The scenic quality of Qinghai's widely varying landscape is superb and enticing, offering from the ranges of gleaming mountains with glacier-capped peaks over 6000 meters high to the gobi desert dunes of Qaidam, from lush ranchland to the sapphire-like lakes of vast area, all this has created a land of marvel, mystery and diversity.
The retreat in September 1982 was at the Pajaro Dunes near Monterey.
If you're more of an adrenaline junkie, head to the Namib desert for a spot of sandboarding on the dunes.
This was enough time for children to make snowmen and sled on the sand dunes, creating memories that may not be reenacted for many years to come.
Yet, since 1978, China has planted at least 66 billion of them across its arid northern territories, hoping to transform its sandy steppes and yellow dunes into a Great Green Wall.
Yet, since 1978, China has planted at least 66 billion of them across its arid northern territories, hoping to transform its sandy steppes and yellow dunes into a Great Green Wall.
Fabrizio Antonioli, the director of research at the Laboratory of Climate Modelling told National Geographic Italian: "The coast is flat and there are no dunes to act as a natural barrier.
In his images, a thin layer of snow rests on deep orange dunes and forms whirling patterns where the slopes are too steep for it to settle.
Their beaches were rarely empty and even at night there were often fires in the dunes and people in the water, enjoying a swim.
From its vertiginous viewing galleries visitors look down on the great commercial city spread below them and across to the seemingly boundless dunes of the Empty Quarter.
It seems hard to believe that what is now an international sport and multimillion-dollar industry evolved from origins as humble as hitting a pebble around sand dunes with a stick.
When they came in sight of the Danish coast- the white sand dunes along the western shore of Jutland - a heavy sea arose and dashed the ship against the shore.
They had soon taken off their Sunday clothes and come out again, hurrying over the dunes which stood there like great waves of sand suddenly arrested in their course, while the sandweeds and dune grass with its bluish stalks spread a changing colour over them.
