What makes a beach? You need only four ingredients - sea, sand, sun and shade.
But that's only the basic recipe. Like many a classic Italian dish or fine Kiwi wine, connoisseurs know it's the quality of the ingredients and the proportions in the mix that make all the difference to the experience.
White sand or black sand? Small, crescent-shaped, almost enclosed or long, windswept, dramatic? Shallow slope so the kids (or grandkids) can walk for yards at low tide and feel the waves still lapping the edge of their togs or the might and malevolence of an epic surf break?
Popular or secluded? Is an ice cream shop obligatory – if there's not one, is it a bay or a cove and not a beach? And what about pōhutukawa?
So, we asked readers to nominate their favourite beach and tell us what makes it so special.
Below were the finalists.
This piece originally appeared in New Zealand Herald Travel here.