Media Man

The Surfer's Path

Surfers are dreamers. We ride waves through the day, then we re-ride them in our sleep and mind-surf them in our daydreams. These little flashbacks keep us going through the flat spells and dry times inevitably encountered in "real life."

Fuelling these dreams are visions of perfection. Perfect waves are what we all want, and so we travel - monthly, twice a year, annually, or whenever we can afford it. One thing is certain, regular surf missions are essential. And this watery planet seems to be getting smaller doesn't it? Satellite this, cyber that, cheaper flights to further fields, charter boats to deliver you surgically to the surf - yes, traffic is heavy out there, and a lot of places aren't that foreigner-friendly. Even so, there's an ever-growing world of options for the travelling surfer. However we do it, we surfers are doing what so many others can't seem to achieve in their lives - we're making daydreams happen - we're hunting for a kind of perfection, and sometimes we actually find it. And, here at The Surfer's Path, were doing a mag about it.

Clean, hot pictures from around the world nestled neatly amidst a wealth of information for the travelling surfer. We keep you updated on changes that affect the surf traveller - anything from super airfare deals to new ways of opening a tin of beans, from insurance to insurrections, from visas to venereal diseases. So, if you're planning a trip, you'll know the score. And if you're not, there'll be lots of sweet photos, and articles written by the best writers in the business, and info that'll fuel your daydreams and help you (eventually) choose the perfect path to perfect waves.

And you can indulge in our magazine with a clear conscience. The Surfer's Path is the first (and, so far as we know, the only) truly "green" surf magazine. It's printed on 100-percent post-consumer recycled paper (processed without chlorine bleach) with non-GMO soy inks. It was a move that - despite considerable extra expense - we simply had to make.

It's simple common sense: the survival of our surf spots is directly linked to the health of our rivers and streams. The wholesale clear-cutting of forest ecosystems, along with the treatment of wood pulp with toxic chemicals like chlorine bleach in the manufacturing of paper, link directly to many of the water-quality problems being addressed by numerous global environmental organizations, like the Surfrider Foundation and Save Our Surf.

Surfers above all should be aware of the looming realities behind the principle of sustainability. Like swells, change comes out of the blue - out of spontaneous brilliance, accident, serendipity, and - necessity. And, to be honest, we know that this green shift is necessary. We believe that you surfers, our readers, are brilliant enough to support our efforts to create a more sustainably-produced (and even more excellent) surf magazine.

Who knows what it means to be a surfer? Perhaps it's something in our exposure and connection to the passions of nature that makes our lives wildly different from those of the uninitiated. One thing we know for sure: we want those perfect waves - and those perfect moments we find along the way. Like the pilgrim or the holy man, we follow our own roads to our own perfection. Call it want you will, we call it The Surfer's Pathx

- Alex Dick-Read (Credit: The Surfer's Path)

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