It’s not often a beach in the United Kingdom ranks just a few places behind beaches in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Costa Rica, and Florida but unfortunately that’s the case in a recently-published list of the most complained about beaches in the world.
The new report, by Cloudward, is based on an analysis of TripAdvisor reviews for 200 of the world’s most popular beaches. It filtered online reviews for the frequency of complaint-related words such as “dirty”, “overcrowded”, “long queues”, “noise” and “disruption” to generate an overall rating.
The results cover beaches worldwide but commenting on their European findings for Travel Tomorrow, Cloudward said: “From the turquoise waters of Greece to the sun-soaked coasts of Spain and Italy, Europe’s iconic beaches are often seen as dream destinations. But thousands of TripAdvisor reviews reveal a more frustrating reality for many travellers.”
The worst five beaches in the world
The UK’s Bournemouth, on England’s south coast, has the dishonour of possessing Europe’s most-complained about beach, with the most common tourist grievances describing how overcrowded it is and its lack of cleanliness.
Bournemouth ranks fifth globally, coming in behind fourth-placed Clearwater Beach in Florida, which is similarly crowded and dirty according to Tripadvisor reviews; third-placed Playa Manuel Antonio, in Costa Rica, where visitors were also mainly disappointed by the crowds and second-placed Venice Beach, which gets the worst rating for cleanliness in the entire worst 100, with some reviewers remarking on a smell of “urine.” In fact, US beaches take up half of the “dirtiest” category, the report points out.
But taking the number one spot for being the world’s most complained about beach: Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, which visitors slam for its overcrowding.
Crowds, queues, and noise
When it comes to the most complaints for overcrowding, according to the Cloudward authors, look no further than Sardinia’s La Pelosa beach, in the northwest of the Italian Mediterranean island, where a whopping 87% of negative reviewers were upset by the number of other people trying to enjoy the sun, sea, and sand.
Mexico’s beaches fared badly for long queues, with Playa Delfines, Cancun’s largest free public beach suffering the highest percentage of complaints (57.9%) on that topic, perhaps thanks to an instagrammable “Cancun” sign that visitors wait in turn to photograph. It is followed by Isla Pasion where queues featured in nearly half (49.6%) of its negative reviews.
And for those worried about noise by the seaside, it might be best to avoid Caribbean and North American beaches which “dominate this category” the authors note. At Maho Beach on the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, 38.2% of complainants disliked the lack of peace and quiet. Maho Beach is situated directly at the end of a runway serving Princess Juliana International Airport, meaning planes take off and land directly overhead, blasting beachgoers with jet engine fumes and noise, which one reviewer described as “sickening.”
