Now that I have kids, and my 3.5 year old has started surfing, I’m getting really excited about hosting more family surf retreats. There’s nothing more fun than sharing the love of surfing with family. Seeing your little one’s eyes light up and that full face smile as they ride a wave alongside you is every bit as fulfilling as getting an amazing wave yourself – or so I’ve come to believe.
Eden is an Amiga in her 50s who recently joined us on her second retreat in Costa Rica. She has been surfing for 30 years and is so graceful in and out of the water. We asked her to talk about her experience surfing as a woman in later life and if she had any advice for other ladies her age. She said, “just do it, go surfing!” Great advice.
At Surf With Amigas we typically focus on value accommodations and go big on service in order to keep the price affordable. This one week we are offering a more luxurious accommodation option but still the awesome service you expect from us.
We’ll stay at a gorgeous house just 200m from the beach, but up a steep hill creating dramatic views. The house features 4 rooms to be split by 2-3 guests, each with it’s own private bathroom, AC, hot water, and high speed fiber optic WiFi. There’s a comfortable living room with big screen tv where we’ll do our surf coaching and classroom sessions, a relaxing pool and brand new yoga deck. The food will be catered by a local chef.
This region of Costa Rica is regarded as one of the most biologically diverse places in the world. Expect to see monkeys, sloths, toucans, scarlet macaws and a variety of other local creatures! There’s an option to ride horses deep into the jungle to check out a Native Indian reserve, do a boat trip to surf (conditions permitting), and we’ll have a ladies night out on the town. We’ll even learn to make chocolate and support the indigenous community by shopping their locally made products. We’ll relax and reconnect with nature.
We will be driving to surf but there are several spots just a short way down the road, and relaxing on the pool deck, enjoying the view after the session will make hopping in the car to surf more than worth it. There’s a fun wave a short drive to the South featuring mostly lefts but a few rights too, a few gentler waves down the beach, and a couple world class point breaks nearby. We’ll be on a surf safari to get you into the best waves possible.
If the swell is bigger we’ll be on a mission by boat or car to surf some of the longest waves in the world. We also like to explore some hidden nooks and crannies that are also super fun and often empty. We typically break up the group by ability so that everyone gets what they’re looking for and we don’t show up anywhere with a big crowd!
Price: Starting at $1950
What’s Included:
Optional Extras:
To book your flight, first fly into San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO), then connect to a domestic flight to Golfito. I recommend looking at the possible international options but then actually booking your Golfito flight before booking your international flight. I was told by an Amiga who has already booked hers that it looked like all the flights shown below on the schedule were available until she actually tried to book one of them. So book the smaller flight first just to be sure!
There are several flights per day into Golfito – an early morning, a midday, and a later afternoon flight. Our shuttle will pick you up on the midday or afternoon flight only since the hotel does not allow check in before noon. For the way out, choose the early or midday flight to take advantage of our shuttle.
For the flight from San Jose to Golfito, you need to book with Sansa Air directly – you can’t use Expedia. For questions on booking flights or other options if you can’t find an itinerary that works for you, send us an email!
The week of June 2-9 we hosted two simultaneous retreats both in Southern Costa Rica. One group of two couples and a pair of longtime friends stayed at boutique hotel and another group of advanced and beginner surfers stayed just down the road at our awesome jungle-surrounded primary location. Sometimes we joined the groups together for fun cocktail parties and classroom sessions, but we broke up the groups to surf separately to not overcrowd the lineup.
See below for the two highlight videos from the week!
There are a whole lot of random holidays cluttering up the calendar, but today is one of those that we are excited to celebrate! June 8th is World Oceans Day! It’s a day we give thanks for the ocean, its importance in our lives, and put extra thought into how we can protect it for future generations.
Continue reading “Help Protect the Ocean to Celebrate World Oceans Day”
On a recent advanced retreat in Costa Rica, I asked the group for suggestions on classroom session topics. One of the guests suggested a talk about how to have good style.
Style is one of those things that you know when you see but is hard to describe. One of the most stylish female surfers, Stephanie Gilmore says “there’s no right or wrong, you do what feels good to you.”
