Surf trips are rarely what we expect them to be. The industry’s given us more than anybody’s fair share of luxury boat tours and 5-star villas, and those certainly have their place on life’s to do list. But those do nothing to diminish love for the good old fashioned routine of camping, surfing, hiking, surfing, exploring, surfing and surfing some more.
The whole point of a surf “trip,” be it a last second strike mission in your rig or flying off to a far away tropical destination, is to find something you can’t find at home. And yes, by something I mean really good waves. 99.9999% of all trips start with visions of getting barreled and making massive turns under the lip of perfect head high waves. Actually, that’s a highly inaccurate statement – 100% of all surf trip start with visions of getting barreled and making massive turns under the lips of perfect head high waves. And then everything else happens. You load the car, you wake up in the freezing cold on the ground, you hunt for waves just hoping they’re waiting behind the next headland, you shut it all down for the night next to a campfire, and you probably have a laugh or twelve with good company every step of the way.
I’m just as guilty as the next guy of starting every surf trip I’ve ever been on only thinking about the perfect waves I’d soon chase down. But at the risk of being a complete sap, the best times on any of those trips came in those epic moments outside of the water – the camping, the cold, and even spending hours on end in the car because we all got skunked. Barrels happen from time to time. And you never forget some of them. But everything we do in pursuit of that heaving, tubing wall of water is just as sweet.
Editor’s Note:This gallery comes from photographer James Bowden, via the Wonders App, the most amazing hand-picked visual stories about travel, outdoor culture and free spirit.
