The first wave is easier than it looks. The tenth is the one you plan trips around.
Which beaches teach beginners and which ones punish them. What two hours costs in Bali against Porto. Whether the board and the wetsuit come with it.
Four surf lessons that turn a holiday into a habit.
Tenerife in January, Canggu at dawn, the Bondi south corner and the cold Atlantic off Porto.
01Canary winterPlaya de las Américas: Private or Small-Group Surf LessonPlaya de las Américas breaks all year and the water never asks for a hood. The small-group option is worth the few extra euros.
02The Bali morning2-Hour Surf CourseCanggu’s beach break is forgiving on a rising tide and the instructors outnumber the whitewater. Two hours, board and rash vest in the price.
03The Sydney classicBondi Beach: 2-Hour Surf Lesson Experience for Any LevelThe south corner at Bondi is where half of Australia learned. Take a weekday morning, before the flags and the crowd arrive.
04Cold and honestMatosinhos: Surfing Lesson with EquipmentMatosinhos is a tram ride out of Porto and the Atlantic there is properly cold. The wetsuit is included, and you will be glad of it.
Waikiki, the Florida springs, the Californian beach breaks: three shapes of American surf day.
The United States carries more of this catalogue than anywhere else and almost none of it looks alike. A shoulder-high lesson off Kuhio Beach, a dolphin paddle across a Florida lagoon, a clear-hulled kayak over a spring you can read a coin through. Pick the water first, the board second.
Six coasts that carry the surf year, and the best day out on each.
Hawaiian reef and Floridian lagoon, the Canaries in January, the Algarve in September, Canggu at first light and the long right-handers off Taghazout. Where the boards go, and what a session costs when they get there.
A surf lesson is two hours, one instructor and a board too big to sink.
Beginner courses run on soft-tops in waist-deep whitewater and nearly all of them include the board and the wetsuit. What changes is the group: eight to an instructor on a cheap morning, two on a private, one on a coaching session with video.
- 1Surfing Lesson for All Levels, Photos includedfrom $50
- 22-Hour Surf Coursefrom $23
- 3Legian Beach, Bali: Beginner or Intermediate Surf Lessonsfrom $16
Half of this catalogue is paddled standing up.
Stand-up boards reach the places a surfboard cannot: mangrove creeks, spring runs, sea caves under a limestone cliff, a lagoon at first light. No swell required, and most people are upright inside twenty minutes.
The surf and paddle days more travellers take than any other.
Every surf trip we have reviewed →What fills up first across every coast on the site, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Ibiza Beach Hopping Cruise with Paddleboards, Drinks and Food 6h
Spend six hours cruising Ibiza’s west coast aboard a glass-bottom catamaran, stopping at Cala Comte, Cala Bassa, and a swim spot for paddleboards, snorkels, floats, and slides. Lunch, snacks, beer, sangria, wine, soft drinks, and water are included. The cruise returns to San Antonio.
From · $83
Read our review →
2
Beach Hopping Cruise w/ Paddleboard, Food, & Drinks
from $81
3
Dolphin and Manatee Stand Up Paddleboard Tour in Daytona Beach
from $65
4
Oahu North Shore Experience: Activities, Waterfall & Free Time
from $167
5
Magnetic Island Discovery Tour with Snorkeling & Paddle Boarding
from $114
6
Surfing Lesson for All Levels, Photos included
from $50
7
Snorkeling and SUP Paddle, Beach and Cave Tour
from $70
8
Classic Mike’s Bike Tour daily @ 11.30 incl Beer Garden & Surfers
from $42
Waikiki is a beginner wave with a skyline behind it.
The rollers off Kuhio Beach break long, slow and a long way from anything hard, which is why the whole island learns there. Maui runs the same lesson to smaller crowds at Kihei and Lahaina, and the turtles turn up on the paddle tours off Turtle Town.
Every Hawaiian surf day →
Portugal surfs through the winter and still charges a beginner’s price for it.
The beach breaks from Matosinhos down to the Algarve work at almost any size, the water sits in the mid-teens and the wetsuit comes with the board. Schools run out of Porto, Lisbon, Peniche and Albufeira, and September is the month everybody tries to book late.
