Summer is coming, and that means beach weekends. I realize there are some people out there who don’t go to the beach every summer, and those people are why we fight mental illness. For the rest of us, the only thing holding us over for the rest of the year is beach porn.
This is the worst time of year for me, the time just a month or two before the vacation where I’m not quite close enough to start a countdown, but I am close enough to be daydreaming about spending all day on the beach, beer in hand.
In service to anyone else who’s getting close to their beach vacation, but isn’t quite close enough, here are some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
Ko Phi Phi Leh is the beach they set the movie The Beach at, and the location scouts picked it for a good reason. The Phi Phi Islands in Thailand, near Phuket, were seriously messed up after the 2004 tsunami, but have made a comeback.
Bocas del Toro is a tourist town on Colon Island in Panama. It’s situated along the Caribbean coast and apparently has sunrises that match those in The Lion King.
If you go to the Sea of Stars on Vaadhoo Island in the Maldives archipelago at night, you’ll see this other-worldly bioluminescence effect, caused by glowing phytoplankton.
Though only a half-mile long, Lanikai Beach on Oahu in Hawai’i is consistently ranked one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It’s known for its moonrises over the Mokulua Islands—the two tiny islands in the picture above.
On the Seychelles island of La Digue, Anse Source d’Argent is somewhat hard to get to despite being on a fairly populated island. This means it’s usually empty, and that it’s full of rare birds and tortoises.
Australia’s Whitsunday Island is home to the stunningly beautiful Whitehaven Beach, which has incredibly fine white sand. It is one of the cleanest beaches in Australia.
Baia dos Porcos is in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago off the northeast coast of Brazil. It’s beautiful, and it’s not a particularly crowded beach. Yet.
Malpais Beach in Costa Rica is scenic but also remote. Perhaps for this reason, it’s become a popular location for celebrities like Mel Gibson and Gisele Bundchen looking for a getaway.
Probably number one on the “I must go to this beach” for me on this list, and also my vote for the most beautiful beach in the world, Railay, in southern Thailand, is only accessible by boat due to the surrounding cliffs.
California’s scenic Big Sur region has a number of great beaches. Some of them are not open to the public to protect the habitat, but others are popular surfing areas.
Barra da Lagoa is a small fishing community near Florianopolis in southern Brazil. It’s a great surfing village because the water is rock-free, there are no sharks, and it has relatively shallow water.
Located in Queensland, Australia, the world’s largest sand island has a 75-mile-long beach on its east coast, which is used both as a landing strip and a highway by residents. Airplanes have right-of-way.
Camps Bay in Cape Town, South Africa, is the best beach I’ve ever been to. It sits on the edge of an affluent suburb of Cape Town, and has awesome views of both Table Mountain and the Lion’s Head.
On the northern tip of the south island of New Zealand, Wharariki Beach is incredibly windy. According to Maori tradition, when you die, this is where your spirit jumps off into the next world.
Prince Edward Island is the smallest Canadian province, up in the north Atlantic. It’s typically known as a more rural area, but has some great towns and beaches.
Playa del Carmen on the Caribbean coast of Mexico is a popular cruise stop, and was actually best known for being the ferry town to Cozumel Island before it became a famous beach destination in its own right.
Oahu’s North Shore is another great surfing beach, or, if you’re me at age 11, a great beach for being lifted up and then pounded into the sand over and over again until you have sand in your sinuses for another two years.
Ipanema is one of the most famous beaches in the world. It is situated along the coast of Rio de Janeiro, right next to one of the other most famous beaches in the world: Copacabana.
