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 this surf shop, which is 300 m from the “beginner's beach” Matadouro. They're open 9 am - 8 pm, and you can easy-peasy get there from town and walk to the beach in a few minutes with your surfboard under the arm.

Surf rental prices in Ericeira are roughly €16 for a soft board for half a day and €10 for a wetsuit = €26 for a few fun hours of surf. 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.

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. Get an Uber to Ribeira D'Ilhas, which costs about €4 from downtown Ericeira.

When you arrive at the parking slot just keep left when walking towards the beach, and you'll find Pepe from 8 am to 8 pm there for you to hire a surfboard. You can also get a loyalty card and get one surf rental for free after a while :)

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 Marcio & 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.

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? La Point 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 La Point is when I worked in the coworking and caught a couple kissing - so cuuute, no?

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 this Facebook group (yep, hope you're still having an account) and find your first love.

In case you ever fck it up, go see Bernabe 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).

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 doyouspain.com (yep, also for Portugal).

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 Surfline for “good forecasts” 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 exactly that." Go get surfslot.pt today - it's free and the website is hilarious 🤓

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 :) Enter your mail here, and I'll add you to their group.

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 ❤️

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? 🛹

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 hour your legs are already shaking from all the wiggling work :)

Ericeira surf shops 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 🎾🤓