BAY OF ISLANDS: We've got plenty of choices back home for great beaches yet we're always on the look out for perfection.

What is it about the humble meeting of sand and sea that seems to enchant us? It's more than just the sum of its parts, a beach. It's more than sand to lie on, more than water in which to swim. It's romance, it's adventure and it's the time of your life.

Beaches mean so much. They're building sandcastles when you were a kid. They're family holidays away from school. They're the feeling of catching your first wave as a teenager. They're wild nights in foreign lands in your 20s, the relaxing getaways of middle age and the long walks of later years.Beaches are freedom. Beaches are an escape.

We're spoilt with beaches here in New Zealand. Yet still we travel in search of perfection, to discover and enjoy beaches the world over, to soak up culture and difference while getting a hit of vitamin D.

There's variety in beaches, easily enough to keep you amused for a lifetime. There are the hidden beaches, those secluded wonderlands that you feel like keeping to yourself forever. There are the bustling city beaches, European hotspots of carefully primped sunbathers and oblivious foreign gawkers.

There are the stunning, windswept northern beaches of Scotland, in whose cold waters you would never dream of dipping a toe. There are the spring-break beaches of the Caribbean, the surf beaches of Tahiti, the family-friendly patches of Fiji, the stunning backdrops of South Africa.

Whatever your preference, there's romance, joy, relaxation and adventure in every beach. It's impossible to deny the attraction of that humble meeting of sand and sea.

Here, then, are some perfect beaches around the world.

PERFECT PACIFIC ISLAND BEACH

BEST PACIFIC ISLAND BEACH: The Rocks Bar, Vomo Island Resort, Fiji.

Originally posted here:

The world's best beaches