Whether you’re a beginner or an expert at surfing, you’ve simply got to attend one surf camp in your lifetime. With its consistent all year round waves and warm waters, Bali is “the” place to be for this. You can surf your brains out, make new friends, chill and party hard. Eat, pray, love, surf.
Verdict: Move over eat, pray, love. At Bali, its eat, pray, love, surf.
[yasr_multiset setid=0]
I was at Bali a couple of months ago for a wedding and decided to stay a couple more days to learn surfing. After all, everyone keeps telling me that Bali is one of the surfing meccas in this world. Given its sound reviews, I booked Rapture Surfcamps Cliff, which is located nearby Green Bowl Bay.
To avoid confusion, Rapture runs two surfcamps in Bali, one near Padang Padang and one near Green Bowl Bay. The Cliff camp is the newer camp, while the Padang camp is the original Rapture camp in Bali, which is nearer to the usual surf breaks. Finding the Cliff camp wasn’t easy at all. The camp isn’t on a proper named road so you’ll need to rely on the Google map GPS heavily. The easier alternative is to arrange a transfer from the airport with the camp. Those drivers would know the way and shouldn’t get lost.
The camp itself was a pleasant surprise. It’s a spacious, clean and modern building with an outdoor swimming pool, sofabeds, pool table, air-conditioned rooms and a large dining area. The rooms are quite minimalist, but I’d prefer it that way. My only complaint is that the Wifi signal is quite weak away from the dining area.
Everyday, in the evening, the surf coach will divide everyone into surf groups based on ability, e.g. beginner, intermediate and advanced. As a beginner, I’d wake up at around 5am to 6am, get a quick breakfast and hop on a jeep with the other fellow beginners. We’d be taken to different surf breaks in Uluwatu everyday, such as Jimbaran, Dreamland, Nusa Dua and Balangan. The waves were consistent and the instructors, who speak English, were very good. For the experts, you might want to wake up earlier everyday to rent the board that’s most suited to you.
After a good tiring surf session in the morning, you return back to the camp for lunch at around 1-2pm. There’s a fair bit of free time in the afternoon. If you’re ambitious and have excessive energy, you can rent a motorbike to explore other parts of Bali. Otherwise, for lazier people like me, grabbing a beer and dipping in the pool is also an enticing option.
Although you’re likely to be stuck in the camp for meals most of the time, don’t worry. The food is actually very good taking into account the price. For breakfast, there’s the usual eggs, omlette, fruit salad etc. For lunch and evening, there’s a selection of steak, salad, pasta and chicken to Indonesian delights such as Nasi Goreng and Mi Goreng.
Additional information
| When to do it? | All year round. |
| How to book? | Check Rapture Surfcamp’s website. |
| How much does it cost? | Accommodation price ranges from EUR45 to 110 depending on room. Surf lessons per person per week is EUR150 and a daily 2 hour private session is EUR80. |
| How to get there?
|
Arrange a transfer from the airport with Rapture or Uber there. |
| How long does it take? | As long as you like. I stayed 5 days at the camp. |
| Is it safe? | N/A |
| What to wear? | Bring your boardshorts. The camp will also provide you with rashguards although you may also wish to bring your own. |