The Best Beaches In Asia To Hit This Summer

Look, Europe is a mess right now. Airfares are up, jet fuel's short, half your friends' flights to Italy are getting bumped, and honestly even if you get there, you're paying London-in-August prices for a margarita. So, let's skip it. The beaches in Asia have always been better anyway (I'll die on that hill) and if you pick right, you can find ones that haven't been swallowed by Instagram yet.

None of them are on the "Phuket-Bali-Boracay" circuit. A few take a little work to reach, but that's sort of the point. The journey is what keeps them quiet.

Best Beaches In Asia to Visit in Summer

These are the ones I'd go back to, and you should visit at least once.

Nacpan Beach, Palawan, Philippines

Here, you’ll find four kilometres of cream-coloured sand, palms leaning over the water, and the beach is still not ruined. It's a 45-minute scooter ride north of El Nido town, which is honestly not bad. Walk to the southern end and you hit Calitang — Nacpan's quieter twin — with a little hill between them you can climb for the view. I’d suggest you go for the sunset.

Pink Beach (Pantai Merah), Komodo, Indonesia

This is one of a handful of actually pink beaches in the world, and guys, it goes properly rose-gold at certain hours. How to get here, you ask? You boat in from Labuan Bajo on Flores, which now has direct flights from Bali, so it's much easier than it used to be. You can even pair it with a day of dragon-spotting on Komodo itself. You’ll feel like you’re on a whole new planet.

Coral Bay, Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia

Summer is actually the season here — June through August is when Malaysia's east coast is at its driest and calmest, which is the opposite of most of Thailand. You fly to Kota Bharu, taxi to Kuala Besut, jump on a speedboat for 30 minutes. The snorkeling is right off the sand (turtles, reef sharks if you're lucky) and the island is cheap (like what Thailand used to

be before White Lotus ruined it.)

Tanjung Tinggi, Belitung, Indonesia

Nobody talks about Belitung and I don't know why. It's an island off Sumatra with huge granite boulders stacked along curved white-sand bays, and it looks like nowhere else — kind of Seychelles-meets-Thailand. There's a direct flight from Jakarta that takes about an hour, and trust, it’s worth the detour.

Paliton Beach, Siquijor, Philippines

Siquijor is the small "mystic" island everyone in the Philippines knows about and nobody outside really does — it's famous locally for folk healers and a faintly witchy reputation. Paliton itself is just a short, clean crescent of sand with coconut palms leaning low over the water. Best at sunset with a San Miguel.

Bai Dam Trau, Con Dao, Vietnam

Con Dao is a small archipelago off Vietnam's south coast with a heavy history (it used to be a prison) and coastline that still feels like what coastal towns looked like 20 years ago. Bai Dam Trau is a crescent of white sand backed by jungle, right by the tiny airport — planes literally land over the beach, which is a sight in itself. It’s just a one-hour flight from Ho Chi Minh city.

Sao Beach, Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Okay, this one is not exactly a secret, but Sao is still one of those beaches that actually delivers on the promise. Here, you’ll find proper white powdery sand, shallow warm water, and picture-perfect palm trees. The north of Phu Quoc has gone full mega-resort, but Sao is down south is still much more quiet.

White Beach, Boracay, Philippines

Yeah, everyone knows about it. Yeah, it's busy. But there's a reason — it's genuinely one of the best beaches on earth, and the post-2018 cleanup actually worked. Stick to Station 3 if you want it chiller, Station 2 if you want the party.

Kokuei Emerald Beach, Okinawa, Japan

Okinawa isn't the first place people think of for a beach trip, but it should be. Emerald Beach is inside Ocean Expo Park on the main island, so it's man-made and very orderly (in the way only Japan can do), but the water is genuinely emerald and the sand is properly white.