Northern Europe’s 9 most beautiful beaches

Summers are getting hotter in Europe, and its popular beach destinations over-touristed. Canny beach lovers have begun looking north, where the season may be shorter, the days are blissfully longer. And considerably less crowded.

If you’re dreaming of relaxing on an endless, empty beach, consider these beautiful beaches set on more northerly latitudes.

Adrift in the Baltic Sea, the Danish island of Bornholm is a popular holiday spot for Danes looking to get away from it all. A relaxing mix of rural vistas, fishing harbours and chocolate box towns, the island is also famed for its lovely, untouched beaches.

The most famous is Dueodde Beach on the south of the island. Here, just beyond a pine forest, you’ll find a strip of coastline where the sand is so white and so fine that it was once used in hourglasses. Accessed by wooden boardwalks that lead through forests and sand dunes, you are rewarded with crystal-clear waters, shallow and warm and largely deserted.

The Baltic version of a city beach, Pirita, is but a short bus ride from the atmospheric old town of Tallinn. The vibe is very different here, with changing cabins, playgrounds for children and areas for ball games and beach bar, a ten-pin bowling club bar and kiosks in the summer.

Having said that, if you counterintuitively head up the beach, back towards the city, the beach empties, with the pine forest backing onto it here offering a sense of privacy and seclusion. If you still have energy at the end of the day, there’s a cycle path through the forest that connects with a coastal promenade that leads all the way back to the city, roughly six kilometres away.

It’s the last thing you’d expect to see in the far north of Norway: sugar-white sands, startling blue waters, all set against jagged, vertical granite peaks rising straight from the sea. But that is the delightful vista presented to visitors to Haukland Beach on the island of Vestvågøy in Norway’s fabled Lofoten archipelago.

The beach sits about 13km from the picture-perfect town of Leknes, a tumble of the kind of red wooden houses one would expect to see in this part of the world. There’s a car park, a changing room and a café, but little else. Be warned, water temperatures rarely exceed 15°C, even in the peak of summer. But the days are long, giving ample opportunity to paddleboard and kayak like the locals. Or hike 400-metre-high Mount Mannen for panoramic views of this Arctic paradise.

This beautiful 4-kilometre-long beach wraps around the crystal-clear waters of Tylö Bay and regularly tops the list of Sweden’s best beaches. It’s not just the fine white sand, rolling sand dunes and scenic coastal hikes along Prince Bertil’s Trail that draw the visitors. Tylösand is famous for its After Beach bar too.

This lively amphitheatre nestled between the dunes is open every day during the summer, with DJs and live bands creating a carefree holiday vibe. The annual SummerSmash festival takes that vibe a notch higher. If you need a little more space and tranquillity, simply wander slightly to the north towards Frösakull and Ringenäs. Or lose yourself amongst the sand dunes.

Palanga Beach is Lithuania’s most vibrant seaside resort yet still features kilometres of fine white sand, low dunes and pine forests facing out towards the Baltic Sea. J. Basanavičius Street, the main pedestrian thoroughfare is packed with cafés, restaurants, shops and amusement areas. And the 470-metre wooden pier is a popular place to watch the sunset in summer. But walk either north or south and you’ll soon find yourself walking along a much quieter stretch of sand.

Keep your eye peeled for amber, fossilised tree resin, prized for its warm golden-orange colour, that often washes up here. And wooden saunas, a sight never seen on Europe’s southern beaches. They are available for rent and provide a unique wellness experience on this magical stretch of coastline.

Getting to Borkum Beach on Germany’s East Frisian Island is an adventure in itself. The island is reached via a two-hour ferry or an hour-long catamaran ride from Emden on the German mainland. And upon arrival, the historic island train, Borkumer Kleinbahn, takes you within 200 metres of the beach.

And what a beach it is, a wide, fine-sand beach, dotted with candy-coloured cabins and the island’s iconic blue-and-white striped Strandkorb wicker chairs. Hay fever sufferers love Borkum Beach too. Locals say that low-pollen, clean air here brings immediate allergy relief.

Navagio Beach on the Greek island of Zakynthos has a shipwreck. This deserted beach on the Baltic coast of Latvia goes one better with the remains of an old Tsarist fort tumbling into the sea. Once a part of a secretive Soviet naval base, it has only been open to the wider world since the fall of the USSR.

Backed by pine forests, the beach is quiet, uncrowded and undeveloped, a car park its only nod to modernity. Those looking for a more traditional beach holiday should head south across the causeway and into Liepāja. Latvia’s beloved ‘Music City’ boasts an incredibly beautiful beach too, a pristine 8-kilometre stretch of ultra-fine white sand, 50 to 80 metres wide.

Part of Europe’s Natura 2000, the world’s largest network of protected nature conservation areas, Yyteri Beach manages to maintain an aura of calm despite being one of the most popular beaches in Finland. It is a place where Finns come to breathe, to soak up the serenity of the sand dunes and let the sun warm their faces.

The Blue Flag-certified beach itself is three kilometres long. But it is part of a recreational area covering 39 hectares and offers all kinds of water-based activities, including boating, kayaking and paddleboarding. But ultimately, it is the gentle embrace of nature that makes this beach so special.

Luskentyre Beach on the Outer Hebrides island of Harris is the closest thing to a Robinson Crusoe beach in northern Europe. So much so that it was where the BBC filmed Castaway, a programme where 36 men, women, and children were left to live completely self-sufficiently for an entire year, cut off from civilisation.

But what a place to be stranded. Mile after mile of empty white sand beach and a sea a startling shade of Caribbean blue. Even at the height of summer, chances are that your fellow beachcombers are a flock of sheep or a lone Highland cow. Even on a dull day, the beach still displays its distinctly un-Scottish colours brightly and boldly. Turn off the main A859 road when you spot the signpost to Losgaintir. Paradise is but a bumpy 5km drive down a single-track minor road away.

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