Many people tend to think of Goa as one big beach. Goa, surprisingly for them, comes as a state, albeit a small one, with a large number of beaches, but equally with many towns and a network of roads, seven rivers and their estuaries, hills with lush vegetation, and large distances to be covered.

But then, Goa also has a coastline of 125 kilometres. No wonder people are still left with the impression that Goa, above all else, remains one big beach. It’s a selfish way of looking at Goa, but for those on a holiday, it is also the most appropriate.

And if comparison was to be established, then the beaches of Goa score over any other in the country simply on account of the acceptance of these beaches as a part of the everyday Goan life. For backing them up are shacks where beer is sold inexpensively, kiosks where gourmet seafood is prepared with the toss of a pan, water sports activities that include from water scooters to water gliding beachside shopping that begin with the gorgeous Gujarati embroideries and mirror-worked fabrics, midnight bonfires on the beach, and as much music as you care to listen to. And for a day of adventure, simply hitch a ride out to sea with the fishermen. You’ll be toasted brown, and will almost certainly get in their way, but they’ll share their catch with you, and you can have your own beach barbeque with fish you’ve helped catch!

Another interesting fact about Goa is that the beaches here are at least a million years old. The tides wash them twice a day; the monsoons redesign them twice a year. So, even if you’ve visited all the beaches of Goa in a single year, you’ll find that they’ve changed when you return next year. Not very drastically changed, perhaps, but they would certainly have been subtly altered: a bay carved here, a whisper of surf there, a promontory relocated, that small alcove where you once sunbathed changed to soft, white sand dune. The monsoons are finicky, restless designers and they’re never quite happy with what they’ve done. This is what makes Goa’s beaches so attractive: they’re always new, always exciting and, if the beach you’ve loved last year doesn’t appeal any more, there’s another one refurbished to suit you. In a coastline of 125 km, there are 83 km of beaches: you’re bound to find a new one of your dreams.

Beaches by the Miles

The Goan coast runs almost uninterrupted in a straight line and faces the Arabian Sea. The edging of sandy beaches is broken by the spill of the seven rivers into the sea, and by rocky outcrops that demarcate one beach from another. Their discovery, if it can be called so—since they have always existed here—began with the hippies in the sixties. Here these Flower Children escaped from the world as they paid their homage to the Beatles, marijuana, and loneliness in equal measure. The hippies have since long gone, absorbed into the corporate world, a Woodstock generation who came back home for dinner, but in Goa their passage has carved a niche in its social history. Certainly, the flea market on the beaches of Anjuna is part of a chain they started that has lasted the passing of time…

The beaches can be grouped together for easy reference and accessibility. Goa’s northern-most beaches in Pernem taluk (district) are the least developed. These include Keri (visit an ancient Portuguese fort across from the Tiracol river), Arambol (also Harmal; now being discovered by beach-tourists who want to get away from the madding crowds they led to the other beaches), Mandrem (fronting lagoon-like bodies of gentle water), and Morji (small, basic beach). There are no grand hotels to be found here, though visitors can camp in some inexpensive beach shacks and mainland cottages.

Venturing south, the Chapora river separates and forms its own series of beaches, perhaps Goa’s best known, though a headland separates some of these from each other. The beaches include Vagator, one of Goa’s prettiest with steep slopes running down to a bay, and rocky fingers edging it off into a self-contained paradise of its own. In its vicinity lies the freak capital Anjuna, once the most celebrated of Goa’s beaches.

The same stretch of beaches is broken by a headland, and Baga begins, a small almost perfect beach, and ideal for spending time, since its neighbour is decidedly Goa’s best. Calangute beach extends over seven kilometres, and is heavily sited with beach hotels, including, to one end, the popular Fort Aguada. Also part of this pocket of beaches are the Candoil, Sinquerim, and Quesdvelim, the last one of Goa’s few rocky beaches, and subsequently a delightful place to collect shells.

Since the Mandovi flows past the capital, Panaji (Panjim), the beaches off its estuary tend to be a tad to near civilization, and what with ships in harbor, there is an unspoken uneasiness about pollution. But rest assured, these beaches are as clean as the rest of Goa’s, and their proximity to Panaji alone means they are ignored by visitors, which makes them ideal for your discovery.

