The Best Beaches In The World (That Aren’t White)

Kenwood Travel finds the best beaches in the world that have no need to sit and boast of white sands.

When one considers the best beaches in the world in the travel industry, the phrase ‘white sand beaches’ tends to pop up fairly often. Dazzlingly white is as much a selling point for dunes as it is for detergent.

The whitest beach in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records is Hyams Beach in New South Wales, Australia. I’m yet to understand how the whiteness of a beach is measured. My research suggests there’s lots of algebra telling you how much tint is present in whatever white thing you’re observing, and Hyams ain’t got lots of it. What it does have is a heap of pure quartz, gypsum and seashell particles, all of which appear opaque white and contain few impurities.

As the travel industry is captivated by the idea of white sand on a daily basis, we thought to give due consideration to beaches of a different colour, a different nature, per se. In fact, we wanted to see just how different nature can be. So we got out the bucket and spade, did some digging, and found a few stretches of sand that are shore to go against the grain. And while you may be inclined to sue me for all the beach-related puns in that last sentence, please remember this is just business, it’s not parasol.

Pink Sand

Pink Sands Beach on Harbour Island, Bahamas / Horseshoe Bay Beach, Bermuda

As we survey our spectrum singing a rainbow so to speak, we begin at the bottom with pink sand. If it were a TV channel, pink sand would be like white +1. Tinted pink sand beaches are a dime a dozen, generally seen when the quartz and gypsum in the sand are slightly less pure and possess an off-white, pastel-like shade.

There are, however, some remarkable examples. Pink Sands Beach on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, and similarly Horseshoe Bay Beach in Bermuda, are so vibrantly pink one presumes to have stared in the sun for too long. Thousands of visitors a year flock to these spots to witness the beauty of such an abnormal colour, the result of billions of dead coral and the reddish pink shells of tiny single-celled invertebrates known as Foraminifera. The shells of these amoeba-like protozoa are left behind after being eaten by fish, before being crushed by ocean waves and deposited on the shore.

Just make sure to be sitting there at sunset to watch the sky magically turn the same colour…

 Red Sand

Thunder Cove on Prince Edward Island, Canada

Maui, Hawaii famously has many of the few red sand beaches of the world, particularly at Kaihalulu Bay, a tourist hotspot that isn’t actually that easy to reach because of its sheltered position.

Hawaii, however, has the pick of the bunch as far as multi-coloured beaches are concerned, so instead we sought to highlight somewhere not so famous and just as crimson.

On Canada’s Atlantic side, east of Quebec and north of Nova Scotia one finds Prince Edward Island. The island’s south coast teems with red sand beaches because of its iron oxide-rich bedrock. Iron oxide is a rusty colour, that is to say, it is rust. Whilst pretty plenteous in most parts of the world, iron oxide manifests itself most magnificently at the Prince Edward Island locals’ favourite beach, Thunder Cove, where undulating dunes glow with a bold and deep red.

Purple Sand

Pfeiffer Beach near Big Sur, California

Mention Big Sur, on the California coast a little south of San Francisco, and many will recall the exploits of William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac: a focus of the psychedelic escapades of the Beat Movement. Others will consider it fondly amongst California’s most sought-after surf spots.

Here, we do both. Pfeiffer Beach near Big Sur is one of the region’s premier surfing locations, a secluded stretch of sand with great waves and an even greater vibe. What’s more, it looks friggin’ crazy, man.

But Pfeiffer Beach’s extravagant purple hue is no mushroom-induced trick of the mind. It is the result of manganese almandine or spessartine garnets, which are abundant in the surrounding hills. Garnets are gemstones – collections of silicate crystals – incidentally often used in sandpaper manufacture. In this case it is the naturally purple/red manganese in the garnet that gives the beach its distinctive colour.

Green Sand

Papakolea Beach on Hawaii Island, Hawaii

Hawaii gets its honourable mention now as holder of one of only two green-sand beaches in the world.

Papakolea Beach is found on Hawaii’s southernmost tip, South Point. Part of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and perched under the shadow of active volcano Mauna Loa, Papakolea Beach occupies a tiny bay at the foot of a cinder cone in the volcano’s southern rift valleys.

A cinder cone is a small volcano. It forms around a volcanic vent usually found in the foothills of a much larger volcano. This particular cone – Puʻu Mahana – has been spewing magma for yonks, which immediately cools as it’s ejected and adds to the volcano body. The Pacific coast has steadily eroded Puʻu Mahana over time ensuring the beach below has had a constant supply of minerals.

One of the first minerals to crystallise as magma cools is olivine, a bright green gem-like magnesium and iron silicate composite known locally as ‘Hawaiian Diamond’. Lighter ash and glassy volcanic fragments are washed out to sea, but the hard, dense olivine crystals continue to collect on this eerily green beach.

Bring some hiking boots if you’re planning on visiting. The climb down the cinder cone to get to the beach is no mean feat, and requires a strong pair of legs.

 Black Sand

Anse Chastanet Beach near Soufriere, Saint Lucia

Finally, we drop off the visible spectrum and go dark. Black sand beaches form from igneous or volcanic rock, mostly basalt, which crystallises and shatters as volcanic lava seeps into the ocean and quickly cools. The process is so quick in fact that black sand beaches are thought to occur instantly.

Hawaii’s Punalu’u Beach is one of the world’s best-recognised black sand beaches, also as a favourite rest stop for Green and Hawksbill Turtles. But we don’t want to harp on about Hawaii again. Yes, we know your unending volcanic activity has conferred all manner of crystallisation processes giving rise to almost every type of natural beach, but give it a rest, let someone else have a go now eh?

Let us instead draw your attention to the pretty Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. Anse Chastanet Beach, near the west-coast town of Soufriere, is the jet-black result of this particularly active volcanic island.

It is arguably the world’s most stunning black sand beach. Indeed many consider it to be one of the best beaches in the world, not least because Saint Lucia’s Pitons – the distinctive mountainous spires, another volcanic wonder – are in glorious view.

A romantic and refined spot, Anse Chastenet is a place to sip cocktails in style and await that tropical sunset, basking in the glory of nature. Although do make sure to bring shoes to bask with. Black sand tends to get rather hot.

Check out the package holiday to St Lucia that better suits you and discover this glorious beach.