Some of my favourite beaches and beach days

I love writing about my travels around the world on this blog, but it has been a bit thin on the ground recently so I thought I'd write a post reminiscing about some great places that I've been lucky enough to visit. And because I love living near the sea so much I thought I'd share some of my most memorable beaches and beach days.

I have to start the post with my local beach at Goring-by-Sea to the west of Worthing. Well in fact I love all of this pebbly seafront that stretches from Worthing to Littlehampton. I have a favourite place to park near to Sea Lane Café. All the parking around here is free and there is plenty of it, and the café serves delicious food, drinks and cakes. In one direction you head towards Worthing town centre with a wide promenade, bars and hotels, in the other direction you can take a quieter walk past Goring Gap, down the bottom of the private housing estates in Kingston Gorse and along the greensward through Rustington to Littlehampton. I've walked and run all of these stretches so many times!

When it comes to my perfect beach to spend a day though it would have to be Castaway Cay, Disney's private island in the Bahamas which can only be visited on a Disney cruise. I've been lucky enough to come here twice and when we left last time I cried, perhaps because I was exhausted after completing the Castaway Cay 5K run, cycling around the island, swimming and snorkelling! As well as being a beautiful beach there are many different activities to choose from and it's all clean and safe, just a few minutes easy walk from where the ship docks.

Another perfect beach that we visited on a cruise was Grand Cayman. It was like a picture postcard, golden sand covered with shells and coral and warm, clear blue sea. I would love to have spent longer here!

It's not always the exotic sunny beaches that appeal to me though. Last year we spent a week at Hunstanton in Norfolk in an Airbnb that was just a few minutes walk from the coast. It was October so it wasn't the time of year for sitting on the beach or swimming in the sea, but every day I went for a walk along the shore looking for shells and pebbles and trying to catch the sunset. I love living near to the sea but it would be amazing to live just a few minutes walk away, that's my dream one day!

Finally when it comes to my favourite beach memories I always come back to one day. This is Magens Bay beach on Saint Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea and we stopped here as part of a cruise back in 2014. It was one of our first visits to a Caribbean beach and we had a wonderful day here. The children were only tiny, and it was the first time that they had properly swum in the sea. They had such a wonderful time splashing around and playing in the sand. It was a little overcast so the sun wasn't too intense but it was still so warm and hot. I have such fond memories of that beach day.

I would love to hear about your favourite beaches and beach memories!