Phil Edwards, the first professional surfer ever once said, “the best surfer out there is the one having the most fun”. And we wholeheartedly agree. It really doesn’t matter how many times you fall as long as you ride the waves smiling like a child (or a complete dork).
And if you want to turn your passion for surfing into a business, then WordPress is an excellent choice.
— If you are worried about finding a cool theme that goes with surfing, then rest assured.
We have done the legwork and found 11 amazing best free surfing WordPress themes for you to choose from.
1. OceanWP- A free and popular WordPress theme
Let’s start with some numbers. OceanWP has 700K+ active installs and 4.7K+ 5-star reviews. Clear proof that it’s a popular WordPress theme. Additionally, it’s lightweight and highly scalable. That means you can use it for any surfing-related WordPress site. We tried creating a surfing business website with it to test its features. While developing it, we found its Elementor widgets especially useful. Pretty sure you would too.
Features
The following features made developing our client’s site a breeze.
They are:
- Compatible with Elementor (couldn’t help but mention it again)
- Multiple header styles that are fully customizable
- Separate menu styles you can use just for mobile devices
- Integration with Woocommerce? Simply seamless.
- Global fonts and typography with wide room for customization
- Translation readiness, that has got us many clients
- Support for effective search engine optimization
- Support for accessibility for site visitors with special conditions
- Its responsiveness is smooth and puts content in proper focus in all devices
- The surfing demo site is unfortunately not free ($39 for 1 site)
2. Astra – Best Free Surfing WordPress Themes among Others
Astra is a WordPress theme that truly embraces the meaning of “multi-purpose”. No matter what industry your business is in, Astra will most likely have a demo site ready for that. It’s no exception for surfing either. It will not be a surprise if you find some of the top surfing websites to be developed with Astra. And in case you are reluctant about it, then rest assured. A theme with over a million active installations is nothing short of incredible. It is definitely one of the most responsive themes we have used so far.
Features
Astra offers tons of features you will find useful for your surfing site.
Here are the most notable ones:
- It is built with Vanilla JavaScript. So, no JQuery in the world will be able to affect your site performance.
- With a load time of less than 1s, it is ideal for responsive sites.
- Astra is very lightweight. That’s why it won’t take up much space on your server.
- It allows you to save Google fonts on your local server.
- Its optimized codebase will ensure a smooth crawl by search engine spiders.
- Many headers and footer options to choose from for your surfing site.
- Full support for Woocommerce will allow you to sell surfing accessories on your site.
- You will be able to put page-specific sidebars on any and every page of your site.
- As responsive as a theme can get (obviously)
- A supermassive 700+ Google fonts for you to use
3. Avada-Whatever is needed in a WP surfing theme and more
The people behind Avada call it “the theme to end all themes”. And they are not bragging. One of the reasons behind it is, it comes with its own page builder. That’s why it can offer unparalleled freedom of customization. Collis Ta’eed, the CEO of Envato (a theme marketplace) wasn’t exaggerating when he called this theme “a Swiss army knife”.
Features
Features of Avada that your surfing website will most benefit from are:
- 90+ design elements to decorate your site with
- 20 layout elements to give your site a unique vibe
- CSS3-powered animations for mobile devices
- Allows full and partial import of the demo sites.
- It is one of the most mobile-friendly surfing themes
- It has Woocommerce and form builder you can use to build custom product pages, carts, and forms
- 80+ pre-built websites at your disposal (many of them are sports niche-based)
- Premium plugins like Slider Revolution, Convert Plus and Advanced Custom Fields Pro included
- Supports Contact Form 7 and bbPress
- RTL and translation won’t be an issue with Avada
More than 400 pre-built web pages for you to work with
4. CTravel Adven Lite-Created for adventure
CTravel Adven Lite is a great choice not just for surfing websites but for any adventure sport. It is one of nine themes developed by ThemesCave. To be honest, we won’t place it at the same level as Astra or Avada. But it offers all the features you will need to get your surfing site up and running. Besides, it is one of the few free WordPress surfing themes on our list
Features
CTravel Adven Lite offers the following features:
- Full compatibility with Gutenberg (good news if it is your preferred page builder)
- It is translation ready. No worries if your target audience doesn’t speak English.
