North Frisian Islands

A completely different landscape awaits at the North Sea coast. The fine sandy beaches with their endless dune landscapes are a class apart. The sea has relentlessly battered the west coast for centuries, washing sand away from the mudflats and thus creating the North Frisian Islands . Sylt was the breeding-ground for the German windsurfing boom in the ’80s. Drop-outs spent their summers here, kipping in sleeping bags on wooden beach-hut floors with homemade boards so as not to miss a single good day on the water. In the following designer decade of the ’90s, the island focused on the rich and beautiful, until the only thing still sparkling was the champagne. Driven away by rocketing prices and tiresome access by train, windsports enthusiasts moved on to other territories. But with the start of the kite boom in the new millennium, the picture changed. Resort managers and owners rediscovered real surfers as a desirable target audience – and increasing numbers can now wryly look beyond the ‘schicki-micki’ jet-set to focus on the amazing conditions and dune landscapes. The highlights of every German surfer’s year are the late-September / early-October PWA World Cup in Westerland, and the Kitesurf World Cup (also in Westerland since 2010), when thousands of party-hungry fans make their annual pilgrimage to the island.