We would rather be blunt about this than diplomatic. Puri Beach is a genuinely good place to spend an afternoon — it is long, it is wide, it has sand rather than rock, and at the right time of day it is one of the more pleasant beaches in Odisha. The problem is the water.
The Bay of Bengal coastline at Puri has strong, unpredictable currents, and the surf zone is where the danger sits. There have been drownings in this part of the coast in tourist season, including in relatively calm-looking conditions. The risk is not confined to swimmers with obvious problems; the people who get into trouble are frequently ordinary people who misjudge how far out the current reaches and how quickly the bottom drops away. Rip currents pull outwards rather than inwards, which is the detail that catches people: swimmers who fight a rip and swim against it exhaust themselves within a couple of minutes, and then the sea is winning.
Our advice is straightforward. Come to Puri Beach to walk, to sit, to watch the sunset, and to let your children run along the sand near the waterline. Do not go in. If you want to swim, there are safer options in the wider area and we can point you towards them, but they are not on the main tourist beach.
There is one further season-specific caution. During the monsoon the sea at Puri is often muddy, discoloured by runoff, and considerably more dangerous than it looks. If you arrive in a month when the water is not the clean blue that the photographs suggest, that is not a cosmetic difference. Take the hint.
On which stretch to choose: the beach immediately north of Grand Road is the busiest and the most commercial, with vendors, vehicle access, and crowds. Walk further north and it opens up markedly, with long stretches of sand and far fewer people. The walk is easy and flat. Go in the morning or the last two hours before sunset, carry water, and do not assume you can find shade easily on the more open stretches.
We know this is the least fun thing in this post, and we know the photographs of Puri Beach do not suggest otherwise. But we have watched enough people learn this the difficult way, and a straightforward warning is more useful to you than a pleasant paragraph.