GOA
Multiple 2025-26 reviews call it past its prime and overcrowded. More seriously: this stretch has an active open-air drug trade, and a wave of suspected overdose deaths has drawn police crackdowns - not a beach for families to wander at night.
Anjuna was a quiet fishing village until the late 1960s, when it became a landing point for Western hippies traveling the overland 'hippie trail,' drawn by its isolation and the presence of figures like the American expatriate Eight Finger Eddie, who organized full-moon beach gatherings. These parties are widely credited as the origin of the trance and psytrance music scenes that later spread globally. The name Anjuna is believed to derive from the Konkani phrase for 'not far,' referencing its position relative to older Portuguese-era settlements nearby.
