Traveling With Surfboards Sucks. Awayco is Here to Change That

Let's be real: travelling with surfboards sucks. Between worrying about careless baggage handlers busting your boards, absurd baggage fees and the hassle of carrying a board bag through a crowded airport, the entire process is seemingly designed to maximize stress.

Enter Awayco.

Awayco is a surf shop and membership-based platform for high-performance surfboard rentals based in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset. Their goal is to save you the hassle of traveling with surfboards and bring you the bottomless quiver that you’ve always wanted.

TGR got a chance to catch up with Taylor Paul, head of brand, media and membership service at Awayco (and former Editor-in-Chief at Surfing Magazine) at their San Francisco headquarters. 

TAYLOR: The founder, Gideon Silverman, is an Australian native and lifelong surfer. As a surfer and travel fanatic, he grew tired of lugging around boards and paying absurd luggage fees. He partnered with his friend Ace Buchan (who happens to be a pro surfer and World Tour competitor). The two grew up in neighboring towns in Australia–Gideon's first board was a hand-me-down from Ace. 

So, the two said let's do this–let's make it so that people don’t have to travel with their surfboards anymore–and they began plotting what would eventually become Awayco. From there, they brought on a team of what has become a really amazing mix of surf people and tech people. I think that mix has been crucial; I don’t think just surfers would be able to create this global platform, or just tech people without the relations and connections in the industry from surfers. It's been really cool to learn from one another and come together from our respective industries for something that’s really helping a lot of people around the world.

TAYLOR: Both, in a way, but he comes from being a product manager at Google, so most of the tech side of things comes from him. 

TAYLOR: Right now we’re still in a beta phase, so it's invite code only. You get an invite code via social media direct messaging. We're doing that right now because we want to be in full control of the surfer/member to board ratio; we want to make sure that there's always enough boards for our members. 

Once you get your code, you log in and reserve a board. That comes into our system and we get the board ready for you, wherever the location. You pick up the board, and you're on your way! It's a really seamless process. 

If you’ve ever rented anything–say, for example, skis– your process can be bogged down by long lines and loads of paperwork. The membership aspect of Awayco makes the process really easy. We’ve had members come in to pick up their board and they're like, “Whoa, that’s it?” It's cool to know just how easy we've made it for them. 

The crew at Awayco doesn't want you to deal with board bag fees anymore. Photo: Courtesy of Awayco

TAYLOR: A bit of peace of mind, flexibility and convenience with the idea that you can use Awayco both at home and on the road. For example, if a member lives in San Francisco paying their $60 a month (that includes insurance), so the peace of mind of not stressing about dinging your board. Say that member has their standard everyday short board, but the surf gets a little bigger and they don’t have a bigger board... they can go through us to help fill out the quiver when necessary.

It’s also a great way to try before you by. People can come in and try anything from the whole spectrum of boards we have, which really represents the best of the best in the market, and then be able to go into a store and buy with confidence.

TAYLOR: Since we're so new, we're working with a lot of bigger brands that could get us boards quickly. We needed the volume of products. As we get more established, though, we're working with smaller, local shapers with alternative crafts to start filling in those gaps. 

We had one guy come in raving about these boards with asymmetrical tails. He told us that people get freaked out about whether or not they'll work, so they don't end up buying them. People will be able to try this kind of board with Awayco, and if they find that they do like it and want to purchase, that'll really help some of the more boutique designs and brands. 

TAYLOR: A lot of it comes organically from our existing network and relationships that we’ve cultivated over the years working in the industry. Ace has a ton of strong relationships from competing on the tour and working with brands like Hurley and Dragon. Our community team–Frankie D’andrea and Blake Thornton–have deep roots in surfing, and I’ve been a lifelong surfer and come from Surfing Magazine. Everybody’s got their own relationships to really help this thing get off the ground.

A look inside Awayco's board locker. Photo: Courtesy of Awayco.

TAYLOR: It's a way to get people in the door, riding boards that you stock and sell. It can help defeat the challenge of removing Amazon from the equation. When you're traveling, you often forget a piece of the surf equation–whether it be sunscreen, wax or a wetsuit. When people are picking up their board from a retail location, they'll often pick up those forgotten items from the retailer. 

TAYLOR: Yeah, exactly. That's a huge part of our vision and what we want this to become. You don’t have to be burdened by huge bags. Not only is it expensive–you pay an arm and a leg to fly with those bags–but it's a huge hassle logistically when you're actually there. You can’t just get on a moto-bike to get to your surf hostel, you have to rent a van to fit your boards. The list of inconveniences related to carrying a surfboard around the world goes on and on, and we're really excited to help eliminate that. 

TAYLOR: We definitely don’t want to limit ourselves to just surfing, but at the same time it is where our focus is. It’s where our community is, and it's where our backgrounds and passions are. We'll see.