What Changed in Modern Surfing

How I Started Surfing

I didn’t start surfing straight away. Like many kids in the mid-1980s, I started with a bodyboard. Simply because it was cheaper and more accessible at the time, it was fun — but it wasn’t really my thing. Even then, my dream was always to surf.

I remember riding the bodyboard in a drop-knee position, trying to imitate what I had seen in surf magazines and movies. I competed in several bodyboard competitions, but whenever I had the chance to borrow a surfboard from someone, that’s what I chose. If there was a surfboard available, I was surfing.

I started surfing in Porto when I was around 12 years old. The water was cold, and my friends and I didn’t have wetsuits at first. My first real surf experience came on a board I borrowed from my cousin — surfboards were expensive back then, and owning one wasn’t something you could easily do.

During those summer holidays, my parents could see how much I loved surfing, but at the time they didn’t really care about it. Surfing wasn’t seen as something serious or as a possible future.

I really wanted to surf, and I didn’t give up. After insisting for a long time, I convinced my mother to buy me my first wetsuit (a Gul, I still remember it). Later, my father bought me my first surfboard, a Golphinho shaped by a Portuguese shaper.

I was absolutely happy. From that moment on, I never stopped surfing.

That first board didn’t last forever. I broke it several times, and every time my dad fixed it so I could keep surfing. We didn’t have coaches, tutorials, or surf schools — just a few surf movies and magazines. We learned by watching, trying, failing, and spending as much time in the water as possible.

Surfing as Adventure

Later, surfing became my main reason to travel. My friends and I were buying surf magazines and choosing destinations based on what we read. My first big surf trip was to Réunion Island, without pre-bookings, surf forecasts, or beach webcams. We travelled with very little information and a lot of curiosity.

You arrived, checked the ocean yourself, and adapted. Every trip felt like a real adventure.

After that, I had other memorable surf trips, for example, to Costa Rica and Peru. These trips were also completely unorganized. We didn’t plan much, just bought airplane tickets. Sometimes, even my parents didn’t really know where I was.

Surfing allowed me to meet people from all over the world. I made friends through surfingand travelling. What stayed with me from those trips wasn’t only the surfing itself, but the experiences and the connections made along the way.

Surfing wasn’t a prestigious sport back then. Parents didn’t push their kids into it like football or tennis. The surf community was smaller, and it was mostly made up of people who truly surfed — not people chasing an image.

What Changed

Today, many things are better — and that’s important to say.

Wetsuits are incredible and allow us to surf comfortably in cold water. There’s a huge variety of surfboards, and access to information is instant. Learning to surf is more accessible than ever, and that’s a positive thing.

But at the same time, something feels different. These changes are something I’ve observed closely through my years of surfing around the world and teaching in the Algarve.

Surfing has become a prestigious hobby, closer to skiing or tennis than the raw, simple activity it once was. Parents invest heavily in coaching from the very beginning. Beginners often start with top-level equipment before understanding the basics. Lineups are more crowded, and many people in the water have never been taught surf etiquette or ocean awareness.

It’s great that so many people enjoy surfing. It’s good that the sport is more accessible. But modern surfing has also become highly commercial, and sometimes that commercial side feels louder than the real spirit of surfing — the relationship with the ocean, patience, respect, and learning through experience.

My Reflection

None of this is meant as criticism of beginners or newcomers. Most people don’t know these things when they start — and that’s completely normal. But as surfing grows, it’s worth asking what we are really teaching: how to stand up quickly and make impressive photos for social media or how to understand the ocean and the culture that comes with it.

For me, surfing has always been about time, curiosity, and respect. Those values haven’t changed — even if the sport around them has.

This topic is closely connected to the idea of surfing as a lifestyle, which I explore further in another Honest Blog article about the tempting surfing lifestyle.

Filipe
Head surf instructor & founder of Filsurf Surf School
January 2026