Philipp Erich is a German surf enthusiast who prefers to live by the sea all year round, where he is close to the waves. In 2018, he found surfing for himself in a surf hostel in Peniche and has always been up for an adventure on the waves ever since.
The world map shows various countries where Philipp Erich has lived & surfed. Among them are:
Philipp gained his first experience in 2018 in Peniche, on Baleal beach. He quickly learned that it takes more practice and patience to learn to surf than he expected. Due to his snowboarding and skateboarding experience, he had high expectations of himself, which he was initially unable to fulfill. This led to some slight frustration.
A semester abroad brought Philipp his first long-term stay near the sea in 2020. Student accommodation in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth, PE for short), a two-minute walk from the Pipe surf spot, provided the perfect conditions for learning to surf. To improve his surfing skills, he took regular surfing lessons with local Jan from the surf store “Surf Center”. Philipp was now hooked on the “cultural sport” of surfing, learned to read the surf forecast and explored other surf spots in the Eastern and Western Cape, as well as in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal, including on road trips with his friends Johannes and Lukas. Due to the corona pandemic, Philipp was able to spend a whole year surfing in South Africa in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and bought a custom surfboard from a local shaper for the first time. Unfortunately, the custom board was only finished shortly before his trip home to Germany.
A road trip lasting several months with Hannes, a friend from Germany, offered the opportunity for surf lessons together in the provinces of Alicante & Valencia (Spain). This surf trip provided Philipp with important insights into oceanology, as well as reading the waves, especially in smaller waves that made reading the waves difficult. Longer and high-volume boards helped to surf the local weak waves. Because of the weak waves, we moved on to Porto (Portugal) after a few weeks. Here the waves were more powerful, but there were also strong winds. It was therefore necessary to keep an eye on the wind when forecasting the waves and surfing.
After South Africa, it was clear to Philipp that the only option for him was a remote job that would allow him to combine his job and hobby. So in 2022, he was able to travel to Mexico for eight months with his girlfriend Roxana. In the states of Jalisco, Guerrero and Oaxaca, he got to know the Pacific Ocean as well as Mexican cuisine and studied the physical properties of different shapes of boards and fins, as well as fin systems. Along the way, he experienced the advantages and disadvantages of traveling with his own quiver.
Back in Portugal and the cold Atlantic Ocean, Philipp stayed for six months to get to know Portugal better. He improved his surfing skills in the western Algarve with surf instructor Nelson. After a detour of several days to Galicia (Spain), he returned to Germany before the summer.
After the cold and rough Atlantic, Philipp had to return to warmer waters – this time he went back to Mexico for seven months. This time, at specific surf spots in Oaxaca, which he had chosen with Roxana in 2022 in discussions with locals.
For a little change of scenery, he went on a month-long surf trip to Costa Rica, along the tropical coast in Puntarenas.
Since the end of 2024, Philipp has moved to Spain and lives near San Vicente de la Barquera in Spain and surfs in the Cantabrian Sea.
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