The Call of the Shore: Dreaming of the World’s Best Beaches 2025
There are two places in the world where I feel truly alive: high in the mountains and down by the sea. The mountains are for clarity — the thin air, the hard path, the view that strips away ego. But the sea… the sea is for freedom.
I have lived much of my life by the water. Ireland, where the Atlantic crashes against black cliffs and beaches stretch cold and lonely under gray skies. Malta, whose limestone bays shimmer turquoise, the Mediterranean sun relentless, children diving from rocks. Scotland, where even in summer the sand is cool, but the beaches glow with an otherworldly light. And Miami, of course, where the beach is a stage — endless heat, endless noise, endless people.
And I have travelled. I have seen beaches that looked like powder spilled from heaven, beaches of volcanic black, beaches where the palm trees lean so far out to sea you think they might dive. Of all of them, Zanzibar remains my personal paradise. Nowhere else have I found sand so fine, so impossibly soft it squeaks underfoot like snow.
So when TripAdvisor announced the 10 best beaches in the world for 2025, I leaned in, curious. Lists like this are not gospel, but they are windows into our collective longing. We all dream of beaches. Some for holidays, some for love, some for work — yes, even work, because digital nomads have carried laptops onto the sand and made the shore their office.
And yet, I smiled when I saw the list. I have never set foot on any of them. Not Greece, not Thailand, not Aruba or Cuba. Not yet. Perhaps that’s why the list stirs me: it invites imagination. I can picture each place, compare it with beaches I’ve known, and dream of what it would feel like to live and love there.
So let me take you on a journey. A mixture of memory and longing. A walk across the world’s top beaches — as TripAdvisor sees them in 2025 — and the echoes they awaken in me.
1. 🇬🇷 Elafonissi Beach, Greece
I imagine Elafonissi as a beach that blushes. Pink sand, born from crushed coral, washing against shallow turquoise waters. Children would chase each other through the lagoon, while couples float in warm shallows, eyes half-closed in contentment.
I’ve never been there, but I know that feeling: in Malta, in a cove where the water barely touched my knees, I once floated for an hour, watching the sky. I imagine Elafonissi would feel the same. And perhaps, at dusk, digital nomads would close their laptops under the shade of tamarisk trees, finally surrendering to the horizon.
2. 🇹🇭 Banana Beach, Thailand
Banana Beach seems like a secret — a place you reach only by boat, or by hacking through jungle trails with sweat on your brow.
I see it in my mind as a golden strip framed by palms, hammocks swinging, fish skewered over a fire on driftwood. Young travelers laughing, guitars under stars, perhaps lovers sneaking away into the palms — though always with a smile, knowing that romance on sand is only wonderful if you keep the sand in its place.
Banana Beach is freedom. Time suspends — days roll into nights with rum cocktails, hammocks, and the hush of wave after wave. I’ve never been, but in Zanzibar I’ve seen similar nights: barbecues by the water, laughter rising with smoke, time dissolving in the rhythm of the sea.
3. 🇦🇼 Eagle Beach, Aruba
Some beaches feel like a party. Eagle Beach, I imagine, is one of those. Wide, flat, endless, the kind of sand where the day turns into community.
Here, cruise passengers disembark to feel the sand. But stay a week, not a day, and you discover the deeper rhythm: early mornings when joggers trace the tide line, afternoons when pelicans dive like arrows into the surf, evenings when BBQ smoke rises and families gather with laughter and reggae beats.
It reminds me of Miami — not the chaotic South Beach with its neon nights, but those Sunday afternoons when families carried grills onto the sand, set up chairs, played dominoes under umbrellas. Eagle Beach feels communal, a reminder that the shore is not just for solitude but for togetherness.
4. 🇺🇸 Siesta Beach, Florida
This one I know second-hand but can almost feel in my bones. Quartz sand, so fine it squeaks, cool even under the burning Florida sun.
I remember arriving (in spirit, at least) with nothing but a towel, picturing a group of friends setting up for a BBQ. By evening, strangers become companions. Someone passes a plate of ribs. Someone else offers marshmallows to roast over a tiny grill dug into the sand.
The beach has this power: to level us, to strip away pretense. On the sand, we are all barefoot, equal, sharing the same horizon.
5. 🇵🇹 Praia da Falésia, Portugal
Red cliffs, green pines, blue Atlantic. A palette of contrasts. Praia da Falésia seems to be the kind of beach where you walk for hours, barefoot, wind in your face, thoughts stretching as wide as the sea.
Digital nomads have discovered it. I picture them in the cafés above the cliffs, laptops open, espressos at hand, working as the waves crash below. Work breaks mean barefoot stairways down to the surf, lunches of grilled sardines with vinho verde.
