Ah paradise!  At least that’s what most of think of when we think of tropical islands.  Palm trees swaying in a light breeze with white sand beaches as far as the eye can see.  While this is a the case with a lot of tropical islands, there is a lot of variety out there.  Some islands, like the Big Island in the Hawaiian chain, also offer amazing black sand beaches, created by the waves working against lava flows from the active volcanoes that helped build the island.  And some island are so new, they don’t really have beaches, just shoreline where the rock is still being hammered into sand.  And some are merely atolls with just enough surface space to start springing up life on the surface before becoming full fledged tropical islands.  Come back in a thousand years and it’ll be the paradise you’re looking for!