Why is this day trip so popular?
Much of the area was once the backdrop for classic Spaghetti Westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars. Later, its strange, haunting terrain served as the setting for Game of Thrones and Exodus. Today, you can still visit sets like Fort Bravo and MiniHollywood, which stand eerily intact —some parts used as tourist sites, and others remain as ghost towns.
From Tabernas, the A-92 climbs north into higher, harsher terrain. It begins to feel like you’ve left Earth and been transported into a red-hued Martian world of eroded cliffs, dry ravines, and stratified canyons. At around 1000m above sea level, this is Spain’s highest desert, and one of the most sparsely inhabited regions of Spain.
The landscape around Guadix is striking. Soft rock ‘badlands’ stretch to the horizon, cracked and hollowed into thousands of troglodyte cave dwellings, many of which are still inhabited. The effect is surreal: whitewashed doorways peek from the hillsides like something out of a Star Wars frontier settlement.
The road here is peaceful yet deeply eerie. You can drive for long stretches without seeing another soul. With hardly anything moving in the surrounding landscape, time feels suspended, like a singular moment.
Just beyond lies the Gorafe Desert, an even more remote expanse of rugged, eroded terrain. Hoodoos, crimson cliffs, and wind-sculpted ridges offer surreal photographic opportunities to capture landscapes that defy reason or familiarity.
The lack of cars, high elevation (above 1,000 meters), weather extremes, and decaying infrastructure, gives one the constant feeling of abandonment, and isolation. It affords one the opportunity to experience Spain as you could never have imagined it.
Practical Travel Tips
- Petrol stations are spaced quite far apart (often 100 km) so make certain to fill up or charge up before you leave.
- Spring and autumn are the best times for milder weather and dramatic light.
- Take water, food, and a good camera as the landscape will offer plenty of photo opportunities.
- Cell phone coverage is generally okay, but some valleys can lose signal.
Some folks look for peace and solitude; others crave the raw beauty of Spain’s forgotten history. For road trip lovers, this route is less about the destination and more about the journey — vast, cinematic, and deeply meditative.
News flash: Spain’s most surreal experience might not be the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, the Mezquita-Catedral in Córdoba, or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao – it might just start in Mojácar, disappear through Tabernas, and echo in the canyons near Guadix.
