It’s no surprise that beaches are beautiful. The sky and water are usually bright blue with delicate white or brown sand along the shore. Depending on where you are, there may also be some gorgeous green palm trees nearby.
While those beach colors are stunning, they’re exactly what you’d expect from a beach. Yet, not all beaches are created equal, and some are truly unique. The sand, wildlife, landscape, and even water could appear in bold colors that you won’t see on a daily basis.
So, if you love beaches and colors, consider looking for beaches with unexpected colors on your next trip. These colorful aspects may be unusual, but they’re often even more breathtaking than the view of a typical beach.
1. Sea Glass in a Rainbow of Colors
Many people love hunting for sea glass on the beach. While it looks like a smooth, bright-colored stone, sea glass is actually a shard of glass that has been naturally weathered to create a smooth finish. It can often take decades to form, which is what makes it so special.
Most sea glass is a shade of green or blue, but it can also be found in other colors. Some beaches are more likely to have sea glass than others, such as Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California. While Glass Beach now looks gorgeous with a rainbow of sea glass colors, it was a garbage dump until the late 1960s. So, even though dumping was prohibited after that, lots of the glass that was dumped stuck around and formed stunning sea glass. To maintain its unique appeal, guests cannot take glass from this beach.
Glass Beach isn’t the only beach of its kind. Sea Glass Beach in Bermuda also has an abundance of sea glass. Some beaches aren’t filled with a variety of sea glass, but they may have more than the average beach, such as Grant Park Beach in Wisconsin and Seaham Beach in the UK.
2. Colorful Seashells
People are often fascinated by the beauty of seashells on the beach. Even though seashells are usually white, gray, and brown, they’re stunning in their own unique way. Yet, not all seashells come in neutral colors. They can actually appear in a wide range of unique colors, including pink, red, orange, and purple. You just need to know the best places to look for them.
Colorful seashells can appear at almost any beach, but some beaches have a more abundant collection than others. Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland, Ocracoke Island in North Carolina, and Jeffreys Bay in South Africa are just a few places that are recommended for finding shells. If you’re someone who’s fascinated by colorful shells, consider collecting them so you never have to forget your beautiful findings.
3. Black Sand
Beaches are usually associated with bright colors and sunny skies. Therefore, black is rarely a color people would expect to find at the beach. Some beaches have pitch-black sand instead of the delicate light-colored sand people are used to.
Sand’s color is affected by the materials it’s exposed to. So, black sand is typically caused by eroded volcanic materials like basalt rocks, lava, and other dark-colored minerals. While these beaches are mesmerizing, they’re not always safe to get close to. The contents in the water could be unsafe and the dark color of the sand could make it extremely hot to walk on.
Before you visit a black sand beach, check the details to find out if you can walk on the sand and/or swim in the water. Some popular black sand beaches include Punaluʻu Beach in Hawaii, Playa Jardín in Spain, and Perivolos Beach in Greece.
4. Pink or Purple Sand
Pink and purple sand sounds like something that can only be found in a fairy tale. Yet, there are plenty of real-life beaches with sand in these colors. Pfeiffer Beach in California and Plum Island Beach in Massachusetts are two beaches known for occasionally having patches of purple sand. A few popular pink sand beaches include Pink Sands Beach in the Bahamas, Elafonissi Beach in Greece, and Spiaggia Rosa in Italy.
Like black sand, purple and pink colored sand is caused by certain materials. For example, Pink Sands Beach in the Bahamas gets its pink hue from Foraminifera, which are microscopic coral creatures with bright pink or red shells. When they die, their bodies are crushed on the shore by waves, causing the sand on the beach to look pink.
For purple sand beaches like Plum Island Beach in Massachusetts, the purple hue is caused by bits of almandine and pyrope garnet mixing with the sand. These minerals have hints of purple, pink, or red mixed into them, making the sand at certain beaches look purple.
5. Green Sand
To add to the rainbow of sand colors, green sand is also an option. A few examples of green sand beaches include Papakolea Beach in Hawaii and Talofofo Beach in Guam. From a distance, these beaches look like they might be covered in a thin layer of grass or moss, but the sand itself is actually olive green.
The green coloring comes from the mineral olivine. At these green beaches, the lava deposits are rich in olivine, which causes the sand to turn green. Olivine takes a long time to wash away, so even if the nearby volcano has been dormant for years, the green hue will still remain in the sand.
