Sailors called this coastline 'the gates of hell' — its shipwrecks still litter the sand

Namibia's Skeleton Coast earned its name from the whale and seal bones left by 19th-century whalers, and later from the wrecks of ships driven aground by thick fog, rough seas and a current that pushes vessels toward shore. Survivors who made it to the beach then faced one of the driest deserts on Earth, with almost no way to walk out.

— Standard geographic accounts, Skeleton Coast