Quiet, uncrowded beaches made for soaking up the sun.
Quiet, uncrowded beaches made for soaking up the sun.
19 beaches found
Easy AccessThe Kauai east-shore family beach on Hawaiian Home Lands, where locals walk from the homestead community to a half-mile bay protected by an offshore reef. Calm at the east end, dangerous at the river mouth, and quiet on most weekday mornings.
Easy AccessArguably the most photographed beach on earth, where colossal granite boulders frame ribbons of white sand and shallow, reef-protected water on the island of La Digue.
Easy AccessOne of the most visually dramatic urban beaches on the planet, Camps Bay sits beneath the Twelve Apostles mountain range in Cape Town. Big sunsets, buzzing restaurant strip, and ice-cold Atlantic water that almost nobody actually swims in.
Easy AccessFlorida's most famous Gulf Coast beach, with powdery white sand and calm turquoise water, though the crowds and high-rise towers tell the full story.
Easy AccessThe West Maui beach most travel articles still call Airport Beach, named for the small Kaanapali airstrip that closed in 1986. Free parking, a reef off the sand, sea turtles in the lagoon, and underwater humpback whale song from December through March. Easier than Kaanapali next door.
ModerateThe Kauai North Shore bay where the Kalihiwai River meets the ocean. A crescent of gold sand backed by ironwood trees, a calm summer swim, an expert winter surf break, a kayakable river running inland, and almost no facilities. The North Shore's quietest accessible beach.
ModerateThe Kauai beach where Highway 56 runs out, the Na Pali coast begins, and the reef-protected lagoon turns into a swimming pool in summer. The reservation is real, the construction in 2026 is bigger than most guides admit, and the snorkeling window is narrower than it looks.
Easy AccessThe reddish-sand beach two minutes south of Hana on Maui's east shore, with cone-shaped Alau Island offshore and the Ka Iwi o Pele cinder hill behind. Photograph it. Picnic on it. Do not swim in it.
Easy AccessAlbania's answer to the Greek islands, Ksamil offers turquoise water, tiny swim-to islands, and white sand beaches at a fraction of Mediterranean prices. Located near Butrint National Park in southern Albania.
Easy AccessBali's most famous beach strip is loud, crowded, and unapologetically touristy, but the sunsets are world-class, the beginner surf breaks are forgiving, and the food and nightlife scene runs deep.
ModerateThe Kauai north-east shore half-moon bay where Gilligan's Island was filmed in 1963 and almost nobody has been since. Treacherous currents in the centre, calm at the ends, no lifeguard, no facilities, and limited parking on a residential road. Quiet on purpose.
ModerateThe iconic Navagio Shipwreck Beach on Zakynthos, Greece, where a rusting smuggler ship sits on white sand surrounded by towering limestone cliffs and impossibly blue water.
Easy AccessThe Methodist camp meeting town on the Jersey Shore, still owned by the OGCMA, and the first summer in the beach's modern history that the sand opens on Sunday mornings. Victorian cottages, tent city, rock groins, a dry-town ordinance, and the 2025 order that changed everything.
ModerateThe South Maui white-sand beach hidden behind a kiawe-tree screen between Wailea Beach and Polo Beach. Locally called White Rock for the lava rocks that frame it. Calm morning swim, decent snorkel on the rock points, no parking lot, no facilities, no lifeguard.
ModerateThe Princeville beach 191 steps below the bluff that fronts the resort everyone now calls 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay. Reef-protected swim in summer, dangerous in winter, no lifeguard, no facilities, no roadside parking. The view across to Hanalei is the reason to make the climb.
Easy AccessThe Kauai west-shore family beach named for the active Hawaiian salt-making ponds beside it. A reef-protected crescent that swims like a pool, lifeguards on duty, and one of the few beaches in the state where Hawaiian sea salt is still harvested by hand.
Easy AccessThe Kauai south-shore beach with the 40-foot cliff Harrison Ford jumped off in Six Days Seven Nights. The cliff is the photo, not the activity. The real reason to come is the Maha'ulepu Heritage Trail that starts behind the sand.
Easy AccessSt Pete Beach's erosion-prone north end, defined by four rock T-groins and the $125M county renourishment that wrapped in March 2026 after Helene and Milton flattened the dune line. What actually opened, what is wider, and what to expect in April 2026.
Easy AccessThe Kauai west-shore beach where Captain Cook first stepped foot on the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. Black sand from the red-dirt river runoff, a historic state pier, plantation cottages behind the dunes, and a swim that almost nobody does because the water is genuinely too murky to enjoy.