Best Beaches in Curacao by Car

The bottom line on beach-hopping

Curacao stores its best beaches on the west coast, in a chain of small bays between Sint Willibrordus and Westpunt. The nearest are 20 to 30 minutes from Willemstad and the furthest are 50 to 60. There is no public transport that links them to each other.

A rental car turns that chain into a day. Two or three bays, a swim at each, lunch at a beach shack and back before dark is a normal Curacao day out and it is not realistic any other way.

Most of the bays are free and have a rough parking area at the top. A few are privately run and charge, either per car or per person. Both types are worth visiting, and the paid ones are the ones with chairs, showers and a kitchen.

The free bays on the west coast

Grote Knip, also called Playa Kenepa Grandi, is the one on the postcards. Around 50 to 60 minutes from central Willemstad. Free parking in a large lot above the beach, with a semicircular viewing terrace looking down over the water before you take the steps. It gets busy from late morning at weekends.

Kleine Knip, or Playa Kenepa Chiki, is about a minute further along the same road. Smaller, backed by rock and a few manzanilla trees that you should not shelter under when it rains. The parking is right at the top of the beach and there is very little of it.

Playa Lagun sits in a narrow cleft between two cliffs about 45 minutes out, on the road to Westpunt. Coming through the village, the turn to the beach is a right; miss it and you drive into Lagun itself. Small, sheltered, good snorkeling along both walls, and a handful of parking spaces that fill early.

Playa Piskado, sometimes signed as Playa Grandi, is the fishing beach near Westpunt where green turtles come in for the scraps. Playa Jeremi and Playa Santa Cruz are quieter bays on the same stretch, both with unsurfaced parking. Playa Kalki at the northern tip is the furthest, around an hour out, and is mostly a dive entry.

The beaches that charge

Cas Abao is the best-known paid beach, roughly 35 minutes from Willemstad. As of our last check the entrance was around $6 per car from Monday to Saturday and $7 on Sundays and public holidays, covering up to four people, with a small per-person charge above that. Chairs are extra. The access road in from the main road is long and the last stretch has been rough in places.

Playa Porto Mari, about 30 minutes out near Sint Willibrordus, charges per person rather than per car, typically a few dollars, with chairs on top. It has a restaurant, showers, a double reef offshore and its own parking area. Opening hours have been roughly 9:30am to 6:30pm, so it is not a sunset beach.

Blue Bay is the closest of the three, around 20 minutes from the city, attached to a resort and golf course and charging day-visitor entry. The advantage is proximity and full facilities. The disadvantage is that it feels like a resort beach because it is one.

Treat all of these prices as a guide rather than a quote. They are set by the operators, they change, and they are usually cash at a booth on the way in. Carry small notes.

Jan Thiel and Mambo for the days you do not drive

Jan Thiel and Mambo Beach are the developed beach strips east of Willemstad, about 25 to 30 minutes from the airport. Both are lined with beach clubs, restaurants and shops, and both are walkable from the hotels around them.

That makes them the useful answer on a day you would rather not drive. If you are staying at Jan Thiel, Mambo or the Sea Aquarium area, you can spend a whole day without touching the car.

They are also the busiest and the most commercial beaches on the island. The water is calm and the loungers are comfortable, but if you came for an empty bay against a cliff, this is not that. Use them as the easy day between two west coast days.

Parking at both is in paid or resort-controlled lots rather than on the sand. On a cruise day or a weekend afternoon, expect to walk.

Parking, roads and what to leave in the car

Leave nothing. Not a bag, not a phone charger, not sunglasses in the door pocket, not an empty rucksack that might look full. Break-ins at remote beach car parks are the one property crime visitors here report with any regularity, and rental plates are recognizable.

Put valuables out of sight before you arrive at the beach, not in the car park where someone can watch you do it. Better still, take a waterproof pouch to the water and leave the car genuinely empty with the glovebox open.

The bigger paid beaches have an attendant at the entrance, which is part of what you are paying for. The free bays have nobody. Cas Abao and Porto Mari are the two most often mentioned as having someone on the gate.

Access roads vary. The main west coast road is good. Several beach approaches turn to gravel or broken asphalt in the last stretch, and Playa Jeremi and Playa Santa Cruz in particular are rough. A normal car manages them slowly. Check whether your rental cover applies on unpaved roads before you take one.

Planning the day

Go early. The light is best before ten, the parking is empty, and the wind picks up through the afternoon. By midday at weekends Grote Knip and Cas Abao are both full.

Group by distance rather than by ranking. Blue Bay, Porto Mari and Cas Abao make one southern day of about 35 minutes each way. Playa Lagun, Grote Knip, Kleine Knip and Playa Piskado make one northern day of about an hour each way. Trying to do both is a lot of driving for the swimming you get.

Fill the tank before heading west. Stations cluster around Willemstad and the main roads, and there is very little once you pass Westpunt. Take more water than you expect to drink, because several of the free bays have no kiosk at all.

Be back before dark on the western roads. They are unlit, goats stand in them, and the drive that took 50 minutes in daylight is slower and less pleasant at night.