I have been surfing for almost 20 years now. One of the many amazing aspects of pursuing this sport, is that many of the good places to surf are in some the most interesting, and tropical, parts of our world.
As a traveler, I have been on 6 continents and have surfed on 4 of them, My favorite place, as anyone who knows me will attest, are the myriad of beaches and point breaks in Costa Rica. CR is a relatively short plane ride from Chicago, and there’s no jet lag as a time zones are very similar.
That being said, something that any surfer, or traveler for that matter, will tell you is that in may of these idyllic looking places, extreme poverty exists in often time very significant ways. There are many ways to engage this systemic issue, though still very few that are surfing related. One organization that I have supported in the past, and that leans directly into issues that exist in some of the most extreme parts of our planet — and that also happen be near world class waves — is SurfAid.
If you are a surfer, or are just intrigued by that lifestyle and would like to support an organization that gets involved in the lives of the people they encounter, you may want to consider SurfAid.