About / Start Here

The short version

For decades I’ve chased waves around the world — from Baja and mainland Mexico to Central America, Southeast Asia, and remote corners of Indonesia.

Surf travel rarely goes according to plan. Roads end. Boats break down. Storms move in. Directions are wrong. Sometimes you’re sleeping on a toolbox in the back of a truck, or riding through the jungle on the roof of a packed bus, ducking branches while holding onto the ropes that keep the boards and chicken cages tied down.

Most people dream about surf travel but hesitate, because the unknown feels intimidating. My approach has always been the opposite: go first, figure it out along the way. Because the crazier it gets, the better the stories later.

Somewhere along the way I realized the thing I’d actually collected across all those miles wasn’t a list of spots — it was a method.

I don’t pre-plan. I pick a destination, buy the ticket or point the truck south, and go. Land in the zone, find a cheap hotel, and give it a day or two before deciding anything else — that’s the rule. In that first day or two I talk to everyone: other travelers, locals, the hotel desk clerk, waiters, bartenders, the expats who’ve lived there for years. “Where’s a great place to stay?” “Where do you eat, where do you go, what do you actually do around here?” I check it out, then decide — which part of the zone, which town, which corner of it, is where I actually want to post up for the extended stay.

That’s how you find the honest rental counter, the good kitchen, the person who fixes dings, the bed that doesn’t break the budget, and let the coastline do the rest. That method is this site.

“You don’t plan everything. You show up and figure it out. That’s how exploration works.”

What this site does

Secrets of Surf Travel documents the adventure of exploring unfamiliar coastlines, meeting local guides and businesses, and gathering the knowledge that helps you plan a great surf trip — everything around the surf. The spots stay where they belong: out there, waiting for you to earn them. That promise is written down in full in the No-Reveal Code.

Where to start

1. Read the Code. Two minutes. It explains everything this site will and won’t do.
2. Browse Southern Baja. The flagship zone: five hubs, the full logistics layer, and fifteen Local Secrets.
3. Join Field Notes. The newsletter on the home page — stories and intel, straight to your inbox, no spot reveals ever.

See you out there. — Jed