Rauðisandur

The sand shifts from rust to amber to pale gold as the tide retreats, and grey seals lie scattered across the wet expanse like smooth boulders. Rauðisandur in Iceland's Westfjords is a 10-kilometre beach that changes colour with the light — a place that looks different every hour and never looks like anywhere else in Iceland.

Rauðisandur gets its distinctive red-gold colour from crushed scallop shells mixed with iron-rich minerals in the volcanic bedrock — a composition found almost nowhere else on Iceland's overwhelmingly black coastline. The beach stretches roughly 10 kilometres along the southern edge of the Westfjords' Látrabjarg peninsula, backed by dark cliffs that heighten the colour contrast. Grey seals haul out in large numbers on the sand, particularly in summer, and can often be observed from a few dozen metres. At the beach's eastern end, the small Sjávarkirkja church and the ruins of Melanes farm tell the story of centuries of remote habitation — including a notorious 19th-century double murder that became one of Iceland's most famous criminal cases. Access is via a steep, winding gravel road from Patreksfjörður that deters casual visitors.