A crescent of white sand on Anguilla's north-west coast has just been ranked the second-best beach on the planet. Maundays Bay took the runner-up spot in Condé Nast Traveler's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards, with close to 800,000 readers rating their travel experiences for this year's list.
The bay isn't just a pretty stretch of shoreline — it's also home to Cap Juluca, A Belmond Hotel, Anguilla, which itself came in at No. 2 in the awards' Caribbean Islands resort category. Three more Anguilla properties made that same ranking: Malliouhana Resort at No. 20, Zemi Beach House (LXR Hotels & Resorts) at No. 23, and the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla at No. 34. For an island of roughly 35 square kilometres, that's a striking concentration of recognised hotels.
Anguilla also landed at No. 8 among the top islands in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, so the recognition goes beyond one beach. The island's tourism minister, Cardigan Connor, tied the results to both the natural setting and the people running the resorts, pointing out that reader-voted awards carry particular weight since they come from travellers who have actually been there rather than editorial picks.
What does Maundays Bay actually offer? Think a gentle crescent of powder-soft sand lapping into calm, shallow turquoise water, with Cap Juluca's Moorish-style whitewashed villas lining the edge. It's the calm swimming and the low-key feel that set it apart — Anguilla has deliberately avoided the cruise-port crowds and high-rise development you'll find elsewhere in the region, betting on understated luxury instead of volume. The island has no direct big-jet airport access, which keeps day-trippers away and preserves that quiet, spread-out character.
For anyone weighing up a Caribbean trip for 2026, this is a useful shortcut: the island now has a top-two global beach, four award-listed resorts across a range of styles, and a top-ten island ranking in the same survey. If Cap Juluca's Belmond prices are beyond reach, the other recognised properties — Malliouhana, Zemi Beach House and the Four Seasons — sit at different price points, and the island also has plenty of smaller guesthouses and villa rentals away from the big names. Either way, you end up on the same sand.
The wider takeaway from the awards: readers keep rewarding places that pair natural beauty with genuinely good service, and Anguilla managed both in a single year. Expect interest in the island — and in Maundays Bay specifically — to spike once the 2026 awards lists circulate.
Story via Breaking Travel News.
