If you are choosing where to learn to surf in Central America, you are almost certainly weighing up the same three countries everybody weighs up.
I run retreats in El Salvador, so you should read this knowing where my interests lie. I have also surfed and taught in enough places to know that El Salvador is not the right answer for everyone, and I would rather tell you that than have you arrive disappointed.
Here is an honest comparison.
The short version
Costa Rica is the easiest first trip. The most infrastructure, the most beginner beach breaks, the most English spoken, and the highest prices and biggest crowds.
Nicaragua is the cheapest and the most consistent for wind, with fewer crowds, and the most variable in terms of comfort and predictability.
El Salvador has the best waves for progressing past the beginner stage, the shortest travel between breaks, and a reputation problem that is a decade out of date.
The rest of this explains why.
The waves, which is the part that actually matters
Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s strength for beginners is beach breaks. Tamarindo, Santa Teresa, Jaco and Nosara all have long stretches of sand where waves break in multiple places and it does not much matter if you are in exactly the right spot.
For a first ever surf lesson, sand-bottom beach break is the friendliest thing there is. You will fall in water over sand, which is forgiving.
The limitation shows up later. Beach breaks shift constantly. The peak moves, the sandbank changes, and each wave behaves differently. That is fine when you are standing up in white water. It becomes a problem when you are trying to learn to read a wave, because the wave keeps changing the rules.
Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s signature is offshore wind. Around Popoyo and the southern beaches, the wind blows offshore for a remarkable number of days a year, which grooms the waves and makes them clean.
The waves themselves are often punchy and powerful. That is excellent for intermediates and a lot to handle as a beginner. Popoyo in particular is not a learner’s wave.
There are gentler options, but the coastline is spread out and the good beginner spots are not always near where you are staying.
El Salvador
Almost every wave on our stretch of coast is a right-hand point break over cobblestone. That is unusual and it is the single strongest argument for learning here.
A point break does the same thing every time. The wave starts in roughly the same place, peels in the same direction, at a predictable speed. You can sit in one spot and watch twenty waves do the same thing before you go for one.
That predictability is worth an enormous amount when you are learning. On a beach break you spend the session chasing shifting peaks. On a point you can actually apply what you were told about your positioning, because the wave is not moving the goalposts.
Palmarcito, where we are based, usually runs about a foot smaller than everywhere else on the coast, which makes it the break most of our guests catch their first unbroken wave on. Sunzal, fifteen minutes away, is long, fat and forgiving, and you can ride it for two hundred metres.
The honest downside: cobblestone is not sand. Falling is less forgiving, the entry takes getting used to, and some people prefer booties. If the idea of a rocky bottom genuinely bothers you, Costa Rica’s beach breaks will suit you better.
Seasons
All three catch the same southern hemisphere swells, so the broad season is similar: bigger and more consistent roughly March to November.
The difference for beginners is what the off season gives you. In El Salvador, November through March means small, clean, one to four foot waves, which is close to ideal for learning. Costa Rica’s Pacific coast in those months can be inconsistent in a less useful way. Nicaragua stays windy and works year round but rarely gets truly small.
Water temperature is a wash. All three are warm enough that nobody needs a wetsuit.
Crowds
This is where the gap is widest.
Costa Rica’s popular breaks are genuinely busy. Tamarindo in high season has a lot of people in the water, many of them also learning, which creates its own hazard. Dropping in on someone, or being dropped in on, is a real part of the experience.
Nicaragua is quieter, though the well-known spots have become less quiet over the last decade.
El Salvador sits in between and closer to the quiet end. Sunzal draws a crowd on the good days in peak season. Most mornings at most breaks, there is room.
For a beginner, crowds matter more than people realise. An empty lineup means you can make mistakes without an audience and without endangering anyone.
Cost
Roughly, and it varies a lot by how you travel:
- Costa Rica is the most expensive by a clear margin. It has priced itself as a premium destination and largely succeeded.
- Nicaragua is the cheapest, often substantially.
- El Salvador sits in the middle, closer to Nicaragua. It uses the US dollar, which removes exchange faff and makes budgeting straightforward.
Getting there and getting around
Costa Rica has the best flight connections from North America and Europe, and it is the easiest to reach. The catch is internal travel: the good surf towns are often three to five hours from the airport on roads that take longer than the map suggests.
Nicaragua involves more effort overall, both getting in and moving around.
El Salvador’s advantage is concentration. San Salvador airport to the coast is about 45 minutes. Once you are here, every break we surf is within about twenty minutes. On a week-long trip that difference is worth a full day of your holiday, and it means the break you surf can be chosen on the morning based on conditions rather than on what is drivable.
Safety, since it is the reason many people rule El Salvador out
Costa Rica has long been considered the safe option in the region. It is also worth knowing that petty theft in tourist areas is common and that its homicide rate has been rising in recent years.
El Salvador’s reputation is a decade out of date. The crackdown on gang activity transformed the country, and the homicide rate went from among the world’s highest to among the lowest in the Americas. It is worth being aware that human rights organisations have raised serious concerns about how that was achieved, and that debate is live among Salvadorans themselves.
What I can tell you, having lived here thirteen years, is that the coast is a small, connected community where visitors are noticed and looked after, and that the thing most likely to catch out a visitor is a rip current rather than a person.
There is more detail in our guide to solo female travel in El Salvador.
So which one should you pick?
Choose Costa Rica if
It is your first ever surf lesson and you want sand under your feet, you want the most tourist infrastructure and English spoken everywhere, you are travelling with non-surfing family who need other things to do, and the budget is not the deciding factor.
Choose Nicaragua if
You are already surfing and want consistent clean waves at the lowest cost, you are comfortable with less infrastructure, and you do not mind that the best waves are not beginner waves.
Choose El Salvador if
You want to progress rather than just stand up once, you would rather surf predictable point breaks that let you actually learn to read a wave, you want everything within twenty minutes so no day is lost to driving, you want fewer people in the water, and you are willing to look past a reputation that no longer reflects the place.
The thing that matters more than the country
Having watched a lot of people learn in a lot of places: who is teaching you matters more than where you are.
A good coach in mediocre waves will get you further in a week than no coach in perfect waves. Somebody who watches you closely, tells you honestly what you are doing, films you, and puts you at the right break on the right tide is the whole difference between a holiday where you surfed and a holiday where you learned to surf.
That is worth weighing more heavily than any of the comparisons above.
If El Salvador sounds like the fit
Have a look at our retreat weeks, four women at most, or read about the breaks we surf.
If you want to talk it through honestly, including whether a different country would serve you better, message Pixie on WhatsApp at +503 6074 9154.
