Recreation in Goa

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Beaches

Although Goa has plenty to offer visitors – culture, great cuisine, bargain shopping, and a party happy attitude – the beaches are truly the main draw for vacationers and medical tourism travelers. 

Calangute, the third in a 5-kilometer long stretch of beaches that includes Sinquerim, Candolim and Baga, is where Goa’s hippie influx began.  Although most of them left after tourists overran the beach and their secluded idyll, leftover flower children – and there are quite a few of them still around here – reminisce about the good old days when the beach was nothing but a cluster of shacks inhabited by local fishing communities.  The place swarms with medical tourism vacationers during tourist seasons, but is long enough to still afford some privacy.   If you’re looking for more commercial recreation, the Baga end of this beach zone has a better selection of restaurants, not to mention some decent nightspots and galleries.  

Further north of Calangute is Anjuna Beach – the uncrowned capital of the hippie colonization of Goa, and during the sixties, the scene of some hedonistic excesses when clothes and inhibitions were shorn with reckless abandon.  No vestiges of that time remain, and in its reformed avatar, Anjuna is the scene of nothing more shocking than the weekly flea market.  Occasional underground rave parties, however, provide a somewhat tepid version of those swinging times when Goa was the mecca of Woodstock’s children.  

To beat the crowds, head further south to Palolem and Agonda beaches where tourist encroachment is minimal. At Palolem, one of the last of Goa’s truly rural beaches, swim and sunbathe on the white sands in fabulous isolation – there’s just one beach shack that serves refreshments.  Or sail with the locals to watch the dolphins.   Expect the same stark beauty at neighboring Agonda – no shops selling cheap trinkets here.   

The strong undercurrents of many Goan beaches make them unsafe for swimmers – check with the lifeguard before venturing in.  Bogmolo Beach south of Panjim, however, is one of the few ones reputed to be safe.

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