A sunshine destination as popular through the winter months as it is through the summer, the amazing white sand beaches in Fuerteventura draw sun-seeking visitors from across Northern Europe and beyond. Wanting to escape the cold, dreary winters of home.
The first of the Canary Islands to emerge from the Atlantic Ocean over 20 million years ago, Fuerteventura is the second largest island in the group of eight.
Not as commercialized as its big sister Tenerife, Fuerteventura is an island 62 miles (100km) long and 20 miles (33km) wide. It has a fascinating interior of constantly shifting sand dunes, sleeping volcanoes, historical villages, cactus plantations, and large natural parks to be explored.
Read also: Best things to do in Fuerteventura
Nonetheless, for all its remarkable inland attractions, the pristine white and gold sand beaches in Fuerteventura are its biggest draw.
The island has over 185 miles (300km) of rugged coastline, of which over 60 miles (100km) make up some of the best beaches in Fuerteventura, particularly popular with surfers, windsurfers and kite-surfers.
Whether you just want a sunbed, your favourite cocktail and some rest and relaxation, or to spend your day riding the waves, the following are our recommendations for some of the best beaches in Fuerteventura – for whatever you want to do.
10 best beaches in Fuerteventura
1. Cofete Beach, wild, windy and gloriously isolated
How can a wide, golden sand beach, over five miles (10km) long, on a busy holiday island, ever be isolated? Welcome to Cofete beach, one of the prettiest and most natural beaches in Fuerteventura – if you can get there.
On the south of the island, with a rugged backdrop of crumbling cliffs on the coastal edge of the Jandía Natural Park, the last leg of the journey to this beach is a narrow, potholed dirt track stretching over 10 kilometres that buses and most taxis won’t attempt.
Even so, if you enjoy beaches unchanged by the advent of package holidays and rampant commercialism, it is well worth paying the little extra to find a vehicle that will get you there.
While you have miles of golden sand to lay your towels, the downside is that strong breakers and fierce underwater currents make the sea unsafe for young children or adults to paddle or swim.
Nonetheless, if you’re all about spectacular scenery and peace and tranquillity away from the crowds, you’ll find plenty of it in the miles of fabulous coastline and rugged landscape.
With no shops, bars or loos anywhere close, be sure to take a cool box with enough drinks, snacks and anything else you need for your trip.
2. Sotavento Beach, the real surfers paradise
Spread along 20km of the Costa Calma district on the island’s southeast coast is the unspoilt, golden sand beach of Sotavento.
The beach comprises five smaller beaches: La Barca, Risco del Paso, Mirador, Los Canarios and Mal Nombre, and at low tide you can walk from one to the other.
A beach highly popular with the surfing community from beginner to professional, it is the venue of the PWA Windsurf & PKRA Kiteboard World Cup, held every July.
Whenever you visit, you will find plenty of surfers and wind and kite surfers, honing their skills in the clear azul sea. Although often breezy, it is a safe beach for children, remaining shallow for over 50 metres.
When the tide is out, two large lagoons are formed, which are popular with beginner swimmers, surfers and older children who just want to splash about in the water.
It is another clean, unspoilt beach with no sunbeds, shops or toilets, although there is a small beach shack for snacks and drinks.
If you want something more substantial, a few village resorts are nearby, with restaurants and bars to suit most tastes.
The beach is also nudist-friendly, so don’t be surprised if you see an au-naturel visitor walking toward you.
That said, with kilometres of empty, golden sand and vegetation-covered dunes at the back of the beach, there’s plenty of room for everyone.
Using a hire car or taxi, areas of the beach are easily reached on the main FV-2 road, where you can park up and walk the various tracks leading to the beach.
Public transport is not the most reliable, but routes 01, 04 and 05 have stops close to the beach areas.
3. Corralejo Beaches, for families and surfers
If you’ve chosen the resort town of Corralejo as your holiday base, you can enjoy the best of all worlds. Located along the northeast of the island in front of the town, Corralejo Beaches are also known as ‘Grandes Playas’ or Big Beaches.
Alongside the nine kilometres of beaches run the Corralejo Dunes, the largest dunes in any of the Canaries and a protected site of natural beauty (Parque Natural de las Dunas de Corralejo).
The beaches are made of fine white sand, and the sea is a glistening turquoise blue stretching out to the islands of Los Lobos and Lanzarote, which can be viewed in the distance.
The most popular Corralejo beaches are:
La Goleta beach (City Beach) – Right at the front of the town, it is understandably one of the most popular. It is a beach of fine white sand, is family-friendly, and has all the amenities of sunbeds, parasols, bars and eateries.
