What do most people go on holiday? The vast majority of holidaymakers, whichever country they choose to holiday in, head straight for the beach. A week or two lying horizontal, frying yourself in chemicals, seems to hit the spot for millions of tourists every year. Good on ’em. Everyone deserves the opportunity to do absolutely nothing for a couple of weeks a year. Especially when you live somewhere where it rains all the time. OK, we’re exaggerating but we’ve just had an absolutely dreadful summer. Beach holidays are the most popular kind of holiday and, provided the weather’s warm enough, almost every country on the planet that has a coastline offers beach holidays.
Countries without beaches offer beach holidays. How do they do that? They import sand from elsewhere. The
Canary Islands are a good example. Take your beach holiday there and you’re quite likely to find yourself lolling about on sand brought in from the Sahara or mainland Spain. In other places, like Southern Italy, the beaches are black and gritty, made up of volcanic sand. A few countries and resorts offering beach holidays obviously feel that black sand’s too scary, so they’ve imported pretty golden sand for the tourists too. We don’t care if the sand’s pink, green, black or spotty. We just like to lie on it.