The best of this stretch is the Gaspar Dias beach, better known as the Miramar on account of an old hotel where the Portuguese once hung about. But this small beach can be used for little beyond sunbathing, since the undercurrents and flow are dangerous. Next is Caranzalem, a beach that stretches all the way to the residence of the Governor, and beyond is Dona Paula. The last, linked with a romantic tale, has a number of islets and bays, and has a busy charm, but the golden stretch of sand continues its sweep up to the estuary of the Zuari River fronted by Bambolim beach. And inland, with views of Mormugao harbor, is Siridao beach.

Mormugao district has a number of beaches, largely ignored, though some have also been destroyed by pollution. Bogmolo, located within easy access of the airport, is small, and a perfect crescent, backed by hills, and supported by a hotel with fine water sports facilities. The beach with a gently lapping sea, almost private (though no beaches in Goa are ‘private’), is perfect for relaxing in.

The district of Salcete accounts for Goa’s widest and cleanest beaches. And while there are hotels that have come up on Cavelossim and Benaulim beaches, it’s a delight to visit Gaudalim, Mabor, Varca, and Carmona too.

Goa’s largest, Colva collectively also includes the other beaches along with it, since the names really only demarcate the villages it skirts, where once the riches of Goa’s nobles had summer houses.

The play of sea and land continues to tumble southwards, towards the border of Karnataka, but the beaches do not end. There are Palolem, Colamba, Talpona and Galgibaga, quiet, idyll… and then, beyond the border of Karnataka, a boundary the sea and the land do not recognize, a jewel of a beach, Karwar.

Here are thumbnail sketches of nineteen better-known beaches of Goa. We’ll start from the south of Goa, work our way up to the capital, Panaji, then move northwards till we come to the boundary that Goa shares with the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

If you drove in from the southern state of Karnataka and wanted to discover the nearest, reasonably well-known Goan beach, the chances are that you’d be directed to Palolem. It’s a beach of white sand facing a blue bay between two headlands. The little wooded islands on the northern headland are interesting, and if you’re interested, try to persuade one of the fishermen to ferry you across. They do offer to take you out to spot dolphins. Tourists have at last discovered Palolem and so there are a few shacks selling seafood snacks, souvenirs, and clothes of the shapeless, bright, informal kind. Panaji, the capital, is more than 70 km away.

If you continue driving towards Panaji, the next beach is Agonda. It’s long and lonely, fringed with palms and casuarinas and dominated by a large hill to the south. However, it’s not safe to swim out too far here. There are no shops or other facilities on this beach: so carry all you need.

Next, on your journey north, is Mabor: very beautiful, very clean and, in spite of warning notices put up by a luxury beach hotel, it is a public beach. All beaches in India are public beaches. Private enterprise has, however, responded well to the needs of visitors: there are beach umbrellas and chairs and tourists happily broiling themselves in the Goan sun.

If you leave Mabor behind you, you could turn into the casuarina-shaded beach of Cavelossim. It’s a fishing beach which ensures a good supply of fresh seafood and which in turn could account for the fair sprinkling of shacks-on-hire. The beach seems to shelve rather steeply and visitors should be careful of swimming here.

Though Mabor, Cavelossim, and the next three beaches are really a single strand, they are treated as separate beaches because of the villages they were once associated with. Thus the next one north, Varca, may in time develop a character of its own. For the present, it’s really an extension of the others. It does, however, have deep rows of casuarinas and is long, clean, and quite lonely.

Benaulim, next in line, is relatively undiscovered by domestic tourists even though it is a fishing beach. However, it gets fairly crowded during weekends and evenings with local visitors who get off buses about a kilometre away and pour onto the beach. The breaking wave height here is half a metre and the slope is 1 in 30 in September.

Colva is on the northern end of this long, continuous strip of coastline. It’s broad and beautiful, has a stream coursing through it and is backed by palms. Sadly, its beauty has made it popular and its popularity has cheapened it: its off-beach shops and restaurants, brightly lit and crowded, give it the feel of a funfair rather than a serene, unwinding beach. This is essentially our domestic tourists’ paddling beach.

The sands of Majorda, next on your northern drive to Panaji, are not as white as those of Colva but it is popular in a slightly more up-market way. Here people relax under beach umbrellas and recline on pool chairs. There are shacks backed by stands of screw pines and palms and a small stream lost itself in a puddle patronized by flocks of white gulls.

