Best Surf Trips from Sydney
From Sydney's beaches to the world's best waves. Your Pacific and Indian Ocean surf trip hub.
30 spots featured
Sydney is the perfect base for surf travel in the Southern Hemisphere. With direct flights to Bali, Fiji, New Zealand, and across the Pacific — plus easy connections to the Mentawais, Maldives, Japan, and Hawaii — Sydney-based surfers have an embarrassment of options.
The closest international trip is the most obvious: Bali is just 6 hours from Sydney, putting Indonesia's entire surf archipelago within reach. Fiji is 4 hours. New Zealand is 3 hours. These are the weekend-warrior trips that Australians have been doing for decades.
Longer hauls open up Japan (9 hours direct), Hawaii (10 hours), and even California. And the domestic options along Australia's own coastline — from Byron Bay to Margaret River — mean you don't always need to leave the country to score world-class waves.
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Australia(18 spots)
Snapper Rocks
Gold Coast, Australia
Snapper Rocks is the starting point of Australia's legendary Superbank—an artificial sand formation that can create rideable waves stretching over 2 kilometers to Kirra. The...
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Bells Beach
Victoria, Australia
Bells Beach is Australian surfing's spiritual home—a powerful right-hand point break carved into the dramatic sandstone cliffs of Victoria's Great Ocean Road. Home to the world's...
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Margaret River
Western Australia, Australia
Margaret River is Western Australia's undisputed wave capital—a stretch of rugged coastline where powerful Indian Ocean swells meet a minefield of world-class reef breaks. The...
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Kirra
Gold Coast, Australia
Kirra is Australian surfing's most storied barrel—a right-hand sand-bottom point that has produced some of the country's most iconic waves when the sand aligns correctly. As the...
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Burleigh Heads
Gold Coast, Australia
Burleigh Heads is the Gold Coast's most intense wave—a powerful right-hand point that breaks over a boulder-strewn headland, producing thick barrels and high-performance walls....
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Noosa First Point
Sunshine Coast, Australia
Noosa First Point is Australia's longboarding mecca—a sequence of five points that produce some of the longest, most perfect right-hand peelers in the country when the rare NE...
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Lennox Head
Northern NSW, Australia
Lennox Head is one of Australia's most revered points—a long, bending right-hander that peels along a basalt boulder headland in northern NSW. When clean SE swells combine with SW...
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The Pass
Byron Bay, Australia
The Pass is Byron Bay's crown jewel—a long, winding right-hand point that embodies the region's laid-back surf culture. The wave is forgiving and fun, wrapping around the headland...
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Angourie Point
Northern NSW, Australia
Angourie Point is a historic right-hand point break that helped birth Australian shortboard surfing in the 1960s. The wave breaks over a basalt reef into a deep channel, producing...
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North Narrabeen
Sydney, Australia
North Narrabeen is Sydney's premier beach break—a long stretch of sand where lagoon run-off creates ever-shifting sandbanks that produce world-class lefts on their day. The...
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The Box
Margaret River, Australia
The Box is one of the most feared waves on Earth—a mutant right-hand slab that produces square-shaped barrels of terrifying intensity over a barely submerged reef shelf. When...
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North Point
Margaret River, Australia
North Point is Margaret River's big wave venue—a long, powerful right-hander that handles massive swells when other spots close out. The wave breaks over a shallow reef shelf,...
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Strickland Bay
Rottnest Island, Australia
Strickland Bay is Rottnest Island's premier wave—a quality left-hander that breaks along a limestone reef shelf off Western Australia's quokka-inhabited island paradise. The wave...
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Shipstern Bluff
Tasmania, Australia
Shipstern Bluff is one of the most terrifying waves on the planet—a Tasmanian slab famous for its mutant "steps" that form mid-face as the wave throws over a shallow reef ledge....
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Crescent Head
Mid North Coast NSW, Australia
Crescent Head is the quintessential Australian point break—a long, walling right that peels along a rocky headland for 400+ meters on its day. The wave is forgiving and...
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Shark Island
Cronulla, Australia
Shark Island is Sydney's most punishing wave—a right-hand slab that breaks over an almost-dry rock shelf, producing thick, heavy barrels of cartoonish proportions. The wave is...
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Ours
Cape Solander, Australia
Ours (Cape Fear) is Sydney's most notorious wave—a heavy right-hand slab that breaks over shallow rock in front of dramatic sea cliffs in Bra Boys territory. Made famous by the...
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Cactus
Nullarbor, Australia
Cactus is Australia's most remote quality surf zone—a collection of breaks at the edge of the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia, where the Southern Ocean delivers raw power to an...
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Fiji(4 spots)
Cloudbreak (XXL)
Tavarua, Fiji
Cloudbreak XXL (aka "Thundercloud") is big-wave surfing's most terrifying playing field—the outer reef at Fiji's famous Cloudbreak that activates during massive Southern Ocean...
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Cloudbreak
Tavarua, Fiji
Cloudbreak is a left-hand reef break off Tavarua in Fiji. Southwest swell can produce long walls and powerful barrels, with conditions changing substantially as swell size and...
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Restaurants
Mamanuca Islands, Fiji
Restaurants is Fiji's hidden gem—a perfect left-hand tube that serves as the go-to alternative when Cloudbreak gets too intense. Named after the resort restaurant overlooking it,...
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Namotu Lefts
Mamanuca Islands, Fiji
Namotu Lefts is one of Fiji's most consistent high-performance waves—a hollow left-hander that breaks right in front of the Namotu Island Resort. The wave produces powerful,...
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Indonesia(4 spots)
Uluwatu
Bali, Indonesia
Uluwatu is Bali's most famous wave, a long, walling left-hander that breaks over a shallow reef at the base of dramatic limestone cliffs. The wave offers multiple sections—from...
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Padang Padang
Bali, Indonesia
Padang Padang is Bali's version of Pipeline—a short, violent, left-hand barrel that explodes over a dangerously shallow reef. Unlike Uluwatu which works on small swells, Padang...
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Desert Point
Lombok, Indonesia
Desert Point is one of the longest, most perfect barrel rides on Earth—and one of the most fickle. When SW swells combine with low tide and offshore winds, this Lombok left...
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Impossibles
Bali, Indonesia
Impossibles earned its name because it's usually too fast to make—the wave races down a shallow reef so quickly that most sections close out before you can reach them. But with...
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USA(3 spots)
Pipeline
North Shore, Oahu, USA
Pipeline is the proving ground of professional surfing—a shallow, left-breaking barrel that has defined generations of surfers. The wave breaks just 75 yards from the beach over a...
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Sunset Beach
North Shore, Oahu, USA
Sunset Beach is one of surfing's most revered and challenging waves—a football-field-sized playing field of shifting peaks and deep-water power. West Peak is the classic heavy...
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Makaha
West Shore, Oahu, USA
Makaha is Hawaii's original big wave spot—the place where big wave surfing was pioneered before Waimea Bay. Multiple sections (Point, Bowl, Blowhole, Inside Reef) offer different...
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New Zealand(1 spot)
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