Carrying your gear with you

I know that sometimes carrying your gear with you during some exotic surf trip could be painful, especially if you need to take some flights to get there. There are three major points I am afraid of:

1) Buying the ticket. You have two options: the first one: you could ask to a specialized travel agency to organize everything for you. This will save you probably lot of time, but probably will cost you more. The second one, and probably the most common for the "indie" surfer - at least in my case - is the "I'll do it by myself". That means hours spent on the internet looking for the cheapest flight fare, hidden costs (see Ryanair for example) and other similar amenities.

2) Preparing for the trip. While I probably spend 5 minutes preparing my personal bag - the hand luggage I will carry on board of the aircraft - I use to spend hours packing my gear up There's a reason for that. During the checkin process, depending on the airline I'm flying with, you'll never know what's going to happen. That beatiful girl at the counter could deny you to chek the bag in. Or she will ask you to pay so much money for the excess weight you will have to ask your bank for a loan.

For this reason I prefere to get there well prepared. I can still try to take something off the surfbag and have it lighter (and paying less money) before missing my flight.

3) Waiting for your gear to appear at the destination airport. This is not trivial. 

Firts, I HOPE that everything went well and that my gear was in the same aircraft I flown with.

Second, I never know where the bag will appear, since in the baggage claim areas usually the carousels are to small to transport it. Where's the excess baggage area? Is it going there? 

Third, is everything ok? Is my board damaged? Unfortunately I'll discover it once at destination, because I need to unpack everything - something I won't probably do at the airport after several hours spent awaken on that intercontinental flight. It's like winning the lottery. And, in any case, the airlines seldom consider themselves responsible for a broken board.

I prepared a list containing the fare some airline charges for transporting surf, kite and windsurfing gear. I collected this information on the airline website. I hope it will help you before (or after) making the reservation for your next surf trip. Please do not blame me if you are asked for different price, I'm won't make myself responsible for that... by the way we all know that there are some caveats once at the airport to spend less. Try to be friendly once in front of the desk assistant, and smile. A lot. :)

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