6. Pink Water
When it comes to colors you wouldn’t expect to see in nature, nothing is more unusual than bright pink water. We normally expect water to be a refreshing blue (or at least similar colors like green, dark blue, or even brown). Yet, there are a few beaches that have bright pink water, such as Las Salinas in Puerto Rico and Lake Hillier in Australia.
Organisms in the water, such as halophilic bacteria, cause the water to turn pink. This bacteria is often bright red or purple in color, so when it interacts with water, it results in a pink hue that’s so vibrant it doesn’t seem real. While these bodies of water look extremely unnatural, they’re often safe to swim in as long as you don’t ingest the water. As a precaution, most people prefer to observe the beauty from a distance rather than dipping their toes in.
7. Multicolored Buildings
Some of the world’s most colorful cities have a beach, allowing you to admire the rainbow of buildings as you relax by the water. Cinque Terrie in Italy, Santorini in Greece, and St. John’s in Canada are just a few cities where you might see beautifully-colored buildings near beaches. However, lots of random beaches have colorful structures near the shore to make them more appealing to visitors.
While many colorful buildings are painted that way just for fun, they sometimes serve a purpose. Houses near bodies of water may be painted in vibrant colors as a way to help fishermen find their way home. If each home has a distinct hue from the colors around it, it’s easier for people to spot in low-light conditions and fog.
8. Red Rock Formations
Even though beaches are known for sand and water, there are often many other nature aspects to admire nearby. Some beaches have gorgeous rock formations, which can appear bright red. Sometimes, these rock formations cause the sand to have a red hue, too, but in other instances, the red rocks are at a distance from the sand.
For example, Massif de l’Esterel in France and Vir in Croatia are two areas known for their red rock formations. They also have beach areas, allowing visitors to have a relaxing beach day while also taking in the gorgeous red rocks. There are plenty of other beaches like this around the world, but they may be tricky to find since red rocks are usually in mountainous areas rather than by water.
Rocks become red when exposed to rust-colored minerals, such as minerals rich in iron. Like sand, the items interacting with rocks can greatly affect their appearance.
9. Dense Red Plants
While many of the things mentioned above can occur at multiple beaches, this one is specific to one beach in China. The Red Beach, located in Panjin, Liaoning, China, is covered with a deep red plant known as Suaeda salsa, a rare type of seepweed. It stands out from similar plants because it can change color. It’s green in the spring but shifts to a bold red in the summer, making the area around the water look like a soft red blanket. Before these plants die in the winter, they turn purple for a little while.
Tourists love to gather at lookout points to get a mesmerizing view and take photos of these plants that look like something out of a fantasy novel. Some people may even go swimming in areas that are considered safe.
10. Pink, Purple, Orange, and Red Sunsets
It’s no secret that sunsets on beaches are magical. Sunsets and sunrises often look better near beaches because the sun is surrounded by shimmering water and minimal obstructions. So it’s easier to see the colors lighting up the sky and reflecting off the water. Sunsets can appear yellow, orange, red, purple, and even pink, and those hues are often more prominent on the beach.
Any beach can be a great spot for a sunset, but certain destinations are known for their perfect beach sunsets. Kanyakumari Beach in India, Leleuvia in Fiji, and Lovina Beach in Indonesia are just a few of the many beaches known for having the best sunsets.
11. Pink Flowers
Flowers aren’t commonly associated with the beach because the shore is covered in sand, not soil. However, there are plenty of beaches with beautiful pink flowers right along the sand. This unique sight is perfect for photos, especially those with romantic or magical vibes.
Beach roses, sea thrifts, and salt marsh fleabanes are all examples of gorgeous pink flowers that grow near coasts. Not every seaside flower has to be pink, though. Some other flowers you might see include beach sunflowers (yellow), beach morning glories (white), and beach peas (purple).
12. Fish of All Colors
Sometimes, the most beautiful parts of beaches aren’t on the surface. If you go snorkeling or scuba diving, you can often see fish of every color underwater. Fish can have any hue on their skin, which could include bright yellow, blue, purple, orange, and red. In many instances, fish have a mixture of vibrant colors on their scales, resulting in stripes and other patterns. Depending on where you’re snorkeling, you may also see beautifully colored coral next to the stunning fish.
While most beaches allow snorkeling, not all of them have fish in every color of the rainbow. Coral reefs in the Red Sea, Rainbow Reef in Fiji, and Wakatobi Resort in Indonesia are just a few colorful places to snorkel.
