Water Nomads

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‍ ‍Introducing Water Nomads – Who are we and what are we doing?

You might have come acrossWater Nomads on social media or seen their listings on Trademe. Or you might have found one of their blogposts when looking for a place to learn to wingfoil or where the best windsurf and wingfoil spots are in New Zealand. But who is actually behind Water Nomads, and what exactly are we doing?

Water Nomads was founded by Bevan and Heidi in 2018. We are both keen watersports people who love windsurfing (yes, I know, old school) and winging. But we also enjoy the outdoors by mountainbiking, hiking or kayaking, depending what the weather throws at us. We are currently in the lucky position to live and work full time in our van, exploring New Zealand all year round, chasing wind, waves and good times. We usually travel with the windy seasons and aim to be at the best place for the time of year: Northland in winter as it is very mild and the windy season there, springtime we are in Taranaki (most consistent time of year for wind and waves), and in summer we are chasing the thermals on the lakes in the South Island.

Water Nomads started out as along term board rental business. With long term, we speak of a minimum of 7 days. No supervision on the beach, no opening times, you pick the gear up from us and use it as if it were your own. Hence, our rental service is unfortunately not suitable for beginners, our top performance equipment is tailored around intermediate to expert riders. You can pick up the equipment in any major town, the longer in advance you book, the more likely we will be able to get the gear to where you need it.

What gear do we have? Surfboards, wingfoil boards, foils and wings and windsurfing equipment. Please bring your own wetsuit, it fits you better than any rental wetsuit.

Not sure about the best places to go to? Check ourDetailed Spotguides on our website or get expert local insights in weather conditions with ourSession Intel Service, taking the guesswork out of the weather forecast for an unfamiliar spot.

Another part of Water Nomads are ourSurfari Trips that we organise. These are trips where we organise accommodation, food and all the local knowledge to get you on the water as much as possible. It’s all about the good vibe, riding with a small group of like minded people and sharing the stoke. Our group sizes are a maximum of 8 riders, for some trips we cap it even at fewer guests. Again, these Surfari Trips are aimed at intermediate to expert riders. We do not teach beginners, that’s what your local school is there for, they have all the expertise and equipment to get you from zero to hero.

The destination for our Surfari Trips is always trying to maximise the chance of wind – after all, that’s what everyone is looking for! And so far – touch wood – in 8 years of running trips, we only had one weekend trip with no wind! Though the surf was epic and it turned into a great surfing trip :-) So where do we go to find the wind? Well, exactly where I mentioned earlier: In winter we have our Northland Surfari trips, in springtime we run a wingfoil and a windsurf trip in Taranaki, followed by a trip to Great Barrier Island at the beginning of summer. And then in summer, we show our guests the Canterbury Lakes in the South Island!

If you want to explore new spots a bit further afield from your local, check our website! And if you see our van parked up anywhere, come over and say hi, we are always keen to meet people!