Secluded Coves – Heading south along the coast from the resort will bring you to a couple of pretty secluded coves. These are popular with naturists and others looking for time away from the beach crowds. Take your own snacks and drinks.
Burro Beach – Family-friendly and safe for the kids, this beach has all the amenities, including lifeguards, beds, parasols, shops and snack shacks.
Bajo Negro Beach – Heading back towards town, Bajo Negro is another pretty beach with all the usual conveniences.
El Medano Beach – The closest to Corralejo. Another popular beach, but it can get busy with beginner wind and kite surfers during high season.
Flag Beach – If wind and kite surfing are your forte, a five-minute taxi ride or twenty-minute walk from the resort will bring you to Flag Beach.
Although you will find surf hire shops and instructors in virtually every resort on the island, Flag Beach is recognised as one of the best surf beaches in Fuerteventura for beginners.
Instructors bring trainees from around the island, or you can hire equipment and book lessons from the beach. It is also a significant center for other water sports activities.
4. Matorral Beach, soft golden sand, turquoise waters and blue flag cleanliness
Curving around the southern tip of Fuerteventura, Matorral Beach is some 60 metres wide, four kilometres long and faces both south and east as it bends around the headland.
It sits in the municipality of Pajara on the Jandia peninsula and is close to the popular resort town of Morro Jable.
Fine golden sand, azul blue waters, and a backdrop of rocky scrub make it a popular beach with residents and visitors. To protect the Jandía salt marsh, the whole area was made a Natural Park in 1987.
With several hotels and other facilities in the area, the beach is equipped with all the necessary sunbeds and parasols.
Bars, shops, restaurants and toilets line the promenade and lifeguards are on duty through the day. It also has excellent access for disabled and wheelchair users.
A beach for all, it is safe for young children to play in the shallows, great for the wind and kite surfers and large enough for visiting naturists to lay their towels in the more secluded areas.
If the hot sunshine is taking its toll, besides heading to one of the bars for an ice-cold beer, you can explore the salt marshes and surrounding park area with its many unusual bird species.
Or you could inspect the 60-metre-tall lighthouse, which was placed on the tip of the headland in 1996.
5. La Concha Beach (El Cotillo), picture postcard beach for the whole family
Nestling along the island’s north coast is the resort village of El Cotillo and some of the prettiest golden sand beaches in Fuerteventura.
At the northern end of the resort, you will find several pretty, secluded coves of fine, golden sand, rockpools and sparkling turquoise waters.
Sitting in a horseshoe bay just 200 metres across, what La Concha lacks in size, it makes up for in the sheer beauty of its location. Situated in a bay, the seas are invariably flat with little swell, and when the tide is out, ideal for the little ones.
With minimum tourist commercialism, it is a beach often featured on Best Beaches in Fuerteventura postcards.
It is also regularly voted one of the prettiest beaches in Europe by numerous travel mags, including Trip Advisor.
There are no sunbeds or parasols on the beach, but you will find windbreaks made by the locals out of nearby volcanic rock, which are ideal for sheltering behind should a breeze get up.
At low tide, numerous rock pools are exposed and are great for keeping the youngsters busy hunting out the trapped shrimps, small crabs and anemones.
If travelling by hire car or coach, there is a large car park at the beach entrance, including a shower block and toilets.
There is also a small restaurant on the beach where you can have a sit-down lunch with a sea view or buy snacks to take away. The beach also has lifeguards on duty.
With limited beach facilities, a backpack with snacks and drinks is a good idea, especially if holidaying with young family members, to avoid regularly trudging back and fore to the restaurant.
For a change of scenery, if you are using El Cotillo as a base, close by, you will find the El Cotillo Lagoons. Or, if you fancy a little windsurfing, head south to Playa del Castillo, also known as Piedra Playa.
6. Playas de Jandia: Esquinzo Beach and its wild chipmunks
On the island’s southeast coast lies the town of Jandia, and a 20-kilometer stretch of coastline that contains some of the best beaches in Fuerteventura and stretches as far along the shoreline as Morro Jable.
With such a unique natural asset available, it is little wonder that as package holidays grew in popularity, small private apartments, villas and boutique hotels began to spring up behind the beaches.
Today, while most private lets are around the northern beach areas, in the south, international tour operators have big, mainly all-inclusive hotels and aparthotels, to satisfy the increasing number of visitors choosing to stay in this area of Fuerteventura.
The village of Esquinzo, five kilometres north of Jandia, is where you will find Playa Esquinzo.
