Hi, I’m Esther — the person researching, writing and ranking every guide on Best Spain Beaches.
I live in Valencia, and the coast has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up going to the beach with my family, and we did it methodically without ever calling it that: one coast at a time, one summer after another, working our way along. Later I started going on my own, and now with my partner. The habit never stopped. It just turned into this.
What kept me interested was the sheer variation. The same country gives you wind-hammered Atlantic surf beaches in Cádiz, near-desert volcanic coves in Almería, and soft turquoise inlets buried in pine forest on the Costa Brava. Two coves half an hour apart can be completely different days out — one flat and sheltered, the next one steep enough to knock you over in knee-deep water. I never got tired of that contrast, and it is more or less the whole thesis of this site.
Why I Started This Site
Because I got tired of choosing between two kinds of beach content: glossy lists recycling the same five photographs, or forum threads with the last useful comment posted in 2014.
And because, once I started checking properly, I realised how much of what is published in English about Spanish beaches is simply wrong — not maliciously, just copied from one site to the next until nobody remembers where it came from. A cove near Santa Cristina d’Aro is described everywhere as 800 metres long; the Catalan tourism register says around 350, and the larger figure traces back to a single blog post from 2012. Half a dozen sites will tell you to check the tide table before visiting a beach on a sea whose tidal range is about twenty centimetres. A fisherman’s hut on the Costa Brava is still listed as available to book, when it has been locked shut for structural reasons.
None of that is dramatic on its own. Together it means somebody drives an hour and finds something other than what they were promised. That is what I am trying to fix.
How I Work
I start from official sources — town halls, the regional beach registers, natural park authorities, heritage inventories — rather than from other travel sites. When a number does not hold up, I say so in the guide and explain why, instead of quietly passing the error along.
I also look for the thing that makes a place itself, because it is usually the most useful information in the whole guide. A cove in Roses is quiet in August not by luck but because six kilometres of dirt track keep it that way. A beach near Palamós has a pine wood behind it instead of four hundred houses because the town voted on it in 1994. A family beach in Roses is named after a tuna trap that was set offshore until the 1930s. Once you know why a place is the way it is, the practical advice follows on its own.
What I Will and Won’t Claim
Some of the beaches on this site I know well. Others I have researched carefully but not yet reached — Spain has more than 8,000 kilometres of coastline and I am one person with a car. Where I have not been somewhere, the guide sticks to what can be verified and does not invent an afternoon I did not have.
I am also not a lifeguard, a coastguard or a local authority. I write about currents, steep entries, rockfall and closures because they matter, but conditions change and the people who actually manage these beaches are the ones to confirm with. Every guide points you to the right town hall or park office.
And nothing here is paid for. No sponsored entries, no paid placements in the rankings, no affiliate arrangements with the hotels, restaurants or dive centres I mention. If I recommend a chiringuito it is either genuinely good or the only one within fourteen kilometres, and I will tell you which.
Tell Me When I’m Wrong
Prices change, paths close, businesses shut, parking rules get rewritten every summer. If you have been somewhere recently and the guide no longer matches what you found, please write to me through the Contact page. Somebody who was there last week beats any register, and corrections get made.
The same goes for beaches you think deserve covering. I am working through the coastline steadily, region by region, and the list of what comes next is not fixed. If you want to know more about how the guides are put together, the About Us page sets it out.
Thanks for reading — I hope these guides help you find your own favourite stretch of Spanish coast.
Con mucho cariño,
Esther