Economic indices may show that Niger is the world’s poorest nation, but those who travel the country, intersect with its people and witness its sublime Saharan landscapes will rank it among the richest.

Today, two thirds of Niger is desolate desert; the remainder is Sahel. The most notable landscapes are northern Niger’s Air Mountains and Tenere Desert, and the Niger River, which flows through 300 kilometers of the country’s southwest.

The northern third of Niger, its most barren part, has two of Africa’s most beautiful environments. The dark volcanic masses of the Air Mountains rise dramatically from the Sahara and culminate in grand peaks, the highest at 2022 meters. In some areas, amazing deep-blue marble outcrops poke from rich red sands, and east of the Air Mountains, the Tenere, one of the world’s most legendary deserts, has some of the Sahara’s most extraordinarily beautiful sand dunes.