Navagio Beach (Shipwreck Beach), Greece

Navagio Beach offers the most dramatic cove enclosure of any beach on this list. Accessible only by boat, sheer limestone cliffs drop hundreds of metres on three sides, completely enclosing a small cove of blinding white pebbles and intensely blue water. The rusted hull of the MV Panagiotis, a cigarette smuggler that ran aground in 1980, sits at the western end, creating a rust-orange contrast against chalk-white pebbles and electric-blue Ionian Sea. This scene, which looks digitally enhanced, draws over 1,000 visitors daily in peak season. It outperforms #7 Matira Beach in terms of sheer visual drama, but lacks the swimming ease of #8 Seven Mile Beach. Best visited May through September.