- Allows ease of importing demo content (sadly this feature is only available in the pro version)
- It is optimized for search engines. If you are planning to drive traffic from search engines, then you are covered.
- Its responsive layout will make sure your site looks the same on all devices.
- Along with devices, it is compatible with all browsers on the green earth.
- Allows custom sliders for the above the fold section
- Decent number of colors and fonts for you to choose from
- Basic pages like a testimonial, Team, Latest News and photo gallery (with the pro version)
- Comes with a business finance plan to manage your surfing business
5. Water Sports Club-A great match for water sports
Whatever water sports club or business you have, you will find this theme a suitable choice. It is visually attractive and comes with a decent set of features that will have your needs met. Professionally designed and armed with an easy-to-handle editor, it will help your surfing site gain traction in the digital space with no hick-ups.
Features
Water Sports Club offers you the following:
- You will have plenty of banner sliders to blow your visitors’ minds
- Lots of custom colors to let your site have the right impression
- Full responsiveness on all devices.
- Compatible with Woocommerce
- It has been developed to maintain all standard coding practices.
- Support multiple languages. This feature will help you engage visitors from almost all parts of the globe.
- Freedom of customization to let you design your site exactly the way you want
6. Adventure Lite-A well-rounded theme for adventure tours
As the name suggests, this theme is most suitable for adventure tours. So if your is a travel agency that focuses on surfing, rafting, hiking, snowboarding and any other sports that leaves people scared out of their minds, then you can have a look at Adventure Lite. With home and inner page templates coupled with its design elements, it is a pretty good theme for your WordPress site.
Features
Adventure Lite offers:
- Full responsiveness across all devices
- Sidebars that can accommodate all the widgets you may need for your surfing site
- Support for translation plugins
- Over 63 design templates that will make your site design process a breeze (well may be not that easy but you get the idea)
- A codebase built with HTML5 and CSS3
- Minimalistic layout
- Competent security from code leakage
- Compatibility with SEO plugins to prepare your site for search engine ranking
- Built-in custom short-codes to let you place design elements at any part of your site (unfortunately it’s available only in the pro version)
7. Shaka-It’s all about water sports
Created by Proteus Themes, Shaka is built for water waves and all the sports that take place on it (and underneath). You are going to set up a surfing school in Hawaii? Then Shaka is a great choice for your school website. With proper customization, you can use it for your dropshipping windsurfing (or any other surfing) eCommerce store as well. To deliver your visitors a smooth, fun and breath-taking experience, Shaka is your perfect partner in crime.
Features
Shaka, being a theme created by a ThemeForest Power Elite Author, offers a robust set of features.
Some of the most useful ones are:
- A sizable collection of free PSDs you can use later to enhance your site
- A whole range of custom widgets (30+) and sidebars
- Flawless responsiveness across all devices under the sun
- Is available in 14 languages (including Italian, Swedish, Turkish)
- Fast loading speed even on mobile devices
- Full support for retina screens
- Optimized for Gutenberg page builder
- Cross browser compatibility to ensure smooth user experience
- Single click demo import with real-time customizer to see any change live
8. Briny-Built for surfing businesses
Briny comes from “brine”. It means “salty”. That’s a fitting name for a WordPress theme that is solely for surfing businesses. The creators of this theme have managed to make a great love marriage of versatility and freedom of customization. If you have a surfing or water sports course in mind, then Briny is just the theme you need. When it comes to optimization for speed, this theme is definitely a frontrunner.
Features
Briny offers a whole host of features to help you ride the business wave like a pro (pun intended).
