The World's Most Romantic Beaches

Bruce Kluger February 12, 2007

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See our slideshow of the world's most romantic beaches.

In assembling our list, we paid close attention to the comfort factor. Although we’ve recommended a few private resorts, most of our selections tend to slip off the white gloves for a more natural kind of TLC. Beautiful Biarritz Beach on France’s Côte Basque, for instance, may not have the glitz and glamour of Saint-Tropez, but its charm is so intoxicatingly Old World that we defy you not to fall in love with it -- or on it.

Conveniently, many of our picks are only a short hop from the world’s better known and more populated seaside retreats. The beach at Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, for example, is just around the coral corner from the family-friendly Anini beach. Surf splashers choose Anini; dreamers choose Hanalei. Ditto the sheltered Mexican resort of Majahuitas which, just down the coast from the bustling beach scene at Puerto Vallarta, specializes in a more hidden kind of hedonism.

Access -- or rather, lack of it -- played a key role in our selections, too. Getting to the jungle haven of Corcovado National Park on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula can be a trek worthy of Indiana Jones, requiring passage by chartered air, donkey cart and foot. But for thrill-seekers in search of love and adventure, that’s part of the fun. Meanwhile, if you can even find the tiny and idyllic Papa Cove on the Greek island of Ios, then you might want to consider a career in private investigation.

A few of the usual suspects make an appearance on our list: the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the splendorous South Pacific paradises of Bora Bora and Fiji.

But in the end, we were more interested in the kind of scenery you find in "From Here to Eternity", not Frommer’s. In fact, one of our 14 selections possesses a feature we’d never seen before: a beach that’s actually shaped like a heart. Now there’s a place you gotta love.

See our slideshow of the world's most romantic beaches.

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