The World Stormrider Guide

Rating:
Summary: best guide to world spots
Review: although its not as in depth as europe or NA stormrider guiders, The world stormrider guide part 1 gives you some valueble information including color maps, when to go . It even tells you the science of surfing, how swells and tides work. If you are curious about the spots that are around the world, i recommend you buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Overview
Review: Cheers to the author for coming up with the first world wide surf guide book. The book includes helpful info on forecasting, how waves are created, and of course worldwide wave hotspots. It will be interesting to see a second edition of it since there are mistakes in the book. For example, for some areas the charts for best time of year to surf are off, to mention one Puerto Rico's. Also breaks are referred to by the wrong name sometimes and even the by month temperatures seem off (i.e Californias). I was eager to buy the book but once I saw the mistakes I decided to wait for maybe a corrected second edition. I recommend to the author that he researches the "hot spots" a bit more carefully. Also just for the sake of adventure a section discussing the potential of discovery around the world would be interesting to see, say the potential around the South Pacific, or Africa for new waves to be discovered. The book may work as a good beginners guide to where the waves are, but for a specific surf trip a more descriptive and more accurate guide would be invaluable.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Published Surf Spots
Review: Given that I'm an avid surfer/traveller, I decided to educate myself on surf spots outside of the United States when I began forays into the surf beyond the west coast of the United States. I purchased Surfer Magazine's set of global surf guides as well as other guidebooks as well. My first encounter with the Stormrider Surf Guide series was with my purchase of the Stormrider Guide to Europe about three years ago. Finding the Stormrider Surf Guide to Europe infinitely helpful -- I surfed some of the most amazing spots that were revealed by the guidebook in France, Spain and Portugal -- I decided to purchase the Stormrider Surf Guide to the World when I discovered that its release.

The World book is obviously not as detailed as its Europe counterpart. Given that the former covers EVERYWHERE and the latter focuses on a specific continent (and its outlying islands), the World book cannot afford to give you as much in-depth information as the Europe book did -- otherwise it would contain more volumes than the collected words of Winston Churchill.

This being said, the World book is extremely helpful in locating the general spots of the world that would pique any travelling surfer's interest. The photos, charts, diagrams and insider-information makes surfing in a foreign country less stressful and more enjoyable.

Again, as the title of this review suggests, the World book does indeed do a wonderful job of providing in-depth information on the more popular (hence, "best") published surf spots around the globe. If you wish to find the "secret spots" that "go off" you'll need to spend more time in wherever faraway land you've decided to surf. Get a chance to meet the locals, enjoy the spots you surf at and hide this book underneath the seat of your rental car. The Stormrider Guide to the World is your best bet to finding fun waves in foreign places.

Take care and don't forget your passport.