Data
Budget wave hubs: the cheapest good months we have priced
We track fares to 97 scored breaks. Every trip below pairs a real round-trip fare with a month the hindcast rates good there.
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1
Northern California · USA$38 round trip from LAX November 9 ft faces 76% of days worth paddling
Cold-water big-wave reef. Needs long-period NW.
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2
Eastern Cape · South Africa$127 round trip from CPT September 5 ft faces 77% of days worth paddling
Long, fast right point. Winter SW.
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3
KwaZulu-Natal · South Africa$137 round trip from CPT September 5 ft faces 85% of days worth paddling
Durban's Golden Mile wedges beside the pier. Winter SW wrap + cyclone swell, land-breeze offshores.
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4
Oregon · USA$178 round trip from MCO September 4 ft faces 91% of days worth paddling
User-friendly beach break sheltered by the cape. Oregon's mellowest paddle-out.
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5
New York · USA$223 round trip from MCO September 2 ft faces 89% of days worth paddling
NYC beach break groomed by the 90th St jetties. SE hurricane swell + E windswell, NW offshore.
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6
Florida · USA$227 round trip from JFK September 3 ft faces 83% of days worth paddling
First Peak jetty wedge. NE swell + SW offshore.
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7
Southern California · USA$238 round trip from JAX November 3 ft faces 100% of days worth paddling
The benchmark cobblestone point: mechanical summer S-swell rights at Surfrider.
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8
Virginia · USA$263 round trip from NYC September 2 ft faces 53% of days worth paddling
Rudee Inlet jetty rights. Hurricane + nor'easter swell.
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9
North Carolina · USA$263 round trip from NYC September 3 ft faces 40% of days worth paddling
Hurricane-season E/SE groundswell.
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10
Florida · USA$271 round trip from NYC September 3 ft faces 76% of days worth paddling
East Coast's most consistent. Jetty sandbars.
71 of 97 scored breaks currently pair an observed round-trip fare with one of their own good months. These are the 10 cheapest, one row per break, ranked by fare alone.
Fares are round trips we observed, pulled 8 September 2026. Fares move daily; treat these as evidence, not a quote.
How to read this
Each row is one break, its cheapest qualifying month, and the fare we saw. A month qualifies when it scores at least 85% of that break's own best month.
The fare is a real round trip that a live search returned, from an airport our readers fly from. We never rank an estimate, and we never pad the list.
Face height and paddling days are the hindcast medians for that month at that break. Medians, not a forecast.
Cheap only counts when the waves show up. Every month here clears its break's own good bar first, then the fare ranks it.
Where the cheaper month holds up
Sometimes we hold observed fares for two good months at the same break. Then we can compare them honestly: the cheaper month, and how close it stays to peak.
Jeffreys Bay (Supertubes): May has been $382 from CPT. September has been $127, still 91% of a typical May day.
Cape Hatteras: June has been $539 from BWI. November has been $289, still 90% of a typical June day.
Huntington Beach Pier: October has been $1,704 from CPT. September has been $1,016, still 93% of a typical October day.
Wrightsville Beach: December has been $357 from BWI. September has been $213, still 97% of a typical December day.
Côte des Basques: October has been $1,496 from CPT. September has been $1,028, still 95% of a typical October day.
Both fares in every line are observed, from the same airport. The percentage compares that break's own months, never one break to another.
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Wave figures are medians of a daily surf score computed from ERA5 and GFS-Wave hindcast at each break, over the seasons available since 2022. Fares are round trips returned by live flight searches we run for our readers' home airports. Season bands come from the same scoring the app uses. All 97 spot pages · When each spot is actually good · More articles