I’m a beach snob.
I’ve spent the better part of my life and unreasonable amounts of money hunting down the world’s most perfect beaches. If it’s on a Top 10 Best Beaches list somewhere, I’ve googled it, read travel blogs about it, and most likely tried to figure out how to get there by any means necessary. I’ve ticked off Magen’s Bay in St. Thomas, Lanikai on Oahu, Hanalei Bay on Kauai, Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, Nungwi on Zanzibar, and countless islands in the Caribbean.
So I was excited to recently visit Nha Trang again, Vietnam’s premier beach destination, extolled in song for its fine white sand and the first beach any Vietnamese thinks of. In fact, you’d think Vietnam, blessed with 3,260km of coastline embracing the Gulf of Tonkin in the north, the South China Sea in the south and the Gulf of Thailand in the west, would have some amazing beaches. After all, seasoned travelers would have no problem rattling off famous world-class beaches in neighboring Thailand with an almost identical 3,219km of coast. I mean, if you can get a movie made about you simply called The Beach, I think that pretty much says it all.
