Black sand beach

Many travel agents will tell you that Bali is the island of sunny skies and white sand beaches. This is partly true, weather can be sunny and there are white sand beaches. However Bali is a volcanic island, that has had massive eruptions within the last 100 years. Bali’s beaches come in many colors (not even counting when they are covered in plastic).

Kuta beach and the beaches on the Bukit could get away with calling themselves white sand beaches, Legian beach is a brown color and out in Karangasem there are black sand beaches. Black sand is perfectly okay, perfectly safe and clean. Black sand beaches do not have the attraction of white sand beaches, and for that reason if you find one you might be alone.

In my travels in Bali I have seen some lovely black sand beaches, where it was just me and a few locals with fishing boats. The whole Amed coastline is scattered in with a endless string of beaches and fishing boats. When Gunung Agung exploded in 1963, it sprayed grapefruit sized rocks, as well as boulders all over parts of East Bali. The underlying sand is probably still these, but there is a deep layer of volcanic sand. If you can learn to like a black sand beach, you will get a quieter time and more unique photos.