Surf rental Ericeira: close to the beach, easy-peasy

Quick answer if you just wanna rent a surfboard in Ericeira for a few hours: go to the Surf Center 300 m from Matadouro beach and pay roughly €16 for a soft board for half a day plus €10 for a wetsuit. Below: the people I'd send ya to for everything after that - Pepe at Ribeira d'Ilhas, Márcio's surf school, Bernabe for repairs and Filippo & Júlia for surf skate.

Surf rental in Ericeira close to downtown and the beach

Most friends who were visiting for a week, just wanted to rent a surfboard close to town *and* close to the beach. Your best option for that is to go to the Surf Center, which is 300 m from the “beginner's beach” Matadouro. You can easy-peasy get there from town and walk to the beach in a few minutes with your surfboard under the arm.

Sorry but yea, compared to other locations this is not really a cheap surfboard hire any more - most things got a bit expensive in Ericeira.

Here are the preços of both places I'd rent from:

Surfboard rental at Ribeira d'Ilhas in Ericeira: rent from Pepe at the famous beach

If you want to feel special though, go to Ribeira d'Ilhas beach, which is where also the qualification rounds for the world championship take place every year. Just know that Ribeira is rockier, so Matadouro is the better beginner beach. Get an Uber to Ribeira d'Ilhas, which costs about €4 from downtown Ericeira. With a board, you can choose an UberXL, but it's a bit of a gamble if the Uber driver allows it because of the sand and the dirtiness of you and your board.

When you arrive at the parking slot just keep left when walking towards the beach, and you'll find Pepe (Surf with Pepe) there for you to hire a surfboard. He doesn't put prices online, so just ask him on WhatsApp. You can also get a loyalty card and get one surf rental for free after a while :)

And if you have a car anyway: at Foz do Lizandro you can park right at the beach and rent a board on the spot at NaOnda (from €17 for 2 hours, says their website).

Surf lessons in Ericeira with patient teachers

In case you're hooked after renting a surfboard a few times, or felt that you don't feel as safe as you thought you would be without teacher - book ya self a few more surf lessons in Ericeira. Where? Well, I was pretty happy with Márcio & his team from The Ocean Surf School.

I had my first surf lessons in Ericeira with them back in May 2022. They're niceee, pick you up from home, and they draw stuff in their notebook to explain how waves work. Did it turn me into a proper surfer? Nope, I'm team do not surf

Ericeira surf camps are waiting for you - in case you're completely hooked. It's a thing that people come back to Ericeira over and over again. If that's you, maybe you want to consider having a full on surf experience at one of Ericeira's surf camps. Which one? Lapoint surf camp I would say.

They have lots of activities planned for each week, including superb parties for young people. There is also a skate bowl on top of their hill with an amazing view, and they have a very professional coworking. The only picture I have from Lapoint is when I worked in the coworking and caught a couple kissing - so cuuute, no?

Second hand surfboards to buy in Ericeira

When you're done with the time of ya life in a surf camp in Ericeira, you may want to remember it by buying your first (second hand) surfboard in Ericeira. Go to the Facebook group Ericeira Surf: Buy And Sale Surfboards (yep, hope you're still having an account) and find your first love.

In case you ever fck it up, go see Bernabe from BM Custom Repairs (17 min by Uber from downtown) for surfboard repairs (and wetsuit repairs). He's a nice guy and always offers a coffee :) I don't recommend these guys below (Dutch + Portuguese + British trio trying to establish another surfboard repair shop in Ericeira).

Car rental in Ericeira so you can go surfing anywhere

Oh and, yes, once you become a proper surfer, you d o need a car. If you're in Ericeira for longer, you can play around with dates and get the cheapest of the cheapest car rentals via booking.com. Trick from ma friend: split longer bookings, 3 or maximum 4 weeks is cheapest. The rental companies they trust: Movida, Drive on Holidays and Record Go.

Oh, and booking.com cancels super easy: book now, cancel if it gets cheaper. This is a fun game for every man who's bored of normie financial trading and feels like gambling with surf car rental prices instead.

Car rental preços: in November it can get as cheap as €5 per day, in March, April and May too. August is expensive. In July and August you can play a magic trick and go to the Facebook group Expats in Ericeira area and ask if anyone rents out their private car, maybe that's cheaper.

Parking is easy-peasy: Matadouro has a free parking spot next to Boardriders, Ribeira d'Ilhas a big free one, and at Foz do Lizandro you park right at the beach.

