Best surfing beach in Costa Rica

If you are looking for a beach in Costa Rica, where it is almost guaranteed that you will have waves almost all year round, Playa Hermosa is undoubtedly your best choice. This long, sandy and wild beach offers quality waves for 300 days a year, and when the waves at Hermosa are good, they are not only big, powerful, but they offer some of the best walls and tubas among all the beaches in Costa Rica.

A short distance from San Jose

Playa Hermosa is located only 5 kilometers south of Jaco, and only one and a half hours from San Jose. The entrance to the beach in simple, as it is located right next to the coastal road that runs from Jaco to Dominical and Uvita. The parking of the car is equally simple, as you can park right in front of the beach.

Best time to surf in Hermosa

Definitely, the best time to surf Hermosa is from medium tide up to high tide, when the waves are big. When there are not so many waves, it is likely that when the peak of the high tide is reached, they will become a little fat, but this only happens when there is no swell, because when there is a good swell, even during high tide there are impressive waves.

From high tide retreating to medium tide, Hermosa still offers waves, perhaps with a little less power but still very good waves.

The ideal size for surfing Hermosa is from 5 to 8 feet, maybe 10 feet, after that size, the waves sometimes turn into close-ups, with impressively powerful tubes and a wave too fast to be surfed.

Different places to surf in Hermosa

Hermosa is an extremely long beach, so there are several places to surf. Without a doubt, El Almendro is one of the favorite places, as well as the chanchera. All the waves are similar in type, with some small differences, such as the sandbanks below the surface. However, for all points the same swell applies.

Further south, there is a particular site called Tulin, near the mouth of the Tulin River. There, the waves are extraordinarily powerful, fast and fat, perhaps due to the current generated by the river.