History Main / CrossingTheDesert

[[folder:Fan Works]]

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun2001'' and ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' has it three times across two games, corresponding to the real-world Taklamakan, Sahara, and Australian deserts. The first one requires you to find water or risk taking massive damage. The second just has tornadoes that will send you back to the start of the level if you don't know how to reveal the giant lizard causing them (and hides the game's BonusBoss). The third time has lots of jumping around and steppes.

* Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica do this in ''Film/{{Dune}}'', as does Liet-Kynes.

* In the zone Tanaris in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', one can find the scattered remnants of a caravan.The evidence suggests a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids long, drawn out and grisly end for the caravan members]]. This implies that the zone very much is this trope, although it averts ShiftingSandsLand. {{NPC}} dialog confirms this idea: including talk about carrying water and the local trolls threatening to drink your blood a la ''Franchise/Dune''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Dragonsphere}}'' adventure you need to travel to a certain location in the desert and back. If you make a wrong turn, [[TheManyDeathsOfYou you run out of water and die]]. There is a local inhabitant -- Soptus[[note]]their people is hinted to be TheGreys stranded on a MedievalEuropeanFantasy planet[[/note]] -- willing to give directions, but he doesn't speak your language, and your understanding of his is rudimentary. The biggest problem: he may [[spoiler:think you were DrivenToSuicide and]] give you directions to a volcano that kills you instantly [[spoiler:(Soptus version of a [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} suicide booth]])]].

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheBrokenSeal'' and ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' has it three times across two games, corresponding to the real-world Taklamakan, Sahara, and Australian deserts. The first one requires you to find water or risk taking massive damage. The second just has tornadoes that will send you back to the start of the level if you don't know how to reveal the giant lizard causing them (and hides the game's BonusBoss). The third time has lots of jumping around and steppes.

* In ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'', you must cross a desert to get to TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. Just before you finish, [[spoiler:Nina suffers from heat stroke.]] Notably, you're strongly encouraged to only travel during the night, using the stars as guidance.

* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestV'' you must enter the desert to get some {{Mac Guffin}}s. The sun's [[GameplayAndStorySegregation frozen in the sky]], but you must drink water every ''x'' screens or you will die. Oddly, you only need water in the desert areas, never in the more temperate zones.

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', it isn't exactly seen, but both Ling and May Chang cross a desert.

* Brutha crossed the desert from Ephebe to Om with Vorbis on his back in ''Discworld/SmallGods''. Om continually insists on dumping Vorbis, because it's what Vorbis would do and also what he deserves. Brutha refuses, "because I'm ''me''." There is also the metaphysical crossing of the desert; dead souls are taken to the black desert by [[GrimReaper Death]], and they then must cross it and they then go to the afterlife they believed in.

May be a ThirstyDesert. Watch out if so. In times of war, DesertWarfare can often overlap with this for any belligerent faction trying to cross through here. Contrast BravingTheBlizzard.

* In ''[[Literature/TheBridgeKingdomArchives Traitor Queen]]'' when [[TheProtagonist Lara]]'s plans go awry, she and her husband have no choice but to cross the [[ThirstyDesert Red Desert]], without any proper preparation to boot. It almost kills them. At least they are sensible enough to travel mostly at night.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has it three times across two games, corresponding to the real-world Taklamakan, Sahara, and Australian deserts. The first one requires you to find water or risk taking massive damage. The second just has tornados that will send you back to the start of the level if you don't know how to reveal the giant lizard causing them (and hides the game's BonusBoss). The third time has lots of jumping around and steppes.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' has a desert mission that behaves like the first VideoGame/GoldenSun example above. It actually does have a night setting where you die a little slower.

On his neverending quest to find the MacGuffin, Hero Bob must cross a desert wasteland. Expect there to be [[ScaryScorpions scorpions]], [[AllDesertsHaveCacti cacti]], a few {{Ribcage Ridge}}s, and maybe even a SandWorm or two. A [[DeadlyDustStorm sandstorm]] is also likely. For whatever reason, rather than travel during the night, Bob will nearly always travel starting at high noon, though this can be {{justified|Trope}} by the planet [[AlienSky having multiple suns]], or the desert having some kind of curse, or what have you. If Bob's travelling with Alice, Carol, and Dave, expect at least one of them to suffer from heat stroke, and another to see a HollywoodMirage. And AllDesertsHaveCacti.

May be a ThirstyDesert. Watch out if so. In times of war, DesertWarfare can often overlap with this for any belligerent faction trying to cross through here.

->'''Baylene''': Oh my goodness. It looks like a very long walk.
->'''Eema''': And hot! If you smell something sizzling, could be ''me''!
-->-- ''Disney/{{Dinosaur}}''

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* The second act of Disney's ''Disney/{{Dinosaur}}'' resembled the final act of the "Rite of Spring" segment from ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}''. In fact, the soundtrack played during this scene is even called "Across the Desert!"

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* This is the whole plot of ''Film/IceColdInAlex''.

* And of course it happens quite a lot in ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}''.
* Happens to Bastian in ''Film/TheNeverendingStoryIITheNextChapter''

* ''{{Film/She|1965}}'': The first part of Leo, Holly, and Job's trek to the lost city. Made more difficult by tribesmen who steal their camels and water.

** C-3PO and R2-D2 in ''Film/ANewHope''.
** In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Finn migrates across the Jakku desert until he finds Nima Outpost.
* Moses does this after he's thrown out Egypt in ''Film/TheTenCommandments''. Ramses only gives him one day's rations, figuring he'll die that way, but he manages to make it to Midian.

* ''Film/CapricornOne'': The three astronauts, after escaping the compound they were transported to when TheConspiracy to fake their Mars landing ran into some complications (and they would surely be killed to avoid exposing TheConspiracy and keep the hoax alive), make their way through the Southwestern desert with practically no supplies after the plane they stole ran out of fuel. Harsh enough, but then cue the [[BlackHelicopter Black Helicopters]]....
* In ''Film/KangarooJack'', Charlie and Louis have to cross the Outback after their bush pilot crashes.

* The opening and closing credits for the first two seasons of ''Series/KungFu'' show Caine walking across a desert.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': Cecelyne the Endless Desert is an infinite GeniusLoci expanse of silver sand that encircles [[{{Hell}} Malfeas]]. For people traveling ToHellAndback, it always takes ''exactly'' five days to cross, no matter the method used. For the Yozis trapped in Malfeas, [[EldritchLocation it has no far side]].

* Although several ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games have desert areas, crossing the desert is only plot-critical in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2''. In the first one, you have to go to the Desert Resort to battle Team Plasma and meet Professor Juniper, and in both games, the Desert Resort area is home to Volcarona (although in the sequels, it's only accessible via underground tunnels). Although you aren't harmed by the constant sandstorm, any battles will involve any non-immune mons being hit by the sandstorm and losing a little HP each turn.

* Brutha crossed the desert from Ephebe to Om with Vorbis on his back in ''Discworld/SmallGods''. There is also the metaphysical crossing of the desert; dead souls are taken to the black desert by [[GrimReaper Death]], and they then must cross it and they then go to the afterlife they believed in.

* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'': Part of [[spoiler:the TimeAbyss Jones']] ExpositionOfImmortality is a flashback to them [[https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1107 crossing]] the Gobi desert alone and barefoot. Subsequent strips show that, rather than it being any sort of grand endeavor, it's just one snapshot from [[spoiler:half a billion years]] spent WalkingTheEarth.

May be a ThirstyDesert. Watch out if so.

* Music/MeatPuppets: "Coming Down":