Del Mar Surf Camp - Costa Rica

Del Mar Surf Camp is a high-quality surf experience in Costa Rica. With over 9 years teaching people how to surf under their belt, you can be assured that you will certainly enjoy the adventure and experience all the "Pura Vida" culture Costa Rica offers, while catching your first waves or push your skills to the next level. Because they provide a maximum 2-to-1 student-to-instructor ratio with local Costa Rican surfers providing a safe and quality surf instruction. Their all-inclusive packages include everything from daily yoga classes, daily nature walks & healthy meals to create the perfect surf trip in paradise.

Locations

Del Mar Surf Camp has two locations in the Central-Pacific coast of Costa Rica:

• Playa Nosara, Guanacaste: the rustic laid back surfer town, with unpaved roads, artistic, vegetarian/vegan friendly and powerful yoga vibe, or
  
• Playa Hermosa, Jaco: the mountainous town surrounded by various bay, ocean surf breaks and exciting town full of restaurants and beachfront hangouts.
  

Playa Hermosa, Jaco

Playa Hermosa, Jaco is one of Costa Rica’s most popular beaches in the Central Pacific coast for surfing, with the most consistent surf, variety of breaks and great exposure to swells. Playa Hermosa is advanced surfing beach with an incredible shore break, one of the strongest in the world. Located no more than a 5 minute drive from Jaco, it attracts some of the best surfers to the area. Playa Jaco is where beginners learn to surf in gentle waves in the South end of Jaco. The area of beach for Jaco stretches across over 2 km long with a great variety of surf for all learning levels. This entire area has a fun & casual community atmosphere, catering to tourists who want a nice relaxing lifestyle, with easy access to all local attractions, mountains, hotels, restaurants and for those who want to shop and see the city.  Best time to surf: November to May, shoulder season: June to November.

Playa Nosara, Guanacaste

One of Costa Rica’s best kept secrets – a hidden paradise with no paved roads to lead you directly to this destination. As one of the 6 Blue Zones in the world, the community at Nosara Beach is characterised by a population that believes in maintaining active lifestyles, fostering low stress environments, natural diets and spending lots of quality time with friends and family.

Eco-Friendly, yoga and artistic surf paradise: Nosara beach has a tranquil atmosphere for tourists who want to really get away from it all and focus on surfing and relaxing in this romantically remote paradise. It is considered one of the “greenest zones” in Costa Rica with a large focus on organic production and sustainability with it as a home to many surfers, artists and yogis. Often referred to as a laidback town with good vibes, the protected area is home to consistently large tides, white sand beaches and very little disruption from lack of beachfront property. Beginner surfers start off at Playa Guiones, where the quality and consistency of the waves makes this beach an ideal place to surf, sometimes up to twice a day. Best time to surf: December to April, shoulder season: May to August.

Playa Hermosa

Hotel Club Del Mar, South Jaco - Beginner/Intermediate Surf Packages

All beginner surf lessons start right out front of this hotel. Located in the quiet end of South Jaco, you are surrounded by the rainforest, ocean breezes and scarlet macaws flying over announcing the sunset.

Tortuga Del Mar, Hermosa - Advanced Surf Package

For groups and surfers who want to be close to the popular surf beach with variety of breaks in the area, located directly at Playa Hermosa, perfect for your own sunrise or sunset sessions right out front.

Luxury Beachfront Condominiums - Any choice of package or customized groups of 3 or more

For groups of minimum 3 people, they provide the option to upgrade rooms (same package prices) to Jaco Beach’s newest beachfront condo properties with state-of-the-art luxury condo amenities and views for a resort-style living accommodation.

Playa Nosara

Cafe de Paris – Nosara Suites (Private/Shared) - Beginner/Intermediate Surf Packages

Located right in the heart of town in Playa Guiones. At this location, you are steps away from access to the Del Mar Surf Camp office (called Manta Raya – where you will get set up with all that you need for the week plus a hot spot for local organic clothing, bikinis and handmade specialties). Café de Paris is directly located on the path to the beach and close to all amenities for your surf holiday week – including yoga studios, restaurants, cafes and best of all, the surf.

Villa Tortuga Beachfront Homes - Advanced Surf Packages or Groups of 3 or more

Steps away from the beach, Villa Tortuga offers groups of three or more the flexibility and comfort of living in a home-style beach accommodation – to create a home away from home. Villa Tortuga is three minute walk through the National Parklands gets you to a beautiful white sand beach with great surf and warm waters.

Surf Spots

Playa Hermosa

Beach breaks

• Caldera: An A-frame right wedge that jacks up when it bounces off a jetty. Left wedges also.
• Jaco: Jaco is a small beach break with fun left and right peaks, you can surf almost the entire beach. Great beginner wave, or for a warm-up surf before tackling nearby Hermosa.
• Hermosa: Powerful and consistent beach break that sticks out into the Pacific, assuring constant swell. You will rarely be surfing under head high here. It can be perfect sometimes. Good barreling wave. Hermosa is actually a several mile long stretch of beach, and you can go surfing anywhere along beach.
• Esterillos: You can either surf Estrellos Este (east), or Estrellos Oeste (west) with beach break peaks, usually with good shape. Both lefts and rights. Esterillos Centro gets really fun. Good peaky beach break.
• Quepos: This small left point is found at the river mouth.

Reef/Point Breaks

• Escondida: Perfect, tubing reef break with powerful lefts and rights.
• Roca Loca (rock -reef break): Powerful, rocky right hand reef break off a large exposed rock. Lots of water moving around. You have to descend a steep cliff then paddle out in a small channel. It’s best surfing this break with someone who has surfed there before, so they can show you the safe way to paddle in and out. Experienced surfers only!
• Boca de Barranca: Barranca is a long left point break in front of a river mouth, when it’s working the ride can last almost a kilometer! Considered the second longest wave in Costa. Excellent longboard wave, and for hitting the lip on a short board.

Playa Nosara

Beach breaks

• Camaronal: Playa Camaronal is a secluded, uncrowded and very consistent beach break located south of Playa Samara. Works very good with a south or southwest swell.
• Marbella: A super consistent beach break where you can find waves working most of the year. There are both left and rights to surf and works pretty well on all tides. Offshore in a north west wind. Best surfed December to April.
• Ostional: Playa Ostional offers beach and reef breaks with rights and lefts. The waves break better on high tide and with a south or southwest swell. Located south of Playa Marbella.
• Avellanas: Avellanas is a nice alternative to the breaks in Tamarindo and is a number of different beach and reef breaks, the best of which break off the mouth of the river. Works in all tides but is best at mid to high tide. It is quite a short ride but is fun and ideal for longboarders. Works up to 8ft

Reef/Point Break

• Playa Negra: Very consistent Epic right-hand reef/point break. Perfect and powerful in the right conditions and is known as one of the best breaks in Costa Rica. Playa Negra will work on a smallish swell but starts to really turn on when it’s a couple feet overhead, and can hold almost triple overhead without closing out. Very playful and fun surfing when its around head high. Well worth a visit.

Other Activities

Adventure Tours

Others

Disclaimer - This surf trip is an independent surf operator and is not part of or in partnership with The Perfect Wave Travel Co. The Perfect Wave acts as an agent only. We sell various travel related products on behalf of numerous transport, accommodation and other service providers, such as airlines, land based accommodation and boat charter operators. The Perfect Waves' obligation is to make travel bookings on your behalf and to arrange relevant contracts between you and travel service providers. The Perfect Wave has no responsibility for these services nor do we make or give any warranty of representation regarding their standards. All bookings are made subject to the terms and conditions and limitations of liability imposed by these service providers.

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