No other American beach made Lonely Planet’s world top 25. Washington’s Ruby Beach did

Washington’s wildest coastline earns its place

Ruby Beach doesn’t look like any beach you’ve been to.

The sand has a reddish tint, sea stacks rise from the surf like ruins of something ancient, and enormous bleached logs line the shore like the wreckage of a thousand shipwrecks.

It sits inside Olympic National Park on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and Lonely Planet put it among the 25 best beaches on the planet in 2025. It was the only American beach on the list.

Once you see it, you’ll understand why.

Garnet crystals turn the sand red after rain

The name isn’t just poetic. Ruby Beach gets its color from almandite garnet crystals embedded in the sand, the same deep-red mineral that forms under intense pressure in metamorphic rock.

Rivers have been carrying those garnets down from the Olympic Mountains for millions of years. When they reach the coast, wave action concentrates the grains into reddish patches along the shoreline.

Wet sand or low light brings the color out best. You might walk past it at noon and barely notice.

Come back near sunset and the difference is striking.

Abbey Island rises from the surf like a cathedral

The most photographed formation at Ruby Beach isn’t the sand.

It’s Abbey Island, a tree-topped sea stack that early settlers thought looked like a cathedral, and the name stuck. Conifers cling to the edges of its steep cliffs, formed from ancient volcanic rock.

At low tide, the sand stretches toward it and you can walk closer for a look at its base, where starfish and mussels pack the rocks.

Common murres nest on the offshore islands nearby, and sea otters turn up in the coastal waters around it.

Low tide fills the rock pools with color

When the water pulls back, the area around the sea stacks south of the trail turns into something else entirely. Purple, red and orange starfish cling to the rocks.

Green sea anemones wave their tentacles in pools barely a foot deep. Sea urchins, limpets, gooseneck barnacles, mussels and small crabs fill the gaps between.

The tide pools at the base of those southern sea stacks are the most rewarding.

Check a tide chart before you come, watch where you step on bare rock, and leave everything where you find it.

Agates, sea glass and garnets wash up on every visit

Lonely Planet singled out Ruby Beach specifically for beachcombing, and the shoreline backs that up. Agates, sea glass, wave-polished pebbles, garnet crystals and shells wash in with every tide.

No two visits turn up the same mix. The beach sits inside the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, which protects the offshore waters, so check current park rules on what you’re allowed to take home before you start filling your pockets.

The rules can vary, and rangers do patrol the area.

Storm-tossed logs build a new landscape each winter

The high-tide line at Ruby Beach is stacked with sun-bleached driftwood, massive cedar and spruce logs that winter storms pull from river mouths and hurl against the shore. Some of those logs weigh several tons.

Over the season, they arrange themselves into arches, tangled formations and natural windbreaks that frame every photograph you take. They’re worth looking at, not climbing on.

Near a rising tide, a log that looks anchored can shift without warning. The pale wood against the dark sand and gray sea stacks is the image people come back with.

Cedar Creek cuts across the sand at the trail’s end

The short forested trail from the parking lot drops you out at Cedar Creek, which flows across the beach and empties into the Pacific right at the access point.

Near the trail, the creek spreads into a calm, shallow pool that families with kids tend to claim quickly. To reach the main beach and the sea stacks around Abbey Island to the north, you cross it.

Depending on the time of year, that might mean wading through ankle-deep water or picking your way across driftwood. Waterproof boots make the decision easy.

Sunsets turn Abbey Island into a perfect silhouette

Ruby Beach is one of the most photographed spots on the entire Olympic Peninsula, and the light at the end of the day is the reason. The sea stacks go dark against skies that run through orange, pink and purple.

Cedar Creek catches those colors in its slow-moving water near the shore.

One sea stack near Abbey Island has a natural hole through its center, and photographers line up to frame the sunset through the opening.

The combination of stacks, reflective wet sand, driftwood and crashing waves gives you something to work with no matter where you point a camera.

Gray whales pass through and bald eagles watch from above

Bald eagles are a regular presence here, perched on the sea stacks or riding the air above the shore. Out in the water, seals and sea otters appear near Abbey Island and the kelp beds.

Every spring, gray whales move through the offshore waters on their migration between breeding grounds off Baja California and feeding areas in Alaska.

Ruby Beach and the Kalaloch area are part of the Whale Trail, a network of coastal viewing sites along the Pacific.

Tufted puffins and common murres nest on the offshore rock outposts, which sit inside a national wildlife refuge.

Destruction Island’s lighthouse has been dark since 2008

On a clear day, look southwest from the beach and you’ll spot Destruction Island a few miles offshore. The 94-foot lighthouse was first lit in 1892 to warn ships away from the rocks.

At its peak, the island supported four lighthouse keepers, their families, keeper dwellings, a barn and a schoolhouse. The light was automated in 1968 and fully shut down in 2008.

The 30-acre island is now closed to the public and managed as part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge, home to seabirds, seals and sea lions.

The wilderness coastline runs for miles in both directions

Walk north at low tide and you’ll reach the mouth of the Hoh River in about two miles. Head south and the coastline stretches nearly 15 miles to the Quinault River.

Olympic National Park protects 73 miles of wilderness shoreline, one of the longest undeveloped coastlines in the lower 48. Several numbered beaches run south along Highway 101, each with its own character.

Beach 4 draws tide-poolers. Beach 2 opens up into wide sandy stretches.

The trail to the lesser-known Beach 6 is marked only by a roadside pullout.

Where the rainforest meets the open Pacific

Ruby Beach sits at the edge of two of Olympic National Park’s most dramatic environments.

Temperate rainforest presses right to the top of the bluff, and the open Pacific crashes against volcanic rock at the bottom.

The Hoh Rain Forest, about 45 minutes north, is one of the finest remaining examples of temperate rainforest in the country.

Whether you come for the garnet sand, the sea stacks, the tide pools, or just to watch the Pacific work on ancient rock, there’s no other beach in the United States that puts all of this in the same place.

Visit Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park, Washington

Ruby Beach sits directly off Highway 101, about 27 miles south of Forks and eight miles north of Kalaloch Lodge. A national park pass or entrance fee gets you in.

The trail from the parking lot to the beach runs about a quarter mile through forest and is moderately steep in sections. At the bottom, you’ll climb over large driftwood logs to reach the sand.

Dogs on leash are welcome, which is rare for a national park beach.

The ocean is cold year-round and sneaker waves move without warning, so stay back from the water’s edge. Arrive early in summer because the parking lot fills fast.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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