mountains

A cool retreat from the stifling summer heat. Sights include the Grand Mosque and Mansourah Fortress located in the imperial city of Tlemcen, on the Hauts Plateaux, in the Tellian Atlas foothills.

Tamanrasset

This colourful and vibrant centre located in the heart of the Hoggar Mountains is an important stopping place for trade with west Africa. It is also a popular winter resort and is used as a base for touring the mountains or hiking in the open desert to the south and west in the company of camel drivers who carry their luggage. for hikers and a popular winter resort. It is also regularly visited by the camel caravans of les hommes bleues, the blue-robbed Touregs who are the ancient nomadic inhabitants of the region.

Tassili N'Ajjer

Visitors may tour the Tassili N'Ajjer, or 'Plateau of Chasms', which is a vast volcanic plateau crossed by massive gorges gouged out by rivers which have long since gone underground or dried out. The Tassili conceals a group of unique rupestrian paintings (rock paintings), which go back at least as far as the Neolithic age. The paintings depict hunting scenes, daily life and herds of animals and their striking beauty reveals the way of life of several thousand years ago. The paintings are spread out over a 130,000 sq km surface and form an extraordinary open-air museum which has been miraculously conserved, owing to the pure quality of the air.

The Touaregs organise tours of the Tassili Plateau and the rupestrian paintings, as well as long-distance car treks, lasting from one day to two weeks. Visitors are usually collected at the airport and provided with transportation (typically in 4-wheel-drive vehicles), mattresses and food; however, travellers must usually bring their own sleeping bags.