World’s 50 Best Beaches is a guide dedicated to one thing, and it does it well. Every year the site publishes a list of the planet’s top stretches of sand, pointing beach-loving travellers towards top shorelines from the Caribbean to the Med.
This year’s World’s 50 Best Beaches list enlisted the help of over 1,000 vetted travel professional. Its final list was compiled according to a wide-ranging number of factors, taking into account factors like how ‘untouched’ and uncrowded a beach is, as well as its ease of entry and wildlife.
In the 2025 top 50, zero British beaches made the cut. In the 2024 edition Cornwall’s Kynance Cove snuck in at 48th place, but this year no UK coastlines featured. There was, however, a beach near Britain that placed in the global list. We’ll take what we can get, eh?
Keem Beach, in a bay in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland, was named the world’s 48th best beach in 2025. Praising Keem, World’s 50 Best said the beach ‘stands out for its raw natural beauty and surprisingly blue waters, which resemble those found in more tropical locations’.
‘What also makes Keem Beach stand out is its horseshoe-shaped bay, surrounded by towering cliffs and picturesque hills, creating calmer waters that are ideal for swimming in the summer,’ the guide said.
How close is Keem Beach to the UK? Well, it depends where you are. It’s obviously much closer to Northern Ireland, and is around a three-hour drive from the border. It’s also around a two-hour drive from Ireland West Airport Knock, which in turn has connections to London, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester airports.
It’s worth noting that while none of the top 50 beaches this year are in the UK, several are in British Overseas Territories – which have constitutional ties to Britain. Those beaches are Grace Bay in Turks and Caicos (10th place), Shoal Bay East in Anguilla (14), Seven Mile Beach in the Caymans (23), Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda (26), The Baths in the British Virgin Islands (29) and Meads Bay in Anguilla (35).
In the guide’s separate ranking of the best beaches in Europe, Britain also did much better. A total of four UK stretches of sand made the European top 50 – and you can find out which ones here.
The 39 best beaches in the UK, according to Time Out.
Time Out’s 30 top beaches in the world.
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