Surf Trip Packing List: 21 Things to Bring and 6 to Leave Home (2026)

A surf trip needs 21 things: a board and bag, leash, fins and a fin key, wax and a comb, the right wetsuit or boardshorts, a rash vest, booties, reef first aid, sun protection, lip balm, a quick dry towel, a change of clothes for evenings, flip flops, a dry bag, a solid wash bar, a small medical kit, insect repellent, a reusable water bottle, a power bank, a universal adapter and copies of your documents. Everything else is optional.

The reason to be strict is weight. Airlines charge a separate fee for a board bag and cap it at a fixed weight, and a board bag fills up faster than anyone expects. This list is built around getting under that limit without leaving behind anything you will miss.

• 1. The 21 things to pack for a surf trip
• 2. Surf kit: boards, leashes, wax and fins
• 3. What wetsuit do I need?
• 4. Toiletries and washing on a surf trip
• 5. Airline liquid rules and how to get around them
• 6. Board bag weight: the maths
• 7. 6 things to leave at home
• 8. What to pack, by destination
• 9. Summary
• 10. Frequently asked questions

 

The 21 things to pack for a surf trip

This is the complete list. If you have all of it, nothing on your trip will be ruined by a missing item, and you will still be inside a normal board bag allowance.

#	Item	Why it matters	Weight
1	Surfboard, or hire on arrival	Hiring locally is often the better call	3 to 4 kg
2	Board bag, padded	Doubles as the suitcase, protects the board	2 to 4 kg
3	Leash, plus a spare	Leashes snap. A spare saves a whole day	300 g
4	Fins and a fin key	The key is the single most forgotten item on this list	200 g
5	Wax, tropical and cool water	Wrong wax means no grip. Bring both	200 g
6	Wax comb	Also a bottle opener, also weighs nothing	30 g
7	Wetsuit, correct thickness	See the wetsuit table below	0.8 to 2.5 kg
8	Rash vest	Sun, board rash, and a layer under a wetsuit	200 g
9	Boardshorts or swimsuit, two pairs	One is always wet	400 g
10	Reef booties	Essential in Bali, Fuerteventura, Morocco and Sri Lanka	500 g
11	Reef first aid: antiseptic, plasters, tape	Coral cuts infect fast in warm water	200 g
12	Reef safe sun cream, SPF 50	You burn faster in the water than on the sand	300 g
13	Zinc stick and SPF lip balm	Zinc stays on through a three hour session	60 g
14	Quick dry microfibre towel	Dries in an hour, packs to nothing	200 g
15	Solid 3-in-1 wash bar	Hair, body and face in one 80g piece, no liquid limit	80 g
16	Dry bag, 10 to 20 litres	Keeps phone and keys safe on the beach	150 g
17	Flip flops and one pair of trainers	You will live in the flip flops	700 g
18	Small medical kit and any prescriptions	Pharmacies vary enormously by destination	300 g
19	Insect repellent	Essential in Sri Lanka, Bali, Costa Rica and Nicaragua	150 g
20	Reusable water bottle	Cuts plastic waste on every trip	150 g
21	Power bank, adapter, document copies	Adapters differ. Check before you fly	400 g

Surf kit: boards, leashes, wax and fins

The first decision is whether to bring a board at all. For a first or second trip, almost always no. Board hire is easy to find at every destination in this guide, airlines charge a separate fee each way for a board bag, and boards get damaged in transit more often than people admit.

Bring your own once you know exactly what you want to ride and where you are going. If you do, pack two boards in one bag if the bag allows it, wrap the fins separately, and use your wetsuit and towels as padding around the rails and nose. That doubles as packing your clothes.

• Always bring a spare leash. It is the cheapest insurance in surfing. A snapped leash at a reef break with no shop nearby ends your session and possibly your board.
• Always bring your fin key. It weighs nothing and it is impossible to find in a small village. Tape a spare inside your board bag.
• Bring both wax temperatures. Tropical wax in cold water does not grip, and cool water wax in the tropics turns to soup.
• Check your airline's board policy before booking. Prices and size limits vary enormously and some budget carriers refuse boards over a certain length entirely.

What wetsuit do I need?

Water temperature decides this, not air temperature. This is where people get it wrong most often, usually by packing too little rubber for Morocco or dragging a 4/3 to Sri Lanka.

Water temp (°C)	What to bring	Destinations	Extras
26 and above	Boardshorts and a rash vest	Sri Lanka, Bali, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico	Reef booties
22 to 25	Boardshorts, thin top	Cape Verde, Barbados, Canaries in autumn	Reef booties
19 to 21	Shorty or a 3/2	Canary Islands in winter, Senegal	Nothing extra
17 to 18	3/2 full suit	Morocco, Portugal in spring	Booties for rocky points
14 to 16	4/3 full suit	Portugal in winter, France, Spain	Booties
13 and below	4/3 with boots, gloves, hood	UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway	All of it

 

If you would rather never pack a wetsuit at all, our guide to the best places to surf without a wetsuit lists the coastlines where you genuinely do not need one, and where to surf in winter compares the warm water options from Europe in winter.

