The roast tier
Most overrated →
Greece · Santorini
No. 3
Red Beach, Santorini
A cliff this photogenic should not also be throwing rocks.
Red Beach is a strip of red volcanic sand about twelve metres wide, pinned under cliffs made of rock so soft it came down in 2018, in 2023 and again in December 2025. This beach hurt people. Visitor access has been officially banned since August 2013, by the police, the port authority and the Municipality of Thira, because of the risk of falling rock; the path down from the car park has also been closed more than once. You came for the photo, so take it from the boat, where the view is better and the cliff can't reach you.
Best: August (26.0 °C), then July and September →
Greece · Zakynthos
No. 4
Navagio Beach, Zakynthos
The most photographed beach in Greece, and you are not allowed on it.
A rusted hull on 128 metres of white sand, boxed in by limestone cliffs on three sides. Everyone has the photo. Nobody has set foot on it since 2022, when the authorities closed the sand and the bay after the rockfall risk was assessed; in June 2026 they extended the ban through 31 October, and they review it about twice a year. The cliff came down once already, in 2018, and hurt seven people. So the beach is now a thing you look at: from a boat idling in the bay, or from a viewpoint on the cliff that has itself been fenced off at the edge, because people kept walking out to the part that falls.
Best: August (26.0 °C), then July and September →
Portugal · Albufeira
Praia do Castelo
Eighty steep steps to a cove named after a rock.
Praia do Castelo is named, Visit Portugal says, for a castle-shaped rock formation at its eastern end. We measured 183 metres of sand. You get there by about 80 steep steps from a clifftop car park with 15 to 20 free spaces, off a turning the guide calls easy to miss. There are no toilets, no showers and no sunbeds to rent. The cove fills quickly, and in July and August it feels busy by 11am. With any swell, waves funnel through the gap and it becomes dangerous; the guide says to check from the clifftop before you go down. Small, pretty, and it turns on you when the sea is up.
Best: August (19.5 °C), then July and June →
Indonesia · Bali
No. 8
Dreamland Beach
The dream has a resort around it now.
Surfers named it Dreamland in the 1970s. It is now officially New Kuta Beach and sits inside the Pecatu Indah resort complex, next to a golf course, and it is still open to the public. Unlike most of its neighbours it needs no staircase: a short paved path runs down from the car park. Tour groups and resort guests arrive between 11am and 3pm. A few food stalls sell cold drinks and young coconuts. The wave that made its name is still there, standing up over a steep sandbar.
Best: April (29.9 °C), then December and March →
Portugal
All 26 beaches →The first country fully seeded. Golden Algarve cliffs, hidden coves, and resorts that charge €18 for a sunbed — every beach ranked, roasted, and real. More countries land as they get sourced.
Portugal · Aljezur
No. 1
Praia da Arrifana
Everyone's first pick, tide permitting.
Arrifana is the one beach in Portugal that all three of the lists we read agree on. It sits below a clifftop village inside the Vicentine Coast Natural Park, about 10 km from Aljezur, at the bottom of a road that winds down the cliff. On the headland are the remains of a fort built in 1635, destroyed by the 1755 earthquake, rebuilt, damaged again and abandoned. We measured 703 metres of sand. At high tide the sea pushes up to the rocks under the cliff and leaves little room to sit, and it is very busy in May and from July to September.
Best: August (18.8 °C), then July and October →
Portugal · Sintra Coast
No. 2
Praia da Ursa
Book the flight now.
Marinha's wilder, uglier, more committed sister. You get there via a dirt path and a rope-assisted scramble down a cliff that redefines "beach access." The reward: a raw, unmanaged cove with sea stacks that look like gods left their chess game half-finished. No sunbeds. No snack bar. No lifeguard. No pretense. This is what every Algarve beach looked like before someone built a road to it.
Best: May–Jun, Sept–Oct →
Portugal · Nazaré
No. 2
Praia do Norte
Do not get close to this beach.
Praia do Norte is the beach on the north side of Nazaré where the biggest waves ever surfed have been ridden. The record, 26.2 metres, was set here in October 2020. The waves come from the Nazaré Canyon, an underwater canyon about 5,000 metres deep whose upper end begins roughly one kilometre off the town. We measured 4.1 km of sand. You can walk down to it by a dirt road, and the local guide's advice for that is blunt: do not get too close, because several tourists have drowned here, carried away by waves. Most people watch from the hillside and from the Fort of São Miguel Arcanjo. The big waves come between October and March. In summer they are, in the guide's word, normal.
