Drone Videos of Sand Dunes

Former Drone Video of the Week Winner and 2023 DVOY nominee oculusfilms brings us this magnificent drone video from the sand dunes of the vast Empty Quarter desert in Dubai, one of the kingdoms which makes up the United Arab Emirates.  Also known as the Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter covers roughly the southern one-third of the Arabian Peninsula, including much of the UAE and portions of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman.  With a land area of about 250k square mi. (around 650k square km), it's considered one of the world's largest continuous deserts.  

California's Kelso Dunes presents one of the most iconic desert scenes to be found in the USA.  It's part of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles.  Covering 120 square km (around 45 square mi.), the dunes here rise to a height of up to 200 meters (about 650 ft.) above the desert floor.  Part of the Mojave National Preserve, you can check out the marvelous hills of sand from above in this fantastic drone video by top AirVuz content creator and pilot rememorales. This video was selected as a DVOW finalist in July 2020.

The Moreeb Dunes in the United Arab Emirates contain some of the highest sand dunes in the world.  The highest stands 300 meters (1k ft) above the desert floor, with a slope of nearly 50 degrees.  Contributor Paul Vlad used the dunes as backdrop for this stunning drone video, featuring aerial footage of a car driving through the endless desert as well as a model standing atop one of the dunes.  The Dunes are in a part of the Arabian Desert commonly known as the Empty Quarter, one of the world's largest contiguous desert areas.  

Enjoy an exciting ride down the sand dunes of Chile's Atacama Desert, courtesy of AirVuz contributor and drone pilot Airpica.  He and his friends packed their sandboards and headed to the driest desert on the planet, where the soil is so remarkably similar to that on Mars that it as been the backdrop for  the television series "Space Odyssey".  Airpica's exciting footage makes for an out-of-this-world experience and a worthy nominee for the Drone Video of the Week contest in September, 2018.

On the Western coast of Australia, top content creator, drone pilot, and vlogger Merr Watson basks in the warmth of the sun setting upon the Lancelin Sand Dunes.  They lie near a small town of the same name, about a two hour drive north along the coast from the Western Australia capital city of Perth.  In the video, Merr and friends take in views of the ocean as they stand atop the sandy drifts — capturing dronies from a bird's eye view and playing around as though they're in the world's biggest sand box.

Enrico Pescantini created this outstanding drone video of the Corralejo Dunes Park on Fuerteventura, one of Spain's Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa.  The dunes are located at the northern tip of the island, the second largest of the islands by land area and the fourth largest in population.  If these dunes look familiar, you may have seen them in the 2016 World War II thriller Allied starring Brad Pitt; in the movie, the Coraralejo dunes "stood in" for the Sahara in the desert scenes.  

Abstract Aerial Art created this stunning drone video of Dune du Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe.  It's located on the country's western (Atlantic) Coast in the province of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, a short drive southwest of the Atlantic port city of Bordeaux.  The dune currently reaches a height of 110 meters (around 350 ft.) above sea level.  It's a popular paragliding spot, and is one of the top tourist destinations in southwestern France.   The dune is composed of an incredible 60 million cubic meters of sand.  

Check out this amazing drone video of a runner tacking the vastness of the Sahara Desert in North Africa, compliments of contributor rodolfofalcon.  It was shot in sand dunes near the Naïla Lagoon in the southwestern corner of Morocco proper.  It's near the border with the disputed semi-sovereign Western Sahara, most of which is under de facto Moroccan control.  The lagoon and surrounding dunes are part of a national park which has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage site status.

This may be the most cinematic aerial footage ever made of dune buggies.  Aerial Eye Visuals used a DJI Inspire drone to capture a group of friends driving their ATV's through endless sand dunes in a portion of the Arabian Desert near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.  The ATV's in the sunset are beautiful to behold with a backdrop of the endless sands of the Empty Quarter (in Arabic, Rub' al Khali).  The largest contiguous desert area in the world, the Empty Quarter covers roughly the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula.   

Check out this awesome drone video of some well-known sand dunes near the Brazilian city of Cabo Frio, compliments of contributor Proliaz.  They are part of a park on this cape in the Atlantic Ocean.  It's in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Southeastern Brazil, more or less due east from the eponymously named state capital city.  The cape marks a point where the coastline switches to an east-west orientation; west of the city of Rio the coastline begins to bend to the southwest, forming a large but shallow crescent centered on the city of São Paulo.

Talented AirVuz contibutor Damiano862 brings us this excellent drone video of Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park.  The park is situated in Maranhão, one of the nine states which make up the country's giant Northeast region.  Located just east of São José Bay, the park is best known for its rolling sand dunes.  It also covers around 70 km (about 43 mi.) of Atlantic Ocean coastline.  Covering about 1.5k square km (about 550 square mi.), it's becoming an increasingly popular eco-tourism destination.  