- 1Matosinhos: Surfing Lesson with Equipmentfrom $35
- 2Lisbon Surf Experiencefrom $35
- 3Surf Lessonfrom $36
What a surf session actually costs, from soft-top to one-to-one coaching.
Every session on the site grouped by price. A first lesson usually lands under the cost of a decent dinner, board and wetsuit included.
Group lessons, board and wetsuit hire, and the two-hour paddle tours.
Small groups, private coaching, half-day paddle trips and the boat-based sessions.
Multi-day camps, chartered days and one-to-one coaching with video review.
Three sessions that only work at the right hour.
Surfing rewards early risers, and paddling rewards them for different reasons: glass water before the day breeze, light angling into a sea cave, wind that only shows up after lunch.
The Dawn Paddle
Water is at its flattest in the hour after sunrise, before the day breeze fills in, which is why so many paddle tours leave in the dark. Barcelona runs them off the city beaches with the instructor carrying the camera. Bacalar does it over a lagoon that changes colour as the sun climbs, and hands out breakfast on the board.
- 1Sunrise Paddleboarding with Instructor and Photos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 782 reviews
- 2Paddleboarding at Sunrise. Includes: instructor, photos, equipment★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 570 reviews
- 3Paddleboarding and/or kayaking tour at sunrise in the lagoon of Bacalar★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 309 reviews
Sea Caves by Board
Limestone coasts undercut into caves you can paddle straight into when the sea is small: Ibiza, Mallorca, the cliffs at Nerja, the Montenegrin coast below Budva. Light bounces off the sand floor and back into the roof, which is the whole point. These trips cancel outright the moment the swell gets up.
- 1Snorkeling and SUP Paddle, Beach and Cave Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,264 reviews
- 2Budva: 3-Hour Paddle Board or Kayak Tour to Coastal Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 568 reviews
- 3Kayak and Paddleboard Excursion Through Crystal Clear Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 491 reviews
Kitesurfing
Kitesurfing wants the opposite of a surf lesson: shallow standing water and a reliable afternoon wind. Tarifa, Essaouira and the Sicilian lagoon at Lo Stagnone deliver both almost daily through summer. The first lesson is spent flying the kite with both feet still on the sand, and nobody minds.
- 1Semi-private kitesurfing lessons in Tarifa (adapted to every level)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 214 reviews
- 2Kitesurfing Lessons in Essaouira Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 206 reviews
- 3Group Kitesurfing lesson with a Local in Essaouira Morocco★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 175 reviews
Four surf bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of a surf trip can be arranged from the beach the night before. These four run on tide charts, wind seasons, a moon calendar and instructor rosters that were filled weeks ago.
- 01Open Group Surfing Lesson in Waikiki, HawaiiWaikiki teaches thousands a day in season, and the early slots — the only glassy ones — are gone first.
- 02Oahu North Shore Experience: Activities, Waterfall & Free TimeThe North Shore only performs from November to February, and the operators run to the forecast rather than the calendar.
- 03Semi-private kitesurfing lessons in Tarifa (adapted to every level)Kite schools run on a wind season and a fixed number of instructors. Tarifa and Essaouira fill for the whole summer.
- 04Bioluminescence by kayak or SUP to Los Arcos Puerto VallartaGlow paddles only go out on dark nights. The week either side of a full moon simply has no departures.
A flat week is a paddling week, not a wasted one.
Swell disappears for days at a time on every coast on this site. The answer is the same everywhere: get on something longer. Mangrove creeks, spring runs, a clear-hulled kayak over turtle grass, or a snorkel stop where the reef starts.
By coast — where the boards go
Where a surfer usually goes first, second and third.
The newest surf and paddle reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
8 Day Outstanding Surf Holiday in Tamraght, Agadir
Read our review →
Learn to Surf with a Local – One Day Surf Experience
Read our review →
Semi Private Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) Class at Kalama Beach in Kihei
Read our review →
SUP Standup Paddling and Snorkeling Shared Experience
Read our review →