Mystery Critic
The Best Restaurants Out There - And Much More!
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List of World's Greatest (and some not-so-great) Beaches Mr. MC grew up in the tropics - so he can NEVER get enough beaches! He's been to some pretty popular and spectacular beaches around the world and he wants to share it all with you. Notice that the scoring system and strongly biased for what Mr. MC considers important to a nice beach / beach town. Review the category scores and make your own decision on your own favorite beaches, and click on the names of the beaches and read more details about them!
Rating Explanation As much as I would LOVE to give all beaches 100%, there are great and mediocre beaches. But as usual, I only put the ones that I think are worth visiting in my review. Here's an explanation to each scoring category and their top scorers: Beauty - How attractive is the beach if you take a picture of it from a distance. Picture-perfect beaches are like Boracay (with a super long beach, white sand and coconut trees), Kailua (it's real hawaii at its best!!) and Magens Bay which looks amazing from above a hill next to it. Sand - Now if you go to a beach, you probably want to play or at least step on the sand. It's an integral part of the experience! It has to be white or yellow/brown but shining looking, and it can't heat up too much under the sun. Boracay and Magens Bay (again!) are the winners, but I also scored Kailua high even though it does heat up quickly. OH it also helps if the sand makes nice sand castles if you are going with kids! W&W - Water & Wave - This is a more tricky one because different people want different things when it comes to water and wave in the beach. Ask a surfer and a toddler and they'll give you COMPLETELY different perspectives. Being a family guy, my definition here is clear water with minimal vegetable and minimal wave; however, Cancun has waves but they are "nice" waves, i.e. not the ones that knock you around like a salmon swimming upstream, but comfortable ones that you can lie on. Also, warmer water helps since I assume you don't like to wear ski jacket in the water. Fun&Sport - This one is straight-forward, a deserted middle-of-nowhere beach would get a very low score here. High score means lots of easily accessible water sports space and equipment (that sometimes comes with hundreds of beach vendors trying to sell you an hour of this or that). If you, however, want serenity and tranquility on a beach, do look for one with low score here. Food - OH this is a BIG one!! Accessibility to top quality restaurants is like part of my LIFE. SO I am very picky here. Even if a beach town has a ton of great restaurants like Carmel, I won't hand out a 4-smiley unless those restaurants are located walking distance from the beach. Beaches with no decent eateries within 1/2 hour drive will be severely punished, even in Total score. I know, that's a rather narrow way to evaluate a beach, but this is MY review and you know what's important to ME, Mr. MC.... Access - How easy it is to get from a city center or a major airport to this beach. So this is another simple one - I don't want to have to get off a plane and drive ten hours to get to a beach. I think most people don't mind some adventure in their trip to a nice beach, but if you try to reach a nice beach in Costa Rica from its capital San Jose, you'd think you're about to reach Guatemala or Panama - assuming you're traveling on a nice day. If it's pouring rain then good luck with ever getting there. Accommodations - A beach with a row of hotels might not be very appealing to nature-lovers, but it's very practical and you save the earth by not driviing to the beach as well. I also took affordability into consideration. That's why even though La Jolla has a ton of nice hotels in the town and near the beach, but I can't honestly give it 4-smileys because the cost is normally astronomical.
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