New Zealand
Hot Water Beach
Dig knee-deep in wet sand and volcanic hot water fills the hole beneath your feet.
The sand is warm underfoot before you start digging. At Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, volcanic springs push through the sand at low tide, and the ritual is always the same: dig a hole, sit in it, and feel the Earth heat the water around you.
The thermal window lasts roughly two hours either side of low tide, when the receding ocean exposes springs heated by the geothermal activity beneath the Coromandel. Temperatures can exceed sixty-four degrees Celsius — too hot for bare hands — so pools require mixing with cool seawater channelled from the surf. Spades are available for hire from the local shop, or bring your own. Outside the thermal window, the beach is a decent surf break. Mercury Bay Historical Society identifies this coastline as the landing place of Polynesian navigator Kupe.
Solo
Digging your own hot pool while the Pacific crashes a few metres away is a solitary pleasure that needs no companion to appreciate.
Couple
Building a two-person pool together, adjusting the temperature by breaching sand walls — it is collaborative, silly, and oddly romantic.
Family
Children understand this place instantly: dig hole, water appears, water is hot. The simplicity is the magic, and the surf provides the encore.
- Dig a hole in the sand at low tide and volcanic springs fill it with water hot enough to scald.
- The two-hour window either side of low tide creates a communal rush as hundreds of impromptu pools appear.
- The beach itself is a surf break — once the thermal window closes, boardriders reclaim the waves.
- Mercury Bay Historical Society confirms this coast is where Polynesian navigator Kupe first landed.
Post-soak ice cream from the Hot Water Beach Store — hokey pokey is the only correct choice.
Fresh green-lipped mussels steamed in white wine at the Coromandel Oyster Company.
Jericoacoara
Brazil
Windswept dunes where the sun melts into the sea from a natural stone arch.
St Ives
England
Light so luminous it lured a century of painters to this harbour of turquoise shallows.
Tulpar-Köl
Kyrgyzstan
Alpine pools at 3,500 metres that mirror a 7,000-metre peak at dawn like shattered glass.
Philae Temple
Egypt
A temple rescued from rising waters, reassembled stone by stone on an island in the Nile.
Piha
New Zealand
Black iron-sand stretches beneath a lion-shaped monolith where the Tasman pounds relentlessly.
Tiritiri Matangi Island
New Zealand
Birds thought near-extinct now eat from your hand on a predator-free island sanctuary.
Raglan
New Zealand
One of the world's longest left-hand point breaks rolling into a harbour of black volcanic sand.
Cathedral Cove
New Zealand
A cathedral-sized limestone arch frames turquoise water on a coast carved across millennia.