| Best Blue Flag Beaches |
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The Blue Flag Scheme awards recognition to the best beaches in the world covering 36 countries across Europe, South Africa, Morocco, New Zealand, Canada and the Caribbean. The British Isles have been awarded 225 Blue Flags for beaches, recognising our fantastic coastal environment and the best of these are shown here. It is an International programme run by the Foundation for Environmental Education and measures beaches against 29 criteria in four areas. Water Quality A full explanation of the Blue Flag Scheme criteria of the awards can be seen at Blue Flag Beach Criteria. Best Beaches in the United Kingdom and IrelandThe British Isles have been awarded 225 Blue Flags for beaches across the UK & Ireland, recognising the best of our fantastic coastline. To search for all Blue Flag Award Beaches on Surfing Genie use the drop down search tool to the right and select ‘Water Quality’ – ‘Pristine only’ then hit search. This will list all the Blue Flag Beaches on Surfing Genie. If you want to refine your search you can also select other drop downs, such as Region or Access or Surfing Ability level. Alternatively you can click here for a full list or search the site and look on any of the beach listings with the Blue Flag beach logo. Top Blue Flag Beaches
Bantham is one of the best waves on the south coast, is the top break in South Devon and thus popular. This is accentuated by the fact that the beach is a stunningly attractive location with great views across the River Avon and Burgh Island. The beach is big enough for it to never get too crowded and there is plenty of space on the beach, particularly along the river mouth. Click to Bantham Beach
Duncannon is a beautiful Irish coastal town, relatively small but packed with historic, social and natural highlights. The town is just inland of a stunning beach of fine sand lapped by the crystal clear waters of a wide bay pointing out into the Bristol Channel to the south. The bay has two long low headlands at each side, covered in lush agricultural grazing land with dairy herds making an unmistakable Irish landscape. Click to Duncannon Beach
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Blue Flag beaches are quite simply the best beaches in the world and we are lucky enough to have over 200 around the coastline of the UK and Ireland. They range from Sennen Cove by the tip of Land's End in Cornwall, through to St Andrew's Bay on the North East coast of Scotland. The best of these beaches have been picked out and are shown here.
Barmouth is one of Wales and the United Kingdom's top beaches and is Heaven on Earth for anyone with an insatiable lust for miles of perfect sand beach. The beach starts at the river mouth just outside the idyllic picture postcard harbour, which is set against the backdrop of the rugged Welsh hills and the industrial age rail bridge. This view in itself is worth coming for, the beach just adds to the perfect location. 
Broadhaven is a great beach, tucked away and requiring a little drive and navigation to locate, which puts off a lot of people who would take the easier route to Freshwater East. The beach is set amongst stunning scenery, owned by the National Trust to ensure it stays that way and nestled below low-lying heather and bracken covered headlands. It has a crescent shaped swathe of golden sand. 
Bude's Crooklets Beach is another fantastic beach in the middle of one of Cornwall's top resort towns, just short walk down the path from Summerleaze and is a great place to get away from the busier sister beach. It has great surf of its own, with a variety of shifting sand peaks through the range of the tide. At each end of the beach is a distinct break; a left at the southern end, a right at the northern end. 
Bunmahon is a superb all round beach in which everyone will find something they love. It is almost 2.5 kilometres long, set in front of a thin band of sand dunes with pebbles at the top and fine dark sand down to the waters' edge and with a small river at the left hand end. Children are well catered for with an excellent playground behind the beach, lifeguard coverage and fun white water surf to play in. 
Clonea Strand is an enormous beach over 5 kilometres long, which in conjunction with its geography, gives it an almost chameleonic character that changes along its length. At the left, eastern end the beach is quite rugged with low rocky cliffs providing the participation between the green fields behind and the beach below them. Small fingers of rock run out from the base of cliffs creating little beaches within a beach. 