If you feel fancy, if you feel cute, you can go to more advanced spots. There is a beach starting with V, I always forget what it's called .. Praia da Vigia (16 min by car). It's super steep and a bit more lonely. There are some rumors that this beach is, at the same time, a happy naked beach for all the happy naked people. You can go there, or you turn into the typical surf guy in Ericeira who complains about how shit the surf is in Ericeira, so you drive to Carcavelos or Peniche all the fcking time. If you feel like you almost have enough of Ericeira, then you're like: "I think I'm going to move to Caparica."

Let your calendar decide if surf is good: surf forecast in Ericeira

Besides getting an appropriate car, another sign of becoming a proper surfer, is when you go surf skating when "surf is no good". Btw, you can see if surf is good or not automatically in your calendar.

A local Ericeirian, Rúben, built an automation, which scans surf forecasts for “good conditions” and blocks that time automatically in your Google calendar - genius! Most of the time when I tell a developer about this, who is also a surfer - he's like: "I thought about building exactely that." Go get surfslot.pt today - it's only €3.50 a month, aka the price of a surf wax, and the website is hilarious. Or check it yourself old-school on Surfline: Ribeira d'Ilhas and Matadouro.

Watch the mad pro surfers in Ericeira: hike from Ribeira d'Ilhas to Coxos

If you are impressed by pro surfers but definitely will not go in yourself, you can do a nice hike from Ribeira to Coxos along the cliffs. The running club sometimes runs along there, and you can see all the mad pro surfers taking the risks on some days. Coxos is very famous, I guess. Even the most famous surfer of all time (the only pro surfer I really know), Kelly Slater, surfed Cave, which is on the way to Coxos.

If the winter waves are scary big, go to Nazaré

There is this thing that people outside of Portugal know about: the monster waves in Nazaré (1h 25 min by car from Ericeira). The biggest ones usually happen from December to February. These are not called monster waves, but big waves, they're called. It's nice, and everyone wants to go at least once to Nazaré and watch it and feel like there's a tsunami wave coming towards you, but then it's not.

They're like pro surfers, big wave surfers as they are actually called. They're taking the waves, and a jet ski follows them, so it's super risky. It's a super dangerous sport, but it's nice to watch, but only for 23 minutes. Then you can look at the little museum about the big wave surfers for 7 minutes. After that, a girl like me gets super bored and wants to go home to have a nice coffee in a nice cafe. Yeah, that's one thing you can do if winter waves in Ericeira get annoyingly big.

Ericeira surf skate is the hot thing, yes.

Specifically surf skate is pretty popular in Ericeira. If you feel stupid wiggling around on that board and can't get it going by your own, go take classes with Filippo & Júlia and meet other cool surf skaters there :)

Let me add you to the surfskate gang

bomdiachen@erijoy.com

If the surfskate gang happens to not be active when you desire it, first message random people from the chat. My hot take is they would be absolutely happy if you asked them directly for a 1:1 surf/skate date. Alternatively, definitely pay for a surfskate buddy, which is Chico in this case (a private surfskate session at his backYARD Surf Club is around €55, board and transport included). And by the way, Chico is the man in town as your paid surf mate and paid surfskate mate.

Meanwhile, surfskate kind of works, but the surf gang is the one thing that just doesn't work in Ericeira. There are always some great ones, but it just does not work because you usually go with your housemates, and that's about it. Go get a housemate, and then you also get a surf mate. And again: Chico is your paid surf mate.

Skate park at Boardriders/Quiksilver in Ericeira is .. stressy

If your (surf) skate skills are improving, you could be brave and enter the bowl of chaos which is how I call the skate park at Boardriders/Quiksilver. Good luck as a beginner, because most days it's so busy that your main task is to not get killed by all the “pros” who may bump into you. At least you can take a picture with “Hollyskate” behind you

By the way, Boardriders also has crossfit classes (€10 for 1 class, all preços in the gym article), and not very rarely a mom brings her kid, and they skate while she is working out.

But the skate park at Boardriders/Quiksilver in Ericeira is .. also sometimes heaven

A few days per year, we get lucky and the best of the best skaters come to town, specifically to the skate park at Boardriders and show off. How can you not die on this ramp? Though if you ask me, the real heaven there is boardriders on Friday evening

58 Surf Shop in Ericeira also has a skatepark

I usually decide to not enter the bowl of chaos at boardriders, but rather go to the surf skate area at the 58 surf shop, which is more flat, i.e. anyway better to practice surf skating.

You can rent surf skateboards for €5 per hour from the 58 Surf Shop - but bring a credit card from which they deduct a deposit of €100. Believe me, after 1h your legs are already shaking from all the wiggling work :) Btw, 58 also has an extra coworking table with sockets, so after all the wiggling you can just open your laptop there.

Ericeira surf shops like Boardriders and the 58 Surf Shop are waiting for you to become the ultimate surf & skate girl/guy. Good luck not spending too much €€€ - there should be some money left to buy your padel gear