With apartments and hotels at the rear, it is a beach that welcomes all and is enjoyed by couples, families, wind and kite surfers and naturists, who have a secluded area to the north of the beach.
If the little ones start to get bored building sandcastles, point them toward the dunes, to count how many wild chipmunks they can see running in and out of their burrows.
The beach stretches along two kilometers of coastline and is mainly fine yellow sand with smaller areas of volcanic rocks.
The rear of the beach is a mix of tall, rugged cliffs and areas of shrub-covered sloping dunes. Access to the beach is via several wooden stairways or gravel paths.
The beach has all the usual amenities, including toilets and lifeguards. Beach bars are dotted along the sand for soft drinks or your favorite cocktail, as are snack shacks for baguettes and sandwiches.
If you’re staying in Esquinzo, you have just a short walk to the beach. The directions are straightforward for those arriving by car from outside the area.
Pick up the main coast road FV-2 and look for your turnoff to the village. Parking is generally easy with plenty of street or car park spaces.
7. La Pared Beach, a beautifully natural beach popular with surfers
La Pared village, and its beach of the same name, lie on the craggy southern area of Fuerteventura’s west coast.
Virtually uncommercialised, just like the beach, La Pared retains the air of an old Canarian coastal fishing village, with limited shops, cafes, bars and restaurants.
Nonetheless, if you are self-catering in the area, you should be able to find all you need for your stay.
Situated on the narrowest part of the island, the village is just a five-kilometer drive cross-country to the resort area of Costa Calma on the east coast. Here you should be able to find anything out of the ordinary you need for your stay.
The wild, natural landscape is what makes La Pared one of the most popular beaches in Fuerteventura.
As you approach the edge of the clifftop, take a little time to soak up the panoramic vista. The beach is around 700 meters long and formed into a shallow bay hemmed in by scrub-covered cliffs.
With the almost constant onshore breeze, you can watch the swell growing out at sea, before rolling into large breakers heading for the beach. The sand is a dark yellow, and an ideal consistency for some sand sculpting.
The clifftops are also a great evening location to spend an hour snapping a few holiday memories, before the sun dips below the horizon.
Its strong breezes and large rolling breakers make it one of the top-rated beaches in Fuerteventura, popular with surfers and windsurfers wanting to improve their technique.
It is also a beach with a strong undertow, and children and non-swimmers should only splash around in the shallows.
La Pared beach is natural, with no facilities of any kind. Although the village is just a few hundred metres inland, a backpack of drinks, snacks and sunblock will make your stay more enjoyable.
For those visiting from outside the area by car, pick up the FV-605 route, and look out for signs to La Pared village.
8. Ajuy Beach, a historic journey to the very beginnings of the Canaries Archipelago
One of the big attractions of this magnificent island, is that the most exciting beaches in Fuerteventura are much more than just imported Saharan sand, artificial groynes and splashing about in the water.
Ajuy village and its beach of the same name is located close to Pájara, on the island’s west coast. Although attractive in its own right, it is designated as not suitable for swimming due to treacherous currents. But it’s more than just swimming that draws visitors to its black volcanic sand.
Part of a wider protected area of geological interest, the section just north of Ajuy village is classified as the Monumento Natural de Ajuy.
It also includes a protected area for the seabirds using Betancuria Rural Park, running along the coast.
On the cliff’s waterline, you can study fossils of extinct marine animals and layers of sedimentary rock dating back millions of years. Ajuy’s main claim to fame though, is its sea caves.
A short rocky pathway leads to the caves from the northern end of the volcanic black sand beach, although they can also be reached from the clifftop via a dirt track.
Many of the rocks you pass along the way have been dated to over 100 million years old, to the very beginning of the Canary Islands.
The caves themselves are said to be the oldest in the Canaries and are in the top 150 primary geological sites of interest worldwide.
Safe to explore, the caves go deep into the cliffs, providing a sense of awe at the sheer size of the caverns.
A decent pair of trainers or similar are recommended, as the rocks can be sharp and slippery.
Having completed the sightseeing, many visitors spend an hour or three on the beach soaking up the sun, before rounding off the day in one of the excellent seafood restaurants in Ajuy village.
9. Playa del Aguila, one of the best beaches in Fuerteventura
Sitting isolated on the northwest coast of Fuerteventura, Playa del Aguila is known locally as Stairs Beach (Playa de las Escaleras) because of the steep and uneven stairs visitors have to negotiate to reach the beach.