Croyde Bay is Devon's stand out surfing beach and one of the best surfing beaches in the country, becoming hugely popular because of this and its famous pubs in the village. The beach itself is a bay about 1.5 kilometers wide with a fine golden sand beach backed by sand dunes. The bay has a headland at each end, each with their own associated peaks, which shelter the beach from strong northerly or southerly winds. 
Dunmore East is a picture perfect combination of wide golden sand beach, set between high grass pasture covered headlands. Just behind the beach is a high sea wall; perched on top of this is a fun and vibrant pub looking down onto the sand below. The village is large and has great atmosphere that truly comes alive in the peak summer months. The beach has quite a tidal range, at low tide exposing great swathes of perfect sand. 
The town of Falmouth is one of Cornwall and England's most popular travel destinations and its three main beaches are in part responsible for this. Gyllyngvase Beach is one of the three main Falmouth beaches, sitting in-between Castle Beach and Swanpool beach. The sand beach produces great beach break waves in big south-westerly swells or if there is an easterly storm system in the channel. 
Polzeath beach is a fantastic surfing beach with the added benefit of being absolutely stunning! It is a very durable beach offering a variety of waves, across the whole tidal range and in most swells. It is located between two low headlands giving the beach a long narrow shape. This creates shifting peaks that produce lefts and rights in the middle of the beach along with a point break off Pentire Point. 
Porthtowan beach is a beautiful large version of Portreath with acres of golden sand exposed at low tide by the receding turquoise water. When the swell is up it produces high quality, heavy, hollow waves, with the higher part of the beach sheltered by the headlands from the worst of any westerly winds. At low tide the beach opens up into an enormous expanse of sand running north up towards St Agnes. 
Rest Bay beach resort is at the southern end of a massive strip of fine sand that runs on for nearly 10 kilometres, so you won't be crowded either on the beach or in the water. At low tide almost a kilometre of sand can be exposed. It's an incredible spot and Rest Bay deserves its reputation as one of the best beach breaks in South Wales. 
Sennan Cove is in short, stunning. The beach is over a kilometre long, backed by sand dunes and low hills and with water that belongs in the Caribbean. The beach is a fine, white, powdery-sand beach, which supports multiple surfing peaks at all stages of the tide. Being the first beach in England next to Land's End, it consequently pick up every swell coming in off the Atlantic and has is surprisingly quiet due to its extreme location. 
St Andrews has made Scotland world famous for several things, its golf, its castle, its hotels and not least its bay and beaches. East Sands is a smaller enclosed beach within a bay, with a harbour wall on the left and a headland on the right. Alternatively on the other side of town is West Sands, which stretches from the golf course, away for miles along the sprawling sand dunes behind the beach. 
St Ives is one of Cornwall's best resort towns and in Porthmeor beach has one of Cornwall's best urban beaches. Porthmeor is approximately 800m of fine clean gold sand, which is ideally located right in the middle of town, so that you don't have far to walk and the amenities are right behind the beach. You could literally roll out of bed and be on the beach in minutes if you have had a late finish or are having an early start. 
West Wittering beach is the northern end of an enormous strip of sand that runs for nearly 8 kilometres southeast from Chichester harbour down to Selsey Bill, facing out into Bracklesham Bay. The beach is very different to the majority of this coastline, being made up of fine white sand and is set at a very shallow angle, which means that a significant amount is exposed at low tide. 
Westward Ho beach is another North Devon beauty - acres and acres of golden sand sat directly in front of a great resort town. The town has been developed significantly over the last few years with great facilities and a number of quality pubs and restaurants. The beach is itself fantastic and what draws so many people back; over a kilometre in width with nearly as much sand exposed at low tide. 
Woolacombe Bay is a fantastic beach and one of the best surf spots in Devon, which retains a great vibe in and out of the water. It has several kilometres of golden sands running down to Putsborough in the south. One of the original British surfing beaches, Woolacombe has strong plunging waves, with shifting beach breaks through the tide and a good right-hander off the rocky headland at the northern end.