To live here, even briefly, is to realize that the line between work and holiday has blurred forever. Remote work has turned the world’s beaches into open-air offices. Some call it escapism. I call it liberation.
6. 🇨🇺 Playa Varadero, Cuba
Varadero is the archetype of Caribbean luxury: 20 kilometers of white sand, resort after resort. But wander beyond the hotels, and you find fishermen mending nets, children playing baseball, old men smoking cigars under palms.
Cuba teaches you that a beach is never just a beach. It is history, culture, politics, and poverty colliding with beauty. The tourists sip mojitos under umbrellas. The locals carve out lives from the same sand.
And yet, both groups pause at sunset, staring out at the sea with the same quiet awe.
7. 🇩🇴 Bavaro Beach, Dominican Republic
Bavaro feels like endless summer. Palm trees, warm seas, music drifting from beach bars. Jet skis, parasailing, banana boats — but also quiet corners where you can sit in the shade, alone with your thoughts, letting the Caribbean light bleach away your worries.
I remember a couple next to me one evening (in memory’s mirror, on Zanzibar’s Nungwi), wrapped in each other’s arms, whispering plans of marriage. They kissed as the surf washed around them. The sand clung to their skin. They laughed. That’s the kind of memory Bavaro must create: messy, sandy, unforgettable.
8. 🇪🇸 Playa de Muro, Spain
On Mallorca, Playa de Muro stretches in long arcs of golden sand. Families love it for its shallow waters. Nomads love it for its beach clubs with strong Wi-Fi and stronger cocktails.
I once spent a week (elsewhere in the Med) writing in exactly this rhythm. Mornings swimming, afternoons typing furiously in a café as the sea breeze cooled my skin. Evenings meant paella by the shore, then long walks under a Spanish moon.
Mallorca has reinvented itself for decades — from pirates to tourists to expats — and the beach is its eternal stage.
9. 🇮🇩 Kelingking Beach, Indonesia
Perhaps the most photographed beach on Instagram. A T-Rex-shaped cliff plunges into turquoise water. Reaching the sand requires a heart-stopping climb down bamboo steps, but once there, you feel like you have entered another planet.
It is raw, untamed. The waves crash with violence. Swimming can be dangerous. And yet, standing barefoot on that hidden sand, you feel like an explorer who has discovered a lost paradise.
It reminds us that beaches are not always about comfort. Sometimes they are about awe — about realizing that nature is bigger than us, and always will be.
10. 🇬🇷 Myrtos Beach, Greece
Back to Greece, where cliffs drop into cobalt seas. Myrtos is dramatic. Famous from films, postcards, and dreams.
Here, I lay once in imagination on a towel, watching paragliders float above the cliffs, their shadows racing across the waves. Couples posed for photographs, families picnicked, and young men grilled souvlaki on portable barbecues.
The air smells of salt and oregano. The sea is warm, the night long. Greece knows that life on the shore is not just about sunbathing. It is about community, food, music, and stories.
And Then… Zanzibar
And still, I must add Zanzibar. Not on TripAdvisor’s list, but forever on mine.
I walked barefoot along Nungwi Beach once, the sand so soft it squeaked like snow. Fishermen hauled their dhows into the surf. Children chased crabs with shouts of laughter. The tide receded for miles, leaving pools where starfish glowed red and blue.
At sunset, the horizon turned molten gold, and I realized: if paradise has a beach, it must look like Zanzibar.
Life on the Beach
Living by the sea, one learns rhythms.
Mornings are for swims before breakfast. Afternoons for work on laptops, with Wi-Fi tethered, sand sticking between the keys. Evenings for barbecues: fresh fish, corn, beer cooling in buckets of seawater.
Nights for walking barefoot under stars. For lovers whispering in the dunes. For children asleep in tents while parents sip rum by a fire.
Yes, one must always be cautious — sand in the wrong places is no laughing matter — but the truth is: the beach invites love. The sea erases inhibitions. The horizon expands possibilities.
Digital nomads have turned this into a lifestyle. Zoom calls with waves in the background. Blog posts written under palm trees. Investment portfolios managed from hammocks. Is it ridiculous? Perhaps. But also wonderful.
Because life is short. And the shore reminds us of this, even as it promises eternity.
Conclusion: The Eternal Horizon
The 10 best beaches of 2025 are not just places. They are dreams made tangible. They are proof that beauty is universal, scattered across continents, waiting for us to take off our shoes and step into it.
I have lived on many shores. I have loved, worked, laughed, and grilled fish over open fires by the sea. I have carried laptops into beach cafés, held my children’s hands as they jumped waves, and walked alone at dawn, the ocean teaching me humility.
And I will always return. Because the beach is more than a destination. It is where we remember who we are: barefoot, free, alive.
