The Great Desert Circuit travel guide

The Great Desert Circuit became accessible in the 1980s, when a road was built linking the oases of Bahariyya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga. These are all situated on a long-dead branch of the Nile, and depend for their livelihood on the massive fossil water reservoirs beneath the Libyan Desert. The area was designated the ‘New Valley’ in 1958 with a scheme to tap this subterranean water source and relocate landless peasants from the overcrowded Nile Valley and Delta.