After your flights and accommodation, your third biggest expense is your transportation. This includes your airport transfer, rental car, buses, or taxis–whatever you need to get to the waves.  This will also depend on where you’re going and what the best transport is for a location.

For example, you can easily fly into San Salvador, get a transfer to El Tunco, and walk to a number of surf spots, whereas for somewhere like Chile or Portugal, you’ll need a hire car for sure! 

Budget (Buses, Taxis & Walking) 

• Nicaragua 
• Sri Lanka 
• Ecuador 
• El Salvador 
• Morocco 
• Bali 
• Mexico 
• South Africa 
• Philippines 

(Mid-range) Buses or car Hire 

• Peru 
• Portugal 
• Brazil 
• Chile 
• France 
• Ireland 
• Australia
• New Zealand 
• Panama 

Expensive Flights, Boat Transfers & Car Hire 

• Hawaii 
• Tahiti 
• California/USA 
• Maldives 
• Mentawaii 
• Fiji 
• Costa Rica 

Based on that guide, you can now decide if that location requires just an accommodation-organized transfer, and then go on foot, or a rental car, or you can rely on buses and taxis. 

Summary: 

For airport transfers, I find the easiest way to book this is via your accommodation. 

For rental cars, I exclusively use Rental Cars.com as I find they usually have the cheapest fares. 

For Buses, Busbud is my go-to for booking buses anywhere in the world.