Best Surf Trips from San Francisco

From cold Ocean Beach sessions to tropical perfection. The best surf trips out of SFO.

20 spots featured

San Francisco surfers earn their warm-water trips. After a winter of dry-suit-thick wetsuits and sharky lineups at Ocean Beach, a flight south or west to actual sunshine feels like a reward. SFO makes it easy.

The closest options are excellent: Cabo and Puerto Vallarta are 4 hours, Costa Rica is 6, Hawaii is 5. Sayulita, La Punta, Pavones — all reachable on a Friday-night red-eye for a Saturday-morning surf. These are the Bay Area surfer's equivalent of a long weekend.

For longer trips, SFO offers direct flights to Tokyo (10 hours), Auckland (13 hours), and Sydney (14 hours) — opening up Japan, New Zealand, and the entire Australian/Indonesian surf belt with one stop. SFO genuinely competes with LAX for surf-trip connectivity.

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USA (HI)(5 spots)

Costa Rica(5 spots)

Mexico(5 spots)

Japan(3 spots)

Australia(1 spot)

Peru(1 spot)

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