Wild place: Tottori Sand Dunes, Japan

Stretching 16 kilometres along the coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, is a sight that’s definitely more Sahara than Shinjuku – the Tottori sand dunes. This desert, half the size of Manhattan, sits at the edge of Tottori prefecture, three hours from Osaka. The dunes, some more than 50 metres high, were created over 100,000 years ago by the build up of sediment and volcanic ash from the Chugoku Mountains carried down to the Sea of Japan by the Sendai River.