For the talk, I listed a handful of generally considered stylish professional surfers and then created a slideshow of photos of them. One thing we noted that almost all had in common was a tendency to do a “soul arch”. A soul arch is when you usually have your feet relatively closer together and you thrust your hips out, arch your back, and lean your head back. Whether it is in the tube, on a bottom turn, or during a nose ride, a lot of stylish surfers will go for this move. It looks cool, it feels cool. I encouraged the Amigas to try it on their next session.
Inspired myself to take my personal soul arch to the next level, I really went for it one session. I was paddling out with a local friend and we were talking about surfboards. She wanted to try mine and suggested I try hers. She weighs a bit more than I do so her board was quite a bit thicker and stiffer than what I’m used to riding. This is a video of my first wave riding her board. After a few turns, I went for the soul arch, into a cheater 5 nose ride soul arch, into a head-dip tube. Does it look cool? It felt amazing. In the end that’s all that matters!
I dare you to try a soul arch on your next session. Let us know how it feels!
Surf with amigas has the best Female Surf instructorsIn crafting our team of surf instructors, we focus on finding women from all over the world who are positive, inspiring, hilarious to hang out with, and who rip. Our instructors surf amazingly well! It’s also different learning from women. You don’t have to worry about bikini malfunctions!
Learning to surf isn’t just physical. It can be an emotional experience overcoming fears, pushing yourself past your comfort level, and learning to believe in yourself. Having a female instructor to meet you at your emotional level and support you in pushing through or even just listen to what you’re going through is just different than with a male instructor.
Continue reading “Surf With Amigas Has the Best Female Surf Instructors”
I was talking to a group of Amigas recently who were asking about various aged participants and was reminded of this story. It’s such a good one that I wanted to share. Read below about the incredibly inspirational Genie!
Genie learned to surf at age 50 in order to share the sport with her son who was a surfer. She then joined us on her first retreat in Nicaragua as a 67 year old, to take her surfing to the next level with a group of other supportive women, and practice yoga. We do often have ladies join us in their late 50s and even 60s, but Genie is a special case. Vivacious, hilarious, energetic, not to mention looking amazing in her bikini, we were all immediately so inspired.
Last week we had a group of fifteen students and two teachers from Sonoma Academy visit Northern Nicaragua for a service learning trip. The goal was to surf as much as possible, learn about the culture and lifestyle of the people in Nicaragua and give back to the local community by helping to renovate a local elementary school.
Most of the girls had surfed once or twice before. They threw themselves into it fearlessly. Some days we had strong offshore winds which made for challenging conditions. There were some awesome rides and exciting wipeouts.
One of the week’s highlights was our horseback ride down the beach. The girls were so excited to gallop along the shore that the ride was the longest in SWA history. There were certainly some sore backsides but also ear to ear smiles.
We stopped half way back for some fresh coconuts pulled from the trees and opened with machetes in front of us. One of the girls noted that a coconut like that would have cost $8 at Whole Foods! Nothing tastes better than fresh coconut water!
Surf With Amigas is partnered with the non-profit Waves of Hope on a variety of philanthropy projects in North Nicaragua. Aiding local education opportunities is a major focus. This week we put our energy towards renovating a local elementary school. The girls spent the week cleaning and painting so that the classrooms will be in great shape for the start of the new school year.
Combining adventure, excitement, and the warm fuzzies of leaving a place better than you found it leads to the trip of a lifetime. The girls said every day that that day was the best of their lives.
Everyone knows the Coco Chanel logo right? The two interlocking Cs are not just a sign of luxury, but also a great way to paddle. If you want to have the most efficient paddle technique you need to increase the length of your stroke. Paddling in the shape of a C achieves that. If you use the Coco Chanel Paddle you’ll be covering more distance faster. That means more waves and fewer turtle rolls! This video will take you through some things to do and others to avoid to improve your paddle skills and have you catching more waves!
At Surf With Amigas, we take a humorous approach to teaching surf skills. You’ll learn to turn with your boobs and to avoid paddling like a T-Rex. You’ll also hear that you should paddle like the Coco Chanel logo. Come learn and laugh with us! That’s the difference of a surf camp run by women!
For more instructional videos, check out our Surf Completely page!
