Who would of thought, surfers sharing? No its impossible! Well, maybe not, aside from the gnarly stories that pop up from time to time whether its; localism, bad attitude and possibly ugly altercations, the surfing community overall is in the right state of mind and seeking the same thing, great waves, fun and a human connection. Basically these folks that are looking for the “stoke” and even better to pass the stoke forward.
In the early days, when the sport was not mainstream, wave resources were so bountiful that if a peak or beach was slammed, a surfer would just head on to the next one. The popularity, sexiness, access to great surf towns are some the main reasons for the growth of the surfing. The real reason is how it makes you feel, put real simply, surfing waves makes us feel great. Some call it “flow” others have more scientific reasoning related to “angular acceleration.” Collectively as a community we share that experience and have a high appetite to experience more the feelings we get from the activity.
Surfers as a group are naturally inclined to travel, a good friend put it real simple to me one time, he said “there is no better reason to travel then when it involves waves or a surfing component.” As wave resources have become more scarce there has been more incentive to travel to satisfy our appetite for “flow.” But traveling is not novel, surfers have been taking surf trips and surfing vacations for some time starting with Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer. Now it seems there are all sorts of options from surf camps, surf vacation packages, visiting friends or a custom itinerary to a surf destination.
So how do we travel now? How does a traveling surfer or someone who really wants to dial into the scene maximize their opportunity to experience the feelings and make a human connection.
Traveling to exotic destination while exciting and with a sloot of additional benefits like cultural exchange, personal development and skill improvement does come with a host of problems like expenses (flights, board fees and stay), access to local information (whether its waves or food or fun), meeting people and simply putting the whole itinerary all together. Its just plain time consuming, full of challenges and yet because it makes sense, because in our minds we make a split second decision that its worth it. And yes with all the obstacles it is worth it and usually the only when we decide not to go (for an individual session or a surf trip of a lifetime) that we get the feelings of regret.
We are now at a crossroads, information technology and “shared” economy trends are here to stay. What is does present is an opportunity to ease the previous challenges we as a community have had to address and it is becoming more easy to travel, meet like-minded folks, share resources and develop a human connection worldwide. This is why we have created Live Swell, to help the surfing community enhance the surf travel experience by connecting guests and hosts with places to stay and more in surf towns. Imagine the opportunity the future holds. To become a member of the community it is easy to create your profile with facebook, www.live-swell.com Surf and Travel like a local.