The last southern beach before you get to Panaji is the first southern beach to be discovered by visitors: Bogmolo. This broad beach, backed by palms, is now shared by visitors and fishermen alike. You’d find bathers relaxing on sun beds under bright beach umbrellas. Bogmolo is considered a safe beach for swimmers.

Panaji’s beach, Miramar or Gaspar Dias, is 3 km from the city centre and spreads beyond a small forest of casuarinas. This is a popular beach with joggers, strollers, children, and careful paddlers. However, it is not considered safe for swimmers.

On the other side of this headland is the little bay and tiny beach of Dona Paula. Water scooters and speedboats buzz across the bay and, at the drop of a hat, guides will embroider on the woeful tale of a star-crossed maiden who fell in love with a handsome man below her status. Conventions could not be breached in those distant days and so she leapt into the sea and to her death. If you listen carefully, you will hear her singing forlornly on moonlit nights, they say, but if you claim that it’s only a sea-bird singing, they’d retort back saying you’re not attuned to the spirits of the air!

Driving out of the capital, heading north along the coast, you come across the famed Aguada beach dominated by the battlements of the Old Portuguese Fort Aguada. A luxury hotel spreads here with its more informal clone, the Taj Village, clustering at its feet. It’s a good, clean, swimmers’ beach popular with well-heeled tourists. It is also at the southern end of a very long stretch of beach that goes all the way up to the mouth of the Baga River. Here, too, as in the case of many of the southern beaches, individual segments of this extensive strand have been given separate identities associated with the villages that lie behind them. Their names sound like the strumming of a Goan guitar: Sinquerim, Candolim, Calangute and Baga.

Sinquerim is popular with foreign visitors because it’s broad and not very crowded. One reason why domestic tourists seem to be wary of this beach is possibly that its foreshore slope is a steep 1 in 10.

Candolim is more popular than Sinquerim. Its immediate hinterland gives you the quietly disciplined feel of a coastal village in Spain: warm, friendly, and happy to mind its own business. Its foreshore slope is the same as Sinquerim and the waves break at a metre.

Calangute was the first hippie beach resort at the height of the Flower Children era. The successors to these dropouts have moved on as domestic tourist moved in and converted Calangute into a paddling, snacking, shopping, picnicking, vacationing beach. It is generally crowded and the small resorts and pensions do a thriving business during the holiday season. It is broad, got a good cover of casuarinas and, though it is not what everyone expects of a beach, it is certainly the most popular beach in Goa.

This long beach has a host of facilities to cater to visitors, including beach and water sports. Though well known, its long stretch means you’ll find privacy for yourself on a shelf that isn’t crowded by tourists with cameras and an attitude.

However, Calangute is not everyone’s favourite. Most tourists would prefer the last segment on this stretch: Baga. You’d like it even though it is a fishing beach and fairly crowded with foreigners marinating in the sun and domestic visitors paddling; and in spite of the fact that the sand here isn’t either white or gold but brown. You’d like the grove of palms that comes fairly close to the water’s edge. Most of all, you’d be happy on this beach because the Baga River flows down one side of it offering a pleasant diversion for children and those who love the water but can’t risk the rip currents that must swirl round the mouth. Where the river and the sea meet, and on the far right bank, there is a group of black rocks against which the sea crashes in dramatic explosions of spray.

Across the river, a fair distance away, is a headland that separates the two parts of the most photographed beach in Goa: the beautiful Vagator. Its northern half fronts a bay that curves from the headland to the hillock crowned by the Chapora Fort. Between the headland and the hillock, surf spreads in skirts of white lace and the palms stand far back from the water. At the tip of the headland are groups of sea-washed rocks popular with honeymooners and others who want to be left alone. To the south of the headland are more outcrops of rocks cupping little pockets of sand and interesting tidal pools. And on the headland you’d find snack stalls, coconut sellers, and persuasive peddlers of trinkets and shells.

Close by is Anjuna, once the most celebrated of Goa’s many beaches, for this is where the hippies would hang about. Their departure has done nothing to rob the wide shelf of sand of its beauty, and almost every visitor heads here, for it has gone on to become one of the most photographed of beaches. Which means, rightly, that you’re unlikely to find isolation here.

Then there is the beach that is the furthest north: Arambol also called Harmal. The sand is soft and white, there are cottages on the red laterite slopes, rocks in some places, a freshwater pond, and the approach road is lined with shacks offering souvenir