Best: August (18.3 °C), then June and July →
Portugal · Lagoa
No. 3
Praia da Marinha
The postcard is real. So are the 200 steps.
Praia da Marinha is the Algarve's postcard: ochre limestone cliffs, sea stacks and the double-arch formation that appears on postcards across Portugal, seen first from the clifftop. The way down is 200-odd steps cut into the rock. At the bottom is a small crescent of golden sand; we measured 224 metres of it, 22 wide. The snorkelling around the base of the rocks is some of the clearest on this coast, the guide says, with visibility to 15 metres on calm days. The Seven Hanging Valleys Trail starts or ends here, 5.7 km of clifftop path east to Praia de Vale Centeanes.
Best: August (19.2 °C), then October and July →
Portugal · The Algarve
No. 4
Ponta da Piedade
Worth a detour.
Ponta da Piedade is the rocky headland by Lagos, with sea-cut caves and little coves below the cliffs. The boardwalk gives you the grand entrance; a boat gets you closer to the rockwork. There is a lighthouse, a long staircase to the boat landing, and enough scenery to make the rest of your camera roll look underfunded. Come for the headland. Portugal's environment agency says not to bathe at nearby Praia do Camilo; pedestrian access is closed.
Best: Choose a clear day for the clifftop walk →
Portugal · Aljezur
No. 4
Praia de Odeceixe
A river on one side, the Atlantic on the other.
Odeceixe is the northernmost beach in the Algarve, right on the border with the Alentejo, where a calm river lagoon meets the Atlantic surf. That gives it two kinds of water. The ocean side stays at 16 to 19°C even in summer, with currents running along the beach, and the advice is to swim only in the lifeguarded zone. We measured 454 metres of sand, 165 wide, which is a lot of beach to cross before you get wet. A car is essential: there is no public transport, and the car park fills by mid-morning in peak season.
Best: August (18.6 °C), then October and November →
Portugal · Vila do Bispo
No. 5
Praia da Cordoama
Two lists send you to a beach you should not swim at.
Praia da Cordoama is on two of the three best-of lists we read, and its own guide says it is not really a swimming beach: the water is cold, the currents are strong and the shorebreak can be powerful. On good days paragliders launch from the headland above it and soar on the thermals. It is deliberately undeveloped. The guide's crowding index calls it very busy from May to October, and the same guide's text says it is rarely crowded, because the remote location and the lack of facilities keep visitors away. We print both. We measured 401 metres of sand.
Best: August (18.4 °C), then October and July →
Portugal · Comporta
No. 6
Praia da Comporta
Rice fields behind, mosquitoes in July.
Praia da Comporta is about 120 km south of Lisbon, 80 to 90 minutes by car, past rice fields and over preserved dunes. In summer it is at its peak: the beach is busy, the restaurants are open, the sun loungers are out. A set of loungers and an umbrella runs around €40 a day at the beach club, by reviewers' accounts. The rice fields that make the drive pretty are also a breeding ground for mosquitoes, at their worst in July and August. The guide's own advice is spring or autumn. We measured 396 metres of sand.
Best: August (19.0 °C), then July and June →
Portugal · Ericeira
No. 7
Praia de Ribeira d'Ilhas
A world surfing reserve, and a car park with a view.
Ribeira d'Ilhas is the most popular wave of the Ericeira World Surfing Reserve, which was classified in 2011 among the first surfing reserves in the world. It is 2 km north of Ericeira, with a large car park on the clifftop overlooking the bay and stairs down that take about a minute. It is a reef break. The reef gets shallow on the inside section at low tide, the line-up has rules and some localism, and it is crowded all year on days with swell. If you surf, you already know all this. If you do not, there is a restaurant at the top with a view of people who do. We measured 180 metres of sand.
Best: August (17.8 °C), then November and October →
The Beach Rating
Pronounced “bee-tchez”. Not five stars. A tier system with attitude.
Worth planning a trip around.
Excellent — reroute for it.
Fine. Don’t chase it.
Photographs better than it feels.
Skip. The catch is the beach.