Loonse en Drunense Duinen is one of about 20 national parks in the Netherlands.  It's located in North Brabant, one of the southern Dutch provinces.  As its Dutch name suggests, the park, which covers about 35 square km (around 14 square mi.), is known for its extensive sand dunes.  It's just a fifteen minute drive north of Tilburg, the province's second-largest city after Eindhoven and one of the half-dozen largest cities in the country.  In this creative drone video by Peter van Haastrecht, you'll see the park and its dunes from above.

AirVuz contributor and pilot Vadim_Danilov brings us this excellent drone video of the Curonian Spit is a long, narrow sand bar that separates the Baltic Sea from the Curonian Lagoon.  The video was filmed in the southern portion of the spit in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave which is surrounded by Polish and Lithuanian territory.  The northern part of the spit is in Lithuania.  Formed about 5,000 years ago, the spit runs for about 60 mi. (around 100 km) on a southwest-to-northeast axis.  

AirVuz contributor F.Kok brings us these fantastic aerial views of the fantastically shaped sand dunes in the Namib Desert in Namibia.  One of the world's natural wonders, the desert stretches for over 2k km (around 1.2k mi.) along the western (Atlantic Ocean) coast of southern Africa, covering all of the Namibian coast and extending north into Angola as well as south into South Africa.  One of the most "perfect" deserts on earth, its most arid areas receive as scant 2 mm (about .1 inch) of rainfall per year.  

While Peru may be known more for the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon Rainforest, it's also home to some great beaches on its western (Pacific Ocean) coastline.  Charca y Mar Beach is located up the coast from the capital city Lima.  It is, among other things, an ideal spot for paragliding - its beautiful sloping sand dunes provide a perfect launching point.  In this video, contributor Niels Ahmes used a drone to capture some of the epic flying action on the Peruvian coast.

Top AirVuz contributor FLY DOG used a DJI Mavic and a first person view (FPV) drone to create this stunning video of two Dakar Rally star motorcyclists taking on the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert in Morocco.  The riders are Stéphane Peterhansel, who has won the Dakar Rally 14 times (a record as of 2024), and rising Dhakar Rally star Pol Tarrésvideo.  The video was filmed near the village of Merzouga, which lies close to the country's eastern border with Algeria, on the western edge of the great desert.      

Here's a beautiful aerial tour of Turkey's Patara Dunes, compliments of AirVuz contributor and drone pilot Rolandi.  They form of one of Turkey's longest beaches, which runs for over 10 mi. (18 km) along the southwestern side of the Kaş Peninsula, which extends into the Mediterranean Sea in the province of Antalya.  The dunes and beach are part of the Turkish Riviera, which extends for hundreds of mi./km along Turkey's Aegean Mediterranean coastlines and which has emerged as one of the world's most popular beach and sailing destinations.  

Check out these excellent drone views of France's Cotentin Peninsula, compliments of AirVuz contributor fdescds92.  The video was filmed over the sand dunes near Saint-Germain-sur-Ay at the mouth of the Ay River, on the western side of the peninsula in the northwestern region of Normandy.  The video was filmed with a DJI Mini 4 Pro drone, which has impressive photo and video capture capabilities despite its very modest weight of about a half-pound (around 250 g), which exempts the drone from many UAV regulations.  

Talented AirVuz contributor LPHOTO TRILHAS E MONTANHAS earned a spot as a Finalist for the Drone Video the week with this stunning aerial video of Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park.  Located just east of São José Bay in the northeastern state of  Maranhão, the park is best known for its rolling sand dunes.  Covering about 550 square mi. (1.5k square km) including a stretch of Brazil's Atlantic Ocean coastline, the park is becoming an increasingly popular eco-tourism destination in this giant South American country.

Only an hour from the Mexican boarder, the unincorporated desert community of Glamis in Southern California isn’t where you’d expect to find a crew of pilots, producers, police and dune buggies. However, that’s right where Yubeta.Blv FPV found himself while on a shoot with production company BelieveCam. The 1000 HP dune buggies our pilot is flying around really rip up the desert sands, making for an exciting and phenomenal FPV flight.

For some epic views of people having fun in the sand, it's hard to beat this video by top content creator and drone pilot Sandrine Hecq, who was nominated as a Finalist in the second annual Drone Video Awards.  She records a family trip up the coast of Western Australia to the area around Lancelin, about a two hour drive north of the WA capital city Perth.  It's a place of spectacular sand dunes and (slightly inland) some fabulous scenery in the Pinnacle Desert, home to the spectacular pinnacle sandstone formations.