Mental Floss

The 10 Best Beach Vacations in the World

Ellen Gutoskey|
Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. | Katarina_B/iStock via Getty Images

While some people are sincerely looking forward to spending the next several months curled up under a cozy blanket with hot chocolate in hand, others will pass the time simply wishing they were on a beach.

To help those people make the most of their daydreams—or, better yet, plan an actual vacation—luggage storage company Bounce has compiled a list of the 10 best beach vacation spots across the globe. The researchers began by choosing 250 of the world’s “most popular, most beautiful and best beaches” from a variety of travel sources, and then narrowing the selection down to 100. Those beaches were evaluated for the following factors: water temperature, weather, average hotel price, number of restaurants and bars, and number of Instagram hashtags.

After analyzing all the stats, each beach was given a score out of 10. No stretch of sand could compete with Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: It landed in first place with 6.97 points, thanks in part to the fact that it has more restaurants and bars (11,153) than any other beach on the list.

The rest of the top five comprised U.S. beaches. Florida’s Miami Beach missed out on the top spot by less than two-tenths of a point; and California’s Venice Beach was just 0.26 points behind that. Miami Beach’s popularity among spring breakers no doubt bolstered its performance—it’s been hashtagged on Instagram roughly 14.4 million times. Copacabana, for reference, clocked just 3.8 million hashtags.

Naama Bay in Egypt.
Naama Bay in Egypt. | brytta/iStock via Getty Images

If you’ve already explored all the U.S. offerings, you might try the sunny beaches of Egypt’s Naama Bay, a warm, calm body of water off the Red Sea. It came in sixth place with 6.02 points, narrowly outperforming Antigua and Barbuda’s Pink Sand Beach and Spain’s Barceloneta Beach.

See the top 10 beaches below, and find out more about them from Bounce.

  1. Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil // 6.97
  2. Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. // 6.80
  3. Venice Beach, California, U.S. // 6.54
  4. South Beach, Florida, U.S. // 6.16
  5. Santa Monica State Beach, California, U.S. // 6.14
  6. Naama Bay, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt // 6.02
  7. Pink Sand Beach, Codrington, Antigua and Barbuda // 5.93
  8. Barceloneta Beach, Barcelona, Spain // 5.89
  9. Mui Ne Beach, Phan Thiet, Vietnam // 5.84
  10. Cayo Coco, Cuba // 5.69
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