LATITUDE: Around 12-20 deg
WATER TEMP: 27 deg C winter
FLIGHT TIME/COST: Barbados 8 hours from London, return from £650.
BUDGET: Pricey! Probably…
WAVES: 7
WEATHER: 9
CROWDS: 7
WOW-FACTOR: 8

Surf trips to the Caribbean are both under and over-rated in almost equal measure. It’s the kind of place a surf mag will go last minute for a swell, drop 5 grand in doing so, score a mega fickle rarity that breaks a handful of times a year and then sell it back to you as if it were bread and butter. Sorry about that. There are loads of islands and options, across a big geographical spread. English speaking ones, French speaking ones, Spanish speaking ones, hell even Dutch! As a general rule, the consistent surf is on the N/E facing coasts, where the wind also comes from. If you can be fairly realistic about surfing in a bit of wind, well then tally-ho!

However, on periodic massive swells or even hurricanes, the much rarer, cleaner, point breaky style west coasts might light up, with that even dreamier turquoise lagoon style water colour, and in general, right handers (swell from the north). Hell yeah!

Photo: Alex Laurel

While it is essentially a playground for mega rich folk from all over the world and thus heinously over-priced, you can snap up those all inclusive slightly chavy cut price package deals (e.g to Dominican Republic), and still score waves at a bargain price. As you might imagine, the French tend to go on hols/surf trip to the French islands (like Guadeloupe), the brits to the former brit colonies (like barbados), etc. It’s just the way things seem to work out. The most consistent surf isle is probably Puerto Rico, as well as the most crowded. I’d also just like to point out that I’ve got to the end without mentioning rum or reggae. Bravo me!