A bunch of Surfers who put all their passion together for a guide of experience and love. As you might already know, there has been a first book about the Southwest part of Europe, now coming up the Northwest part – we do get super exited! Because it’s a real goal for so much of us ocean lovers, to spend some time, surfing the most special and beautiful nature environment! Getting those personal experienced tips of places, surf spots and explanations is what means: sharing the love of surfing! In our Interview with Alexandra, we get some inside information’s and little fun stories about the making – Get exited it will be amazing!
Foto Marinus Joris
What is the motivation behind „I love the Seaside“ and who is working on this project?
Up until recently there were only surf guides, explaining in detail the various surf spots, but very little on the surroundings. We’re a small team of passionate travellers and surfers that wanted to create the one thing we thought was still missing. Due to my profession and curiosity I always look for stories, and like to discover things. During our many and repeated travels along the shores of southern Europe we sometimes stayed a bit longer at a place, or kept returning, and got to know people and their businesses, initiatives, and good things they have on offer.
The I Love the Seaside surf and travel guides are foremost born out of a need to connect. We all agreed surfers, us included, seem to have the tendency of knowing a lot about the breaks, but after surfing, – or waiting for the tide, swell, wind to be right – had little knowledge of what was going on at the places they’re at, or the local people. We wanted to make a beautiful looking, feel-good guide and made it our mission to connect travellers, surfers, and seaside lovers with the locals and the surroundings of surf spots.
After the incredible first book about the Southwest part of Europe, it’s now just some weeks to go until the second book – Northwest Europe! What was the best memory while creating the second 384-page book full of surfing?
Thanks! Yes, it’s very exciting! The best part of creating the guides is doing the research/fieldwork – obviously. For us, from Holland where the landscape is flat, Norway was bliss, mind-blowingly beautiful. Surfing the colder waters but with a backdrop of steep cliffs, seeing the northern lights! And the warm welcome of those northern peeps: at first you’d think they keep to themselves, but I think it’s just a kind of modesty, they really like to share tips and stories and are aware of the beauty of their own landscapes.
What can we look forward to?
Our guides are 100% made with love, and as with the southwest, the northwest guide will be filled with beautiful photography giving you a sense of what to expect, lots of activities to do besides surfing, the coolest places to go for a beer, eat or hang out. And in this guide we added more info on the places, the countries and the surf history. Again, we have interviews and stories on local people, food facts. Oh… just so much to inspire you to go north!
Can you give us a little sneak peek, into a story, an emotion or a minute of joy that you`ve experienced on the making?
As soon as the book’s finished we’ll edit a sweet short video, just like we did with the last, so stay tuned! When we’re in the research process, sometimes nothing goes as planned, and one thing leads to the other. Like in Sweden, we didn’t plan to add Malmö to the guide, or even the south and southeast coast. But we met up with some people we met earlier in Spain, just to collect some more info on Sweden. With their help we discovered so much more and we really, really liked Malmö! They also told us we really had to check out the south, and we’re so happy we did. Although we didn’t surf there, it was surprisingly nice.
Also, just as we were about to leave Sweden, we got connected with a guy who wanted to do a podcast on us, so we drove a bit up north again, met up with this incredibly nice guy, did the interview, and then decided to drive another 60 km up for a ‘possible, maybe surf’. That turned out to be the shittiest surf ever…. Haha! But there you go. Best to stay open for all possibilities and work with a plan that can change all the time.
When and where will the “I love the Seaside – The Surf & Travel Guide to Northwest Europe” be available?
We’ll have the release party at the 16thof June, in the week after that we’ll be sending out to shops in Europe and worldwide, and of course it’s immediately available from the 16thof June in our WEBSHOP!
@ilovetheseaside