The 16 Best Coastal Escapes in North America

Highway 1 clings to sheer cliffs for 90 miles along this stretch of California coast, with the Pacific crashing against rock hundreds of feet below the road's edge.

Bixby Creek Bridge, one of the most recognisable bridges in the US, arcs across a canyon right beside the highway.

Redwood groves grow almost to the ocean's edge in places, an unusual pairing within a short drive.

The Golden Gate Bridge has been San Francisco's calling card since 1937: 2.

7km of International Orange suspension bridge strung between the city and the Marin Headlands.

It's that rare landmark that looks better in bad weather - the towers rising out of rolling fog are the classic view.

Walk or cycle the deck, then take it in from Baker Beach, Fort Point or Battery Spencer.

Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur is a dramatic California coastline beach famous for its purple-tinged sand, caused by manganese garnet washed down from the surrounding hillsides, and for Keyhole Rock — a sea arch through which the setting sun shines in spectacular alignment during November and December.

Highway 1 traces roughly 650 miles of California's Pacific edge, from Orange County's beach towns through the cliffs and redwood-backed switchbacks of Big Sur to the rugged Mendocino coast.

Bixby Bridge, McWay Falls, and pullouts over crashing surf make nearly every mile worth slowing for.

The road narrows to a single lane clinging to cliffside in Big Sur, and landslide closures are common enough that checking conditions beforehand is routine.

A week-long sail through Southeast Alaska's fjords, where tidewater glaciers calve into the sea and humpback whales breach beside the ship.

Ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan mix gold-rush history with float-plane flightseeing over ice fields.

Bald eagles, sea otters, and porpoises are common sightings from the open deck.

Weather shifts fast, turning misty mornings into golden evening light on snow-capped peaks.

A glass-towered harbour city wedged between the Coast Mountains and the Pacific, where downtown ends abruptly at the seawall and North Shore peaks rise directly across the water.

Stanley Park's rainforest and shoreline path wrap the downtown peninsula, while Granville Island's public market sits a short ferry hop across False Creek.

Vancouver pairs an outdoor-focused lifestyle with skiing, hiking and beaches within a short drive of downtown.

Tulum is the only major Maya city built directly on the coast, its stone temples and watchtowers standing on a low cliff above a beach of white sand and turquoise water.

The site is small compared to Chichén Itzá, but the setting — walled ruins on one side, Caribbean Sea on the other — is unmatched.

Visitors can walk the perimeter path in under an hour, then head down the wooden stairs to swim below the cliffs.

Isla Holbox is a car-free sandbar island off Mexico's Yucatán coast, reached only by boat, with sandy streets, pastel-painted guesthouses, and a slower pace than the resorts of Cancún.

Whale sharks gather in the surrounding waters from roughly June to September, drawing snorkel trips out to swim alongside them, and the island's shallow lagoon glows with bioluminescent plankton on dark nights.

A long, wide stretch of soft white sand on Oahu's windward coast, with the Ko'olau mountain range rising green and jagged directly behind it.

It's popular with locals rather than tour buses, so it stays uncrowded even close to Honolulu, and the water is generally calmer than the island's surf-famous North Shore.

Bellows Beach next door adds a second, quieter option within the same bay.

An 11-mile coastal trail along Kauai's Na Pali Coast, climbing in and out of fluted, jungle-green valleys with the Pacific breaking against sea cliffs far below.

The route crosses Hanakapiai Stream, skirts the exposed Crawler's Ledge, and ends at the remote Kalalau Valley and beach.

Permits are required past the two-mile mark and are famously hard to secure, often selling out within seconds of release.

A small fishing village on Nova Scotia's rocky Atlantic coast, built around one of Canada's most recognisable lighthouses, perched on wave-smoothed granite boulders above the open ocean.

The working harbour still holds lobster boats and fish shacks alongside the crowds, and a short walk along the shoreline rocks gives open views out to sea.

Waves can sweep the outer rocks without warning.

Cuba's premier beach resort stretch runs for roughly 20 kilometers along a narrow peninsula east of Havana, its powder-white sand and calm, clear turquoise water backed by a dense strip of all-inclusive resorts.

It's a more polished, tourist-oriented side of Cuba than Havana or Trinidad, built primarily around sun, sand and watersports rather than culture or history.

A causeway connects this low-lying coral island to the Cuban mainland, its shoreline mixing resort beaches with mangrove lagoons and salt flats that host large flamingo colonies, giving it noticeably more wildlife interest than Varadero's more developed strip.

Birdwatchers come specifically for the flamingos and other wading birds alongside sun-seekers drawn to its calm, shallow waters.

Guatemala's Pacific coast is defined by volcanic black sand, and Monterrico is its best-known stretch, backed by mangrove canals and a sea-turtle hatchery that releases hundreds of hatchlings each season.

The strong surf and undertow make it a beach for walking and sunset-watching rather than swimming, and boat trips through the adjoining reserve add caimans and waterbirds to the appeal.

Founded by French settlers rather than the Spanish, Cienfuegos carries a distinctly different architectural character from the rest of Cuba, its neoclassical Parque José Martí and grand Tomás Terry Theatre earning it the nickname 'Pearl of the South' and UNESCO status.

Set on a wide, protected bay, the city has a more orderly, less weathered feel than Havana's crumbling grandeur, with a genuinely pleasant waterfront Malecón for evening walks.

A string of sandy beaches just 20 minutes east of Havana, Playas del Este is where the capital's own residents go to swim, making it a far more local scene than Cuba's resort-heavy north coast.

Santa María del Mar is the best-known stretch, with warm shallow water, beach shacks selling grilled fish, and none of the all-inclusive walls found at Varadero or Cayo Coco.

It's an easy half-day escape without leaving the Havana area.