Sanya Bay is the longest of the city's beaches, a 22-kilometre crescent of sand running along the western edge of the city centre. It is the most accessible of the major beaches — you can walk to it from many hotels in town — and the least developed in terms of resort infrastructure, which gives it more of a local feel than the manicured strips at Yalong Bay or Haitang Bay further east. The water is calmer here than on the open-ocean side, and the offshore islands break the horizon attractively.
The promenade along the bay is one of the best places in Sanya for an evening stroll. Coconut palms line the entire length, planted as a windbreak in the 1950s, and at sunset the path fills with joggers, kite flyers, and elderly locals doing tai chi. Food stalls and small restaurants cluster at the eastern end near the city. Swimming is fine but the beach is not as pristine as Yalong Bay, and the water clarity is lower because of the proximity to the Sanya River mouth.