My Island Holiday

Island Vacation

Beaches have long been a popular attraction for tourism and recreation. Especially popular are seaside resorts and large white sand beaches.

Residents and tourists alike use beaches as a place for leisure and sport. The relatively soft formation of sand is comfortable to sit or lie on, and entering and exiting the water is far easier across a sand beach than a rocky shore. The waves present at beaches add to the enjoyment and make the sport of body surfing and related activities possible. One of the many attractions of a sand beach, especially for children, is playing with the sand, building sand castles and other constructs.

Towels and mats are typical beach "furniture". In the Victorian era, many popular beach resorts were equipped with bathing machines because even the all-covering beachware of the period was considered immodest. This social standard still prevails in some Muslim countries. At the other extreme are nude beaches, where no swimware of any kind is compulsory.

A walk along the beach is also popular, including a long walk in the case of a long beach, for example from one seaside resort to the next. It is typically done near the shore line, where the sand is wet and therefore more convenient to walk on. One may or may not walk with the feet in the water, and this may also alternate with the waves.

In more than thirty countries in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the Caribbean, the best recreational beaches are awarded Blue Flag status, based on such criteria as water quality and safety provision. Subsequent loss of this status can have a severe effect on tourism revenues.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Beach"