Where to surf in January

Five coasts are at their peak in January and four of them are separated by the water: Sri Lanka at 28°, the Canaries at 19°, Morocco at 18° and northern Spain at 13°. The first three want boardshorts or a 3/2; Spain wants a 4/3 and a hood, and gives back the shortest flight of the four and a left off a river mouth that runs all winter. The fifth is Panama, which carries no figure at all because its two Pacific gulfs sit four degrees apart on either side of one peninsula, and which is not competing on temperature anyway: its argument is the dry-season wind blowing offshore across the isthmus, and twenty-three clean days out of thirty at Santa Catalina to show for it. Portugal and Iceland carry more swell than any of them, and weather that decides for you.

Sorted by the coasts at their peak in January, then by verdict.

Country	January on that coast	Water	Peak season
Canary Islands	Excellent	19°	Peak
Morocco	Excellent	18°	Peak
Panama	Excellent	–	Peak
Spain	Excellent	13°	Peak
Sri Lanka	Excellent	28°	Peak
Costa Rica	Very good	28°	–
France	Very good	13°	–
Iceland	Very good	6°	–
Ireland	Very good	8°	–
Mexico	Very good	–	–
Portugal	Very good	15°	–
Senegal	Very good	21°	–
Wales	Very good	8°	–
Colombia	Good	27°	–
Mozambique	Good	28°	–
Nicaragua	Good	26°	–
South Africa	Good	21°	–

Verdicts are read from published surf guides and signed by us. Temperatures are monthly means published for one named break per country, not an average of a coastline. Swell height is left out on purpose: no source publishes it month by month for all of these coasts, and a figure measured one way here and modelled another way there would not compare.

Where to surf in January

Other months