The only access to Playa del Aguila is from the nearby small fishing village of El Cotillo. At the end of the village, you hit a short dirt track road where you can park up at the end and decide whether to descend the stairs.
It is these stairs that make the beach unsuitable for young children and those with buggies or mobility issues.
The difficulty of these stairs is also the reason the beach has remained so wild and natural as nature intended all those years ago.
What makes this beach worthy of your best beaches in Fuerteventura list is its sheer, craggy cliffs, golden sand and naturally wild surrounding landscape.
At around 600 metres in length and 25 metres wide at low tide, it is a beach with a dual personality.
When the tide is out you can enjoy a little sunbathing and swimming, although care needs to be taken with the breakers driven by the almost constant breeze.
At high tide though, the beach disappears, and you can visualize the ferocity of the Atlantic Ocean on a bad day, as the surf crashes against the base of the cliffs.
Even if you find the stairs to the beach a little off-putting, the cliff top makes for a pleasant romantic walk in the warm sunshine and offers plenty of photographic opportunities.
To make up your day, head for El Cotillo. Still heavily reliant on its fishing industry, you will find several excellent fish restaurants with a great choice of caught-on-the-day seafood.
Along the north edge of the village, you will also find some white sand coves that are safe for the kids and ideal for a little swimming, windsurfing, snorkelling or scuba diving.
10. Lobos Island: La Concha and Puertito
Sitting two kilometres off the north coast of Fuerteventura, Lobos Island is a wholly protected nature reserve of just six-square kilometres, with the official title of Parque Natural Islote de Lobos.
Classified as a protected area in 1982, its status is fiercely guarded by the island authorities, right down to the number of daily visitors.
Just 400 people are allowed four hours each to visit per day, split evenly into morning and afternoon arrivals.
Permits are available online from the Fuerteventura Island Council and must be booked three days in advance, although some boat excursions and ferry operators also supply them.
If you want to spend an entire day on the island, ask if you can reserve tickets for both morning and afternoon sessions.
Wherever you are staying in Fuerteventura, you must head to Corralejo Port for the ferry. Journey time to Lobos is just 20 minutes.
There are also catamaran trips around the island, which include stops for snorkelling and swimming, but not all land on the island.
The name Lobos translates to Wolves or Sea Wolves, and dates back to the 15th century. In fact, the sea wolves were Monk seals and hunted to extinction by Spanish sailors and fishermen.
Ravaged by the Atlantic and scorched by the hot sun for over 300 days a year, at first glance the island appears devoid of life.
The virtually flat landscape as far as the eye can see is one of white sand, black volcanic rock and shrivelled dry scrub.
Yet surprisingly, the island maintains over 130 species of plants, and is the chosen nesting area of numerous varieties of sea birds.
The rocky coastline also holds its secrets, in the form of pretty little white-sand coves.
Here visitors can relax on the beaches, swim, and do some snorkelling in the clear waters at the base of the cliffs.
In the port area of Isla de Lobos, you will find a visitors information kiosk, where you can pick up details and maps of the different official trails you can follow and how you can navigate them by walking, cycling or a golf buggy.
La Concha Beach
If you intend to find the prettiest beaches in Fuerteventura, then you have to look for this one.
Heading left from the port area, a short 5/6-minute walk will bring you to the beautiful cove of La Concha.
With cliffs enclosing most of the 200 metres of white sand beach, the sea is calm, flat and crystal clear.
With its closeness to the port, La Concha is probably the busiest of the beaches and popular with both sun worshippers and divers.
If you prefer things a little quieter, consult your visitor map for other nearby beaches.
Puertito village
The only place on the island showing any signs of human habitation. If you prefer trekking, hiking and exploring, head to the right as you leave the port.
A gentle 10-minute stroll will bring you to the tiny hamlet of Puertito. This enchanting, picture-perfect area has the only residential properties on the Island.
One small restaurant for visitors, and half a dozen old, whitewashed fishermen’s cottages, with blue painted woodwork, are all you’ll find in the village, and through most of the year, they are locked up and empty.
The village shoreline is rocky but easily accessible, although old trainers or beach shoes are recommended to cross the rocks to deeper water.
With the waters surrounding Los Lobos a dedicated marine reserve, the sea life and number of different species is mind-blowing, and has divers and snorkelers returning time and again.
The next time you plan your sunshine holiday, summer or winter, pencil in plenty of days on the busy resort beaches, complete with sunbeds, parasols, bars and restaurants.
But pencil in also, a few days of visiting some of the most beautiful, isolated, natural and untouched beaches in Fuerteventura. And enjoy the best of both worlds.
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