AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Plage des Salines is Martinique's most celebrated beach — a sweeping crescent of powder-white sand fringed by leaning coconut palms, lapped by warm, shallow turquoise water on the island's Caribbean south coast. Often called the postcard beach of the French Antilles, it draws around two million visitors a year who come to swim beneath swaying palms, watch sunsets paint the sea, and graze on creole street food from the row of snack bars at the sand's edge.↗↗↗
The beach stretches roughly two to three kilometres in a gentle arc, with enough room to find your own patch of sand even on busy days. The sea floor slopes slowly, so you can wade out comfortably — making it ideal for families with children. Offshore, the small uninhabited Îlet Cabrits and its 12-metre lighthouse punctuate the horizon.↗↗
What Makes It Special
Plage des Salines is the beach that appears on every travel brochure for Martinique — and the reality lives up to the image. Two kilometres of fine white sand, a wall of coconut palms providing natural shade, crystal-clear warm water that stays shallow for a long walk out, and a backdrop of low green hills meeting the Caribbean Sea. The combination of all these elements in one wide, open arc is what sets it apart from the island's many other coves.
