East Wastes

No one really likes to travel in the wastes. It's hot and dry, and it sucks. But, if you really had to choose, the East Wastes would be preferable. The hard packed playa is much better for hooves and feet and wheels than treacherous sand dunes. Plus, sometimes there's a big rock! Which means shade!
The East Wastes are the connection between many settlements on the eastern side of the continent, which mean they are much more traveled.
It's really just a whole lot of boring flat-ness.

Geography

Lots of very flat ground, cracked and dried in the sun. It's hard packed too, not something that you'd sink into. Sand does sometimes build up against the few obstacles in the area, like a solitary bolder or a bunch of sagebrush or a patch of cheatgrass.
There are few landmarks: old husks of caravans that were looted ages ago, skeletons of animals that died for whatever reason, a stick with a shiny stone stuck into the ground by someone fed up enough to try to make their own marker and navigate just like that, who needs directions?

Type

Desert