I knew to be thoroughly immersed in the brilliant red earth of the Kalahari Desert, in eastern Namibia, I was going to have to eat some sand. I thought it would be due to strong desert winds, or a big truck blowing by me and my girlfriend Holly Lohuis on a deserted washboard-riddled road.

The sturdy coast live oaks gently swayed during a light, southeast wind. Their crunchy leaves rattling with each wispy gust on the mostly shaded, 4-mile-out-and-back Cerro San Luis Mountain Trail, surrounded by a still slumbering San Luis Obispo (SLO).

I had Atlantic puffins and burly waterfalls on the brain, but I was also anticipating Icelandic horses, glacier-fed lagoons, deserted beaches, and plenty of geothermal activity in frigid, far-flung landscapes and deeply stunning, windswept fjords.