Croatia is an extremely popular destination when it comes to holiday trips. No wonder, as the coastline is almost 6,000 kilometers long, so beaches are a plenty. What’s more, Croatia’s beaches have various types of surface, from gravel and rocks to sand. Adriatic coast has everything a seaside holiday needs – hot and sunny weather, warm water and many places for sunbathing.
There are many beautiful and charming places – bays, islands and rocks, and hidden picturesque beaches. Most of them offer infrastructure prepared specifically for tourists, with various facilities, and sometimes you can enjoy a bit of shade at a pine forest.
On the other hand, there are also many wild beaches, where there are no crowds and you can rest from all this hustle and bustle – just take a bit off the beaten path.
In the country of a thousand islands you will always find a sunbathing place fitting your specific needs, whether you are searching for a nudist beach or a place that has infrastructure for children.
So let’s start our journey through the most beautiful and sandy beaches in Croatia:
The most beautiful beaches in Croatia
Croatia is a paradise for seaside vacationers. There are many beaches to choose from, but which one is the most beautiful? This is a topic for another discussion, because everybody enjoys something different. However, below we introduce five beaches we find the most beautiful in Croatia, praised the most by the tourists. All of them are worth checking out. Furthermore, there’s a small surprise at the end of the article 🙂
Get ready!
Beach Zlatni Rat on the island of Brač
Zlatni Rat – probably the most famous of Croatia’s beautiful beaches. Its characteristic shape is said to resemble a rat’s tail.
This beach is located in Bol town, on the island of Brač.
Photos of the beach are often used for advertising holidays in Croatia. It is a pebble beach with an extensive infrastructure. Especially windsurfing sports fans are fond of it because of good weather conditions for enjoying the sport.
See how to get to the beach Zlatni Rat, also known as Golden Horn:
On the beach you can play volleyball, go scuba diving or try kitesurfing. When you are tired of the sun, walk to the nearby forest, it will give you a moment’s respite. There are also small shops and cafes nearby, as well as paid showers.
In the summer, the beach is very crowded and does not look nearly as beautiful as the pictures …
Punta Rata Beach
Punta Rata – another beach that tends to appear on postcards from Croatia or as a background for advertising folders.
Its recognizable characteristic is a rock rising from the water, overgrown with pine trees.
This beach is located in Brela on the Makarska Riviera. It is surrounded by a pine forest, especially enjoyable in the summer. Like Zlatni Rat, Punta Rata is also a pebble beach, and is often praised by tourists for its cleanliness.
There is a paid toilet nearby, you can also borrow the hang-glider, and stock up on fruit from boats going by.
Sandy beach Paradise Beach
Paradise Beach – the third of the most impressive beaches in Croatia, as famous as the two previously mentioned ones.
It is located near the town of Lopar on the island of Rab.
It is unique due to being located right at the foot of the mountains. The beach is sandy and stretches for about a mile. It is an ideal place for families with children, with full catering facilities. There is also a nudist beach nearby.
Vela plaža
Vela plaža has a length of almost two kilometers.
It is located in one of the most beautiful Croatian small towns – Baška, on the island of Krk.
It is again a gravel-stony beach, located a bit on the sidelines of a small cove. You can walk along the promenade along the coast, stopping and admiring the views on one of many small piers. Good gastronomic infrastructure is here at your fingertips.
Watch a video from Vela plaža in Baška on the island of Krk:
Going forward.
Slanica Beach
Slanica Beach – on the one hand beautiful, idyllic views, on the other, a crowd of tourists besieging the beach every summer.
Located on the island of Murter, in the town of the same name.
The beach is made of sand and pebbles, but a part of it has concrete terraces built for sunbathing. There are also many food services around the beach, as well as various entertainments for children.
Below is a map where you can find this beautiful beach:
Croatian sandy beaches are just as beautiful!
Sandy beaches in Croatia
“Are the beaches sandy?” tends to be the first question asked for tourists planning to visit Croatia for the first time.
The truth is that in Croatia sandy beaches are much rarer than those made of rocks and pebbles. Nevertheless, they are not as rare as some tourists think.
You’ll find them in Dalmatia (eg Bura, Bilin Zal, Zaglav, Sabunike, Pirka, Maslinica, Grabov rat etc.), Kvarner region (eg Pudarica, Meline, Lipanj, Blatina), Istria (eg Zambratija, Guvnina, Bijeca), and even in the Lika region (eg Borovici, Planjka, Kukurina).
They may be not sandy like the beaches of the Caribbean islands, snow-white and soft, but they are sandy. You will find them if you search for them, as there are several sandy beaches in Croatia.
Furthermore let’s remember that sandy beaches are ideal beaches for families with children.
Beaches for children in Croatia
Staying on the topic of sandy beaches, tourists often ask for the best beaches for kids. It is mainly about the sand in which they could play, as well as warm and fairly shallow waters at the shore.
This is what families with children are often searching for in Croatia.
Croatia, of course, has places that are mainly oriented towards this kind of tourism and apart from guaranteed good weather and natural wonders, they also offer kids’ entertainment – slides, playgrounds and other water games.
Nearby pine forests are a bonus, as they allow you to relax from the unrelenting heat. In addition, it would be good to relax in a place where infrastructure with shops and gastronomy is located at a short distance, because it’s impossible to foresee what a child might need or want.
An example of beaches that are recommended by other travelers for families with children is the beach of Nin on the Zadar Riviera.
See for yourself how the beach of Nin looks like:
Long, sandy beaches with shallow backshore for children to play in accompanied by spas where adults can enjoy medicinal clays.
Another recommended beach is Trstenica, which is located next to a fairly dense forest, where you can escape the burning sun. The see is shallow by the beach, so children can play in the water as much as they want.
Another place recommended for families with children is Vela Plaža, proud of being awarded the Blue Flag. The bottom is visible even when you swim quite a long distance from the shore. In the vicinity, apart from catering and shops, there is a playground for children and water attractions.
In turn, the Dražica beach, apart from fine gravel and the proximity of a small town (Biograd na Moru), has a small amusement park offering attractions such as trampolines, bumper cars and slides.
However, the beach in the town of Zaton offers not only shallow sea and trees in whose shadow you can escape the sun, but also the watchful eyes of lifeguards and the care of animators who entertain the children.
And now the promised surprise from the beginning of the article:)
Here you will find a list of the 50 best beaches in Croatia collected over the course of 10 long months:
Map of the Croatian coast
The current tourist map of the Croatian coast will help you locate the most popular beaches in the country:
We just want to add that there are so many beautiful beaches, both sandy and rocky, that it’s hard to imagine. We only mentioned the most popular ones. Each of us has a favorite one, hidden from the eyes of others, located on an island or in a bay.
Croatia is so beautiful that we recommend discovering it in your own way and looking for places away from crowds. There is nothing more tragic than a beautiful place that you cannot admire … On the official website of tourism in Croatia you will also find a few words about the beaches of Kornati.
P.S. Don’t forget that there are also nudist beaches in Croatia ; )