The business of surfing

The surf economy does it in waves, as Ticket To Ride found out: a surf academy that's as good for career breaks as it is gap years

Surfing. It’s a contradiction of images, when you think of what it conjures up: laidback people with a burning passion; rebels who love getting spiritually gooey over the ocean; it’s these opposites that make it such an enigmatic and addictive thing.

One contradiction you don’t normally guess at is the surf lifestyle becoming twinned with business nous and career prospects. But that’s just what this story is about: two surfers who’ve managed to build a multinational business from making surfing into a lifestyle choice.

Ticket to Ride takes anyone on. It sends amateur and expert alike to places like South Africa, Mozambique and Costa Rica and trains them to become surf experts. After courses that can last up to 13 weeks, graduates come back qualified as SSA Level 1 Surf Instructors and SPA Lifesavers. More than that, when you get back, they’ll find you a job working on a beach in the UK. You don’t get more life changing than that. You'd be hard pressed to find a gap year idea that sounds better too.

The Perranporth academy

WideWorld drove to Perranporth to meet up with one of Ticket to Ride’s founders, Will Hayler. Dorset by birth, London by chance but Cornwall by choice, Will champions the surf life and culture, and thinks it’s got something to offer everyone. Ticket to Ride’s subtitle, which Will is constantly pointing out, is ‘Worldwide Surfing Adventures’ – not gap year, not pro surfing academy. Adventures are what they offer their students.

“Lin [Linley Lewis, TTR’s other founder] and I were surf instructors and we realised there was only so much you could learn in a week. So we thought we’d set something up like the winter season, only for surfing. It started as a gap year thing, and we looked beyond that to school trips and university clubs – now everyone is going on career breaks, which has caught up with gap years as the reason to go,” Will says.

As we talk, you can hear the waves breaking outside. We’re in the breakfast room of Seiners Hotel, surrounded by incredible views across the bay as the tide rolls out. It’s here that TTR has its only UK school: a window into the whole organisation. Inside you see the mix of British tourists - six-year-olds jostle with 60-year-olds trying on wetsuits before lessons kick off each day. It’s a mix that reflects the appeal of Ticket to Ride's foreign operations, too. It's  taking bookings from people in their forties these days; people who want to change their own lives.

Surfing is the adventure

“More and more you’re reading these adventure magazines and adventure articles,” Will tells me, “where you see a famous guy doing something a bit testing. Well, for some people coming down and going surfing is exactly that. And the surprise on their faces when they realised they’re actually enjoying it… well, that’s great!”

Will’s enthusiasm for surfing is limitless, and is broadcast through the company he and Lin have set up to help others buy into it. The bar of Seiners hotel the night before was teeming with what Will calls ‘TTRide guys’ – surfers all in the fold and living life large by the ocean.

We meet the coach for Ticket to Ride’s Perranporth school later that morning. Sam’s a great example of what Will is talking about. He spends ten months a year here, coaching surfers (his technique certainly works – after just an hour of coaching he had WideWorld up on our feet and riding waves). The other two he heads off. This year it’s Indonesia. Ticket to Ride, he tells me “Gives you the chance to plug into a job back here, and then go off and explore for the rest of the year.”

Mozambique by 4X4

Travelling and surfing have always gone hand in hand. What Ticket to Ride manages to do is marry the two from the start. “We’ve extended the course in South Africa to 13 weeks, and that allows people to go from South Africa to Mozambique for three weeks,” Will says. “Going in 4x4 trucks to Mozambique on roads that people have never been on, it’s the full monty.

“You’ll learn far more than just surfing. You’ll learn about weather systems; how beaches work. Your whole perception of the coast changes, because you’re learning about weather, safety on the beach, training to be a lifeguard. So when you look out on the sea having done the course, it’s very different to when you look out on the sea on your first day of the course.”

For now, WideWorld is just feeling good to get one lesson out here from the Seiners base. The beach is pretty empty, the tide just on the brink of coming back in again. Sam is strolling down to the shore, talking about his travels and plans. The sun is out in full glory – lucky for a British August.

“Perranporth is a good place to get started,” Sam tells us. “Whitesands in Pembrokeshire is one of my other favourites. Basically, you want to get out in September. You’ve still got days like this, but less tourists and you get the beach to yourself.” And the water? “Well, that’s never gonna be that warm I’m afraid.”

Weaving through the surf

It’s not too parky, in fact. Not with a wetsuit on, anyway. After an hour, we’re weaving boards between junior surfers in the massing crowds that are slinging themselves into the water. It does wonders for your turning ability. You have to wonder though – does 13 weeks of this get a bit heavy?

“You might get two or three surfs a day depending on what the tidal cycle is,” Will says. “So that gives a lot of scope for doing other things around where you are. So in South Africa it’s township development. In our Costa Rica trip it’s working in a school.

“They’re there for an experience and adventure: it’s not a holiday. You’re going to be put out of your comfort zone quite a lot, and then you learn how to deal with other people who are out of their comfort zones. You’re learning something completely new, and at the end you’re learning to teach something that’s completely new to someone else.”

Being the pupil and the master – another contradiction of surfing, especially the way these guys do it. But as Sam tells me at the end of our lesson, walking back to Seiners with the sun in our faces, “You can learn all your life about surfing and only scratch the surface. Waves, wind, tides, oceanography – you’ve got to keep on learning.

More information

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride runs surf trips to South Africa, Mozambique, Morocco, Costa Rica, plus a Season2Season trip combining a surf and ski/snowboard season. See the site for details and pricing.

www.ttride.co.uk
+44 (0)20 8788 8668
[email protected]

Ticket to Ride Surf Academy

Located in Perranporth, just down the coast from Cornwall, the Surf Academy is a great place to get started and get a taste of what TTRide does. From £25 for a single lesson.

www.ttride.co.uk/surfacademy

Seiners Hotel

WideWorld stayed at the excellent Seiners hotel in Perranporth. Right on the beach, with the top-notch Rocks Bar and Restaurant attached, you can bag a sea view room in high season for as little as £80. Plus, it’s right by the surf school…

www.seiners.co.uk