The chill is slowly dissipating for people in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn is just beginning for those in the Southern Hemisphere. No matter where you are in the world, visiting blue spaces like lakes, ponds, rivers, seas and oceans have been found to significantly improve your wellbeing. Whether you just cannot wait for summer vacation to arrive or are dreaming of escaping wintry chills, here is our selection of some of the best beaches in the world that you should book your tickets to.
Playa del Amor, or "Hidden Beach," is located on the Marietas Islands in Mexico and looks like it's straight out of a fairy tale. The turquoise blue waters of the Pacific Ocean gush into a sprawling cave and leave visitors enthralled. The uninhabited islands have made them ideal sites for military testing by the Mexican government. Rumour has it that the test bombs were the cause behind the creation of the beach.
The archipelago was declared a national park in 2005 called the Islas Marietas National Park. Swimming, kayaking and sunbathing are some of the activities you can enjoy on the islands.
This natural wonder of a beach in Hawaii has sand of a deep black colour, lending it an almost postapocalyptic look. The black sand of Punalu'u is made up of basalt that has washed up on the shore from underneath the waves. It's formed when streams of lava flowing underwater overheat rocks and cause them to explode offshore. The area is also home to a variety of endangered wildlife species, such as the Hawaiian monk seal and hawksbill sea turtle.
The Giant's Causeway is one of the oddest geological formations that looks like they were carved by humans because of its shape and precision. These step-like interlocking hexagonal columns were born of natural processes during the Paleogene period (66-23 million years ago) when the north of Ireland was undergoing massive volcanic activity.
A lava plateau was formed when molten basalt came into contact with chalk beds. When it cooled down, the plateau contracted and cracked into tens of thousands of hexagonal columns of varying heights. The tallest of these is almost 36 feet. Some other examples of unique rock formations include the Devils Postpile in California, USA, Fingal's Cave in Scotland, the UK, and Los Prismas Basálticos in Mexico.
In the early 1900s, the residents of Fort Bragg dumped everything from appliances, glass and even cars off the city's cliffs and onto the beach. As the beach began to accumulate huge quantities of rubbish, fires were lit to burn them down and reduce their size. After 1967, local leaders undertook a multitude of clean-up drives after realising the damage they had caused.
Over the next couple of decades, powerful waves cleansed the beach, turning the discarded glass into small and smooth coloured pebbles. In 2002, a 15-hectare property of Glass Beach was sold to the California Department of Parks and Recreation to become part of the MacKerricher State Park.
Commonly known as the 'Sea of Stars', the beaches of Vaadhoo Island in the Raa Atoll of the Maldives glow. Why? Bioluminescent phytoplankton called dinoflagellates—a tiny organism that often appears in warm coastal waters—glows when it experiences physical disturbance. The area is a haven for visitors looking to sink their feet in white sandy beaches, try their hand at snorkelling and diving, or simply sunbathe without a care in the world.
