Where to surf in October

October puts eight coasts at their peak. Seven come with a water temperature and twenty degrees between them: Iceland at 9°, Ireland at 13°, Wales at 15°, Portugal at 18°, France and northern Spain at 19°, and Senegal at 29°. The eighth is Mexico, and the empty cell beside it is the point: its two Pacific coasts are nine hundred kilometres apart and read four degrees differently in the same week, so one national figure would be wrong on whichever of them you flew to. October is also the one month both of those coasts work at once. Six more countries follow in good season, among them Morocco and the Canaries opening their winter. Only Sri Lanka drops out, caught between its two monsoons with neither coast reliable.

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

Country	October on that coast	Water	Peak season
France	Excellent	19°	Peak
Iceland	Excellent	9°	Peak
Ireland	Excellent	13°	Peak
Mexico	Excellent	–	Peak
Portugal	Excellent	18°	Peak
Senegal	Excellent	29°	Peak
Spain	Excellent	19°	Peak
Wales	Excellent	15°	Peak
Canary Islands	Very good	23°	–
Colombia	Very good	28°	–
Costa Rica	Very good	28°	–
Morocco	Very good	21°	–
Nicaragua	Very good	29°	–
South Africa	Very good	18°	–
Mozambique	Good	25°	–
Panama	Good	–	–
Sri Lanka	Good	28°	–

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 October

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