The California coastal road trip feels like a rite of passage for any surfer. With adventures and new landscapes around every corner, cute coastal surf towns, and a variety of different types of waves, it’s a road trip fit for any level or type of surfer who is willing to make the drive.

 I, myself have made this drive dozens of times, but just as a regular road trip - not a surf trip, and not specifically as a surf photographer. As a surfer who loves the comfortability of her home break, it’s always felt daunting to bring my board up the coast.

When I came across Traveler Surf Club, a female-owned surf shop and club with shops in Pacifica, Santa Cruz, and Malibu, the trip felt a little less scary. Traveler Surf Club offers high-quality fiberglass longboard (and other sizes) rentals and demos, incredible local knowledge of the breaks near each shop, and anything else you might need for an epic surf session in a new place. Two of the three shops even have hot showers and the Pacifica one has a sauna for after your session!

So I decided to make the trip happen, this time as a surf photographer. I invited three surfers, all women who I barely knew (we met on Instagram), and planned the ultimate girls' surf road trip. We spent five days living out of a van, surfing at each Traveler destination, and exploring the coast between.

As you can imagine, four girls in a van for five days, surfing, with all our stuff…not the most ideal for personal space, but ideal for bonding moments. Doing this trip with Traveler as our surf destinations helped with giving us opportunities to shower, and also not having to keep wet wetsuits and surfboards in the van - since we were able to rent those at each shop. Only one of us had ever surfed in all of the destinations we hit, and it had been a while. Having the local knowledge from the employees at Traveler made catching waves stress-free.

With Mother Nature in charge, we did get lucky with full sun for the entire trip, something you can’t always count on in early May on the California coast. We didn’t get the best waves, but we did get decent waves…decent enough that there are big grins in most of the photos I took in the water.

But like most road trips with friends, the best memories ended up not being the big things we planned for, though those were still amazing. Looking back at the trip, the best memories were the in-between moments we found. Blasting Maggie Rogers’ new album on the longer drive sections, the conversations on picnic blankets at sunset, meeting Andrew in Santa Cruz, who was biking from Albuquerque to the Golden Gate Bridge because he felt like he needed to, and was going to be completing his trip the following day…and of course, the waves. Something cool about girls' trips, is we're all there to have fun. So at the end of the day, even if the waves aren’t perfect, we’re still riding them, and cheering each other on every time.

Meet the Author

Michaela Rabinov is a land & sea adventure lifestyle photographer, content partner, producer, creator, & explorer. When Michaela isn’t traveling, you can find her catching waves in Ventura, California, or the warm waters of Oahu, Hawaii, her hometown. Michaela has built her photography career around her love for the outdoors, the ocean, & all that comes with it. She will push past boundaries to do what is needed to get the shot & “can do anything with a camera in her hand”. She has worked with national & local brands to bring their stories to life in an artistic & stylistic way, captivating their audience & focusing on their relationship with the natural world.