During retreats we focus on avoiding crowds altogether as much as possible, but we know that most people don’t have the luxury of living in a spot or having a schedule where it’s possible to avoid other surfers. For all of you living a city surf lifestyle, here are some tips you can use to catch more waves even at a crowded spot.
Continue reading “3 Tips for Catching More Waves at a Crowded Surf Spot”
It’s so fun to share the joy of the ocean with the next generation of little surfers. If you have kids that you want to get into surfing, bringing them to warm water waves with an easy channel for paddling out is the best way to do it! SWA founder Holly Beck has two kids that she’s been surfing with and has honed a program for getting kids up and riding that she wants to share with other parents! Older kids riding their own boards get to benefit from all the in water help as well as video coaching that the adults enjoy.
Check out the highlight video above from our first family friendly retreat in Costa Rica. This week we had kids from age 1-12 join us along with their parents and a few friends on a week of surfing, yoga, chocolate making, horseback riding and dance parties. It was so fun that we immediately put a couple more family retreats on the schedule.
If you have kids that you’d like to get into surfing, or kids that surf already that would love to join us for a weeklong adventure in warm water, or kids that are too young to surf that you’d like to setup with a nanny so you can go surfing…. join us on a family retreat!
Feb 16-23 2018, July 20-27 2018
Pricing is based on a per-family rate specific to your situation, ages of kids etc. We try to make it as affordable as possible, so email to discuss options. holly@surfwithamigas.com
Paula Bushardt is a retired engineer living in Florida who has joined us on several SWA retreats. She offered up this review of her experiences:
My first visit to Surf with Amigas was in 2012 in El Salvador at Las Flores. A dear friend called me up and said she wanted to go on a surf trip to celebrate her 40th birthday. I told her I was in as long as it was all-inclusive. I had been working many hours and was exhausted from life’s burdens and didn’t want to have to think for a week. The goal was to ride epic waves, get warm and go brain dead.
Here’s the highlight video from Paula’s first retreat with us, back when SWA was called “Suave Dulce!” Check out Paula’s wave at 2:13 of the video!
Continue reading “62 Year Old Paula Talks About Her Experience Surfing into her 60s”
I came across this older video but wanted to share. It may be a few years old, but the sentiment is the same. There’s no better feeling in surfing than being inside the tube. Even if the wave closes out and you get pounded, it’s still an amazing feeling.
On a retreat in Costa Rica in June, the group scored some big waves, and had awesome interaction with nature. Hand feeding monkeys, incredible caterpillars, and awesome beach moments. Surf with Amigas all women surf yoga adventure retreats in Costa Rica are the best!
We are getting down to the very end of our rainy season retreat series in Costa Rica with just one more retreat starting up today. This location is amazing! Check out the video above from a retreat in June that was just uploaded and let us know if you’d like to join us in the fall when we start up again! November retreats are already sold out but we do have some space in December and beyond!
This pair of sisters from San Clemente, CA both have two kids. They left their little ones with their husbands and escaped for a week of awesome waves and a recharge. They scored amazing overhead waves the entire week and improved their surfing. Check out the sick waves they got!
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.
Amber and Shane Yoder currently live on boat in Florida with their two young girls. Amber first joined us on a retreat several years ago in Costa Rica and has been back a few times to Nicaragua. She even brought Shane and the kids on one of our family retreats two years ago. For this trip to Costa Rica in May, they left the kids with grandma and escaped for a week of surf for just the two of them. They joined us on one of our advanced short and longboard retreats, looking to be guided to awesome surf spots, have their surfing critiqued so that they could improve, eat delicious food, do yoga, but also just get a chance to surf their brains out without worrying about the kids!
“Kids take all your energy and sometimes you forget who you are as a person,“ she said. “It was so good for us to take a surf trip and reconnect with how we fell in love in the first place, through surfing!”
Raise your arms if you feel that one busy mamas! Wouldn’t a surf trip your man be pretty awesome right about now? It’s hard to leave the kids behind, but so good to recharge that energy and focus on you for once!
If you are lucky enough to have a surfing partner and want to get away on a surf trip for just the two of you, leaving the babies (human or fur babies) at home, we do have two couple friendly retreats happening in the fall – Nov 24-Dec 2 and Nov 8-15, both in Southern Costa Rica.
Ever since SWA hosted our first retreat at Coco Loco in November of 2010, it has been our home base in Nicaragua. We have had hundreds of guests come through and experience the wonderful place. While Surf With Amigas staff are the ones guiding guests out into the surf and through a yoga practice, it’s the smiling local men and women serving plates of delicious food, keeping rooms clean and comfortable, and offering to help whenever guests need anything that have made the retreats extra special. It’s been a team effort.
Due to the ongoing civil unrest in Nicaragua (read more about that here), we moved all our summer retreats to Costa Rica. We are lucky in that we have the option of avoiding the security issues with a change in venue. We were obviously not the only retreat company to make that change, and therefore resorts have been empty or way under capacity. As a result, resorts are closing their doors and laying off valued staff who have been working at their jobs for over a decade. These people now have no way to support their families.
Continue reading “How To Help The People of Nicaragua Right Now”