Toiletries and washing on a surf trip

A surf trip means rinsing off two or three times a day, usually in a cold outdoor shower with nowhere to put anything. That is a genuinely different problem from a normal holiday, and it is why the standard wash bag does not work.

Keeping a bar in good shape on the road is easy once you know how: our bar use and storage guide covers drying, storing and travelling with it.

The three things that go wrong are always the same. Bottles leak into the board bag, so your wetsuit arrives smelling of shampoo. Bottles get knocked over or go missing in shared bathrooms at surf camps. And three bottles of liquid weigh close to a kilo, which is a kilo you cannot use for anything else.

A solid 3-in-1 bar solves all three at once. It covers hair, body and face in one 80 gram piece, there is nothing to spill, and it is not a liquid so it never touches the 100ml hand luggage rule. On a two week trip that is roughly 900 grams saved and one less thing to think about.

Approach	Weight	Liquid limit	Leaks?	Washes
Shampoo, shower gel and face wash bottles	800 to 1,000 g	Checked bag only	Frequently	Depends on size
Travel size miniatures	300 g	Fits, but three 100ml bottles	Sometimes	5 to 8 days
Solid 3-in-1 bar	80 g	No limit, hand luggage fine	Never	30 to 60

Airline liquid rules and how to get around them

Liquids, gels, aerosols and pastes are limited to containers of 100ml in hand luggage across the EU, UK, US and most of the world. Solids are not covered by that rule at all, which is the single most useful fact for anyone trying to fly hand luggage only.

Item	Hand luggage	Notes
Solid soap or shampoo bar	Unlimited	Not a liquid, gel or aerosol. No pouch needed
Liquid shampoo or shower gel	100ml max	Must fit in the clear pouch with everything else
Sun cream	100ml max	Buy it at the destination
Toothpaste	100ml max	A paste, so it counts
Wax	Unlimited	Solid, though security occasionally asks about it
Deodorant stick	Unlimited	Solid sticks are fine, sprays are not

 

Some airports have begun rolling out newer scanners that relax the 100ml rule, but the rollout is uneven and rules can change at short notice. Check your specific departure and return airports before flying rather than assuming, because the return leg is the one that catches people out.

Board bag weight: the maths

A typical board bag allowance is 20 to 32 kilos, and it fills faster than you expect. Here is where the weight actually goes on a two week tropical trip.

Item	Weight	Running total
Board bag itself	3.0 kg	3.0 kg
One shortboard	3.5 kg	6.5 kg
Wetsuit (3/2) or boardshorts	1.2 kg	7.7 kg
Clothes for two weeks	4.0 kg	11.7 kg
Trainers and flip flops	0.9 kg	12.6 kg
Towel, dry bag, rash vest	0.6 kg	13.2 kg
Leashes, fins, wax, first aid	1.2 kg	14.4 kg
Liquid toiletries	0.9 kg	15.3 kg
Solid bar instead of liquids	0.08 kg	14.5 kg

 

Swapping liquids for a solid bar saves about 820 grams. That is not dramatic on its own, but it is often the difference between 20.4 kilos and 19.6 kilos at the check in desk, and excess baggage is charged in unforgiving increments.

6 things to leave at home

Every one of these gets packed and never used. Leaving them out is free weight.

1. More than one board, for a first trip. You will surf one of them. Hire the other if you need it.
2. Jeans. Heavy, slow to dry, and you will not wear them anywhere warm.
3. Full size shampoo, shower gel and conditioner. Nearly a kilo of water flown across the world, in bottles that leak.
4. A hairdryer. Half the accommodation has one, and the other half has no reliable electricity anyway.
5. A laptop, unless you are working. It is one more expensive thing to worry about in a room with a padlock.
6. Smart shoes and going out clothes. Surf towns run on flip flops. One decent shirt covers every evening you will have.

What to pack, by destination

The list changes most around wetsuit thickness, booties and insect repellent. This table covers the destinations we write about most.

Destination	Wetsuit	Booties	Repellent	Guide
Morocco	3/2	Yes, boulder points	No	Morocco
Taghazout	3/2	Yes	No	Taghazout
Canary Islands	3/2 winter, shorty autumn	Yes, lava reef	No	Canaries
Fuerteventura	3/2 winter, shorty autumn	Yes, essential	No	Fuerteventura
Bali	None	Yes, coral reef	Yes	Bali
Canggu	None	Yes	Yes	Canggu
Sri Lanka	None	Yes, shallow reef	Yes	Sri Lanka
Costa Rica	None	Optional	Yes	Costa Rica
Mexico	None mainland, 3/2 Baja Norte	Optional	Yes	Mexico
Portugal	4/3 winter, 3/2 summer	Winter only	No	Portugal
France	4/3 winter, 3/2 summer	Winter only	No	France

 

Still deciding where to go? Start with our guide to the best surf destinations in the world, or the winter warm water escapes if you are travelling between October and March.

Summary

Pack the 21 essentials, leave the six extras at home, and be ruthless about liquids. Hire a board for your first trip, always bring a spare leash and a fin key, match your wetsuit to the water rather than the air, and swap three bottles for one solid bar. That combination gets most people comfortably under a board bag allowance with room to spare.

Frequently asked questions