Surfguide.com: A New Trip Planning Tool for Surfers
By: Devinne Zadravec
A new, online trip planning tool is making waves in the surfing community. Recently launched surfguide.com promises to make finding and planning a perfect surf trip easier than ever.
Breaking the mold for similar sites and forecast tools, surfguide.com makes its suggestions based on aggregated monthly data, surfer-curated information, and moderated community comments of more than 350 fantastic surf regions. The site also cuts down the time and steps needed to plan one of these trips significantly, as surfers can send out inquiries and booking requests directly from the site with just a single click.
Offering more than a dozen filters to choose from such as swell size, water temperature, break type, and region, surfers can easily plan a trip to a destination that fits their needs exactly.
Streamlined Booking
Surfguide.com is also a great tool for surf operators and providers, and thanks to the site’s streamlined booking processes, businesses such as these can expect to maximize their profits.
Once registered, surfing-related operators will directly receive the inquiries from potential travelers who have a genuine interest in surfing in the area, and will no longer need to source these inquiries from a middleman.
As for the surfers themselves, they can rest easy knowing the information provided by surfguide.com is the most up-to-date and accurate information available, as all the information provided on surfguide.com is curated by surfers who have traveled to that region. The facts are tried and true, and future travelers will know exactly what they are signing up for.
The team behind surfguide.com is a living, breathing testament to the “created by surfers, for surfers” sentiment. The minds behind the project each boast more than twenty years travel and surfing experience, and surfguide.com is a direct product of their passion for the sport.
One such member and creative mind behind the project is none other than pro-surfer Marlon Lipke.
Born to German parents and raised on the south coast of Portugal, Lipke took to surfing at a very young age. “It was a time when there was not much of a surf scene there,” Lipke explained of his home is Portugal. While his hometown may not yet have been the hotbed of a surf scene it would eventually become, still he found himself in love with the sport. He entered his first competition at age 12 and hasn’t looked back since.
“I’ve had a long career, I’ve travelled a lot and you know through the travelling you learn how you want to travel, the sort of things that make you comfortable,” he remarked. “This website is the result of two years of hard work, and the really cool thing is the more it gets used, the better it gets.”
Speaking with Marlon, it was apparent how much thought and dedication had gone into creating the site, and it also offered insight into some of the inspiration behind the project. Referring to some of the other creative mind behind surfguide.com, he explained how for surf aficionados in countries such as Switzerland (current headquarters of surfguide.com), they all have to travel to practice their sport.
And if you’re traveling so far, and spending so much time and money for something you love, you deserve to have every aspect of that trip be as perfect as possible.
Each individual behind the project has experienced firsthand some of the numerous complications and difficulties that can surface when planning a surfing trip: flipping between countless websites, comparing rates and dates and prices, collecting pages upon pages of information and data just to plan one trip that exactly fitted their needs.
Until now, there was no website that presented all this information concisely and with great detail.
While it’s been little over a month since the site launched, surfguide.com is already generating some excitement in the surfing community. Owen Henry, president of the Surf Club at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was excited by the great potential for the site.
“I’ve actually never surfed outside of New England and New Jersey before, but I have been in the process of planning a trip to the Caribbean for a few years now. That gives you some indication of how complicated it can get trying to plan something like this” said Henry. His experience is true for many surfers who have to travel for their sport—it’s just plain hard to get to where the waves are.
“You have to think about safety, the consistency of that particular break, whether you’re going in the on or off tourism season, the level of accommodations, if you’re bringing your own surfgear or renting or buying there, level of healthcare available [in case of an accident], and the list just goes on.”
After exploring surfguide.com’s site, Henry’s thoughts on the site were overwhelmingly positive.
“Within my first three clicks, I was looking at an in-depth description of a Puerto Rico surf camp with info on the weather, languages spoken, prices, swell consistency, types of breaks, photo galleries, travel times, contact info – the whole deal.
I’ve been spending a lot of time looking through all sorts of non-surfer travel sites, surf forums, pretty much everywhere getting little bits of information. This puts it all together with a million different filters to help you narrow down your search and find the destination that’s right for you.”
More than anything, that is the goal of surfguide.com —to ensure that the perfect surf destination is found each and every time surfers hit the road. And because to surfers, “there’s nothing more important than sharing the stoke.”
Fond of big dogs, stargazing, and foods covered in hummus, Devinne Zadravec is a writer/photographer/explorer from New England. Her favorite hobbies include hiking, yoga, and taking way too many pictures of her pitbull, Mischa. Currently, you can find Devinne hanging with her sisters in her Massachusetts home, or off adventuring, writing, and loving life in some new corner of the globe. Follow Devinne on her latest adventures on her website, on Instagram, or on Facebook.
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