Some of those are:
- Woocommerce compatibility for selling items on-site
- Compatible with Elementor, MailChimp, Revolution Slider
- Thoroughly customizable blog layouts that support all visual and text elements you may need
- Comes with an online appointment booking system for your prospects and clients
- Loads of customization options to decorate your site just the way you like
- Freedom to use custom or Google fonts
- Compatible with WPML for presenting your site in other languages
- Tons of shortcodes for a diverse range of content
- A large number of color palettes to deliver the right vibe
- 13 water sport themes to choose from
9. WaveRide-Created for surfers
If you want your website to make a huge splash in the hearts and minds of your visitors, then do consider WaveRide. Created by a power elite author, it retains professionalism while exploring the depths of creativity. With this theme, having a stunning surfing website is entirely possible. Not only does it let you have a cool site but makes it easy to coordinate your business activities effectively.
Features
WaveRide offers an unfathomable number of features (well almost).
Those are:
- A robust dashboard that lets you have control over every aspect of your site
- Like Briny, it lets you book surfing lessons or tour appointments
- Supports Slider Revolution for creating and managing your banner sliders
- Separate shortcode for embedding Twitter posts
- Offers the image preloading effect that helps keep the bounce rate low
- Tons of widgets for social media integration, blog list, image gallery and what not
- Puts over 900 Google fonts at your disposal
- SEO friendly codebase (all you will need is great content to rank on Google)
- Massive collection of surfer templates of inner pages you can use to create your site pages
- As responsive as you need it to be
10. Klippe-Another amazing surfing theme
Klippe is a well-rounded WordPress theme for those in the surfing niche. It accommodates a wide range of customization to help you create a site that’s a good fit for your business. After going through its feature-set, we have found it similar to Briny and WaveRide. It’s a vibrant theme that helps you surf the tricky waves of a surfer business.
Features
Features of Klippe include:
- Lots of inner pages to act as the foundation of your surfing business site
- 1-click import of demo content to give a professional vibe to your website
- SEO optimized to a fault
- Comes armed with plugins like WP Bakery and Slider Revolution to create amazing pages and content for your site
- An engaging event carousel to help convert your visitors
- As you have guessed, tons of short-codes to make your content stand out
- Fully responsive (no way around it)
- Supports retina screens
- Over 780 Google fonts
- Freedom to customize the mobile header separately for high conversion
11. Malta-A stylish surfing theme from top to bottom
If you google “best free surfing WordPress themes”, then you will find Malta on many of the blogs among the top 10. While it’s not an outstanding theme like Astra, it is an adequate WordPress theme to create cool surfing sites with. If you choose this theme for your brand-new kite surfing (or any other surfing) site with your eyes closed, you will not be disappointed.
Features
Features Malta offers will be more than enough to help your surfing site rise gracefully.
Some of those are:
- Single click demo installation to get you started with site design right away
- Multiple home page layouts to choose from (no need to reinvent the wheel)
- Visual composer to create and edit site pages with ease
- A significant collection of shortcodes for adding custom content to your pages
- Mobile-friendly sliders at your disposal
- The HTML code in its codebase allows effective compatibility with major SEO plugins
- Support for RTL and translation plugins (WPML)
- Comes with a short code builder
- Offers a media manager that lets you have complete control over your site media elements
- It is one of the most responsive surfing themes we have come across (not kidding)
Recap
Let’s have another look at the popular and best free surfing WordPress themes we have covered here.
- Astra
- Avada
- CTravel Adven Lite
- Water Sports Club
- Adventure Lite
- Shaka
- Briny
- WaveRide
- Klippe
- Malta
You need to arm your website with the right surfing theme
We can’t emphasize on it enough. Even if you start with a simple surfing blog, you will need to think 5-6 years ahead. Because over the next couple of years, your blog may come across fantastic business opportunities.
If your theme can’t accommodate that, you will just end up regretting it. So tell us. Which of the 10 you have liked the most? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.
See you in our next post.
