World’s Most Unusual Beaches

Hidden Beach (Marieta Islands, Mexico)

The Hidden Beach, officially called Playa Del Amor has shot to fame after gaining a huge following across social media. It is rumored that the hole revealing the Hidden Beach was a result of deliberate bombings. The Marieta Islands have always been completely uninhabited, leaving them vulnerable to be used by the Mexican Government. In the early 1900s, the government began using the islands as military testing sites. Test bombs are the known cause for many caves and rock formations on the island, possibly including the Hidden Beach.

Bioluminescent Bay (Vieques Island, Puerto Rico)

The Bioluminescent Bay, known also as the Mosquito Bay, is an amazing bio bay for both travelers and swimmers. The micro-organisms in the water will turn neon blue at night once the water is disturbed. So if you splash water or when it rains, the whole bay will light up and sparkle.

Papakōlea Beach (Hawaii)

Papakōlea Beach, also known as Green Sand Beach or Mahana Beach is a green sand beach located near South Point, in the Kaʻū district of the island of Hawaiʻi. One of only four green sand beaches in the world, the others being Talofofo Beach, Guam, Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands, and Hornindalsvatnet, Norway. It gets its distinctive coloring from the mineral olivine, found in the enclosing cinder cone.

Giant Causeway Beach, Ireland

The Giant’s Causeway, renowned for its polygonal columns of layered basalt, is the only World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland. Resulting from a volcanic eruption 60 million years ago, this is the focal point of a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and has attracted visitors for centuries.

Shell Beach (Western Australia)

The beach was named “Shell Beach” because of the great abundance of the shells of the cockle species Fragum erugatum. The seawater in the L’Haridon Bight has a high salinity due to both the geomorphology and local climate of the area. This high salinity has allowed the cockle to proliferate unchecked, since its natural predators have not adapted well to this environment. Shell Beach is one of only two beaches in the world made entirely from shells.

The volcanic rock of Iceland accounts for the black sand, and the ice pieces come from a nearby glacier that runs off into the lagoon.

Jokulsarlon (Iceland)

Jökulsárlón (literally “glacial river lagoon”) is a large glacial lake in southeast Iceland, on the edge of Vatnajökull National Park. Situated at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, it developed into a lake after the glacier started receding from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

Image Credit: topdreamer.com

Koekohe Beach (New Zealand)

The Koekohe Beach has unsually large and spherical boulders lying along the beach called Moeraki boulders. These boulders are grey-colored septarian concretions, which have been exhumed from the mudstone enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion.

Image Credit: topdreamer.com

Glass Beach (California)

Glass Beach is a beach in MacKerricher State Park near Fort Bragg, California that is abundant in sea glass created from years of dumping garbage into an area of coastline near the northern part of the town.

Barking Sands Beach (Kauai, HI)

As incredulous as it may sound, the sand on this beach can actually be made to mimic the sound of a dog barking. After many years of studies, scientists have determined that the grains of sand on this beach are actually hollow. Therefore, when a person walks on them they sound exactly like the sound of your four-legged friend barking.

Image Credit: www.bestspotsph.com

Great Santa Cruz Island (Philippines)

Great Santa Cruz Island is a small inhabited island in Zamboanga City in the southern region of the Philippines that is famous for its pink coralline sand. The island boasts the only pink sand beach in the Philippines. The color of the sand comes from the pulverized red organ pipe coral from eons of surf erosion mixed with the white sand.