new-caledonia
#13. New Caledonia: Out in the distant South Pacific is the island of Grande Terre, the largest island by far in New Caledonia, and surrounded by a massive coral reef with many open passes and bends. While hard to access and extremely expensive for visitors, this French territory has some of the cleanest ocean water and best reef surfing in the world, if you parlez français and have the time and a boat to get out there. New Caledonia has very similar swell and wind patterns to nearby Fiji, but only a fraction of the number of surfers, meaning many empty waves on each pulse of southwest groundswell. Image: Callahan/surfEXPLORE
Surf is everywhere. It rolls past our coastlines, whipped up by storms off shore, held up by offshore winds, and can go from playful to terrifying the blink of an eye. Sometimes it’s blue, sometimes green, sometimes gray. Whatever it looks like, it’s always beautiful. Islands have some of the best waves, and this gallery shows twenty of the world’s best surfing islands. From India to Indonesia, there’s a wave for everyone.