Bodysurfing vs bodyboarding is the wrong question for most people, because most people asking it are actually deciding between a bodyboard and a surfboard and haven’t considered the third option at all.
So let’s do all three properly. What each one feels like, what it costs, how long before you’re any good, and which one suits the waves you actually have access to.
Fair warning about my bias: I bodysurf. I’ll tell you where the other two win anyway, because pretending otherwise would be useless to you.
Bodysurfing vs Bodyboarding: The Short Answer
A bodyboard gets you riding waves this weekend. Bodysurfing takes longer to learn and gives you something a board can’t, which is the sensation of being in the wave rather than on top of it.
If you want fun immediately and don’t much care about the purity of it, buy a bodyboard. If you want the sport you’ll still be doing at sixty, with nothing to carry and nothing to maintain, learn to bodysurf.
The Three Compared
| Bodysurfing | Bodyboarding | Surfing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit to start | Fins, or nothing | Board, fins, leash | Board, leash, wax |
| Rough cost | $0 to $80 | $120 to $400 | $400 to $1,200 |
| First ride | Days to weeks | Same day | Weeks to months |
| Best waves | Shorebreak, punchy beach breaks | Steep, hollow waves | Peeling, open faces |
| Travels well | In a pocket | Under an arm | Excess baggage fees |
| Crowd factor | You’ll have it to yourself | Moderate | Busiest lineups |
What Each One Actually Feels Like
Bodysurfing
You’re in the water, not on it. Most of your body is inside the wave and travelling with it, and the speed feels much greater than it is because your face is centimetres from the surface.
The hard part is that you have no flotation and no paddle power beyond your own arms and legs. You have to be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment. Miss by a metre and the wave goes without you. That’s the frustration early on and it’s also the whole appeal later, because when you get it right you earned it.
It’s also the only one of the three where the sport is genuinely free. Everything you need to know to start costs nothing but time in the water.
Bodyboarding
Immediate. The board gives you flotation and planing surface from the first minute, so you’ll catch whitewater on day one and green waves within a few sessions. That head start is genuinely valuable, and anyone sniffy about it has forgotten what it’s like to be new at something.
Where it shines is steep, hollow surf. A bodyboard handles waves that would flatten a bodysurfer and that a stand-up surfer couldn’t make. Serious bodyboarding in heavy water is a proper skill and it’s harder than it looks from the beach.
The downside is that you’re now a person who owns a board. It needs carrying, storing, replacing, and it goes soft in the sun.
Surfing
The longest learning curve by a distance and the biggest payoff in terms of what’s possible on a wave. Standing up and drawing a line across an open face is a different category of thing to what the other two offer.
It’s also the most expensive, the most crowded, and the most dependent on conditions. A mediocre day is much less fun on a surfboard than it is on a bodyboard or with a pair of fins, because a surfboard needs a proper wave to work with.
Bodyboarding vs Surfing, If Bodysurfing Isn’t for You
Plenty of people arrive at this question without bodysurfing on the list at all, so here’s the honest version.
Pick a bodyboard if: your local is a beach break that closes out a lot, you want to be riding waves this month rather than next year, you’re short on storage, or you’re teaching kids alongside you.
Pick a surfboard if: you have access to waves that peel rather than dump, you’ve got the patience for a genuinely slow start, and standing up is the thing you actually want. Don’t buy a shortboard first. Get something long and floaty and ignore anyone who laughs.
The wave you have access to matters more than the gear you fancy. Most people get this backwards, buy the board they saw someone good riding, and then wonder why it doesn’t work at their beach.
Bodysurfing vs Bodyboarding on Cost
This is where the gap is widest, and it’s the argument I’d make to anyone hesitating.
Bodysurfing needs nothing. You can walk into the sea right now and do it. When you’re ready to improve, a pair of fins is the only purchase that genuinely changes the sport, and a decent pair runs well under a hundred dollars. A hand plane is optional and always will be.
A bodyboard setup is a few hundred by the time you’ve added fins and a leash. A surfboard is a few hundred more again, plus a board bag, plus roof racks, plus the wetsuit you’ll need because you’re out there longer.
Prices move about, so treat those as rough. The ranking doesn’t change.
Which Waves Suit Bodysurfing vs Bodyboarding?
This is the part most comparisons skip, and it matters more than any of the gear talk. The right choice is mostly decided by the beach you can get to on a Tuesday evening.
Shorebreak and punchy beach breaks are bodysurfing’s home ground. Steep, fast, close to shore, often closing out. A surfboard is useless in it and a bodyboard is workable but oversized. A bodysurfer gets the best ride of anyone there, because you can slot into a wave that has no shoulder and no time.
Hollow, heavy waves over a shallow bottom favour a bodyboard. There’s real speed available and the board lets you use it, plus the flotation matters when the wave is trying to put you on the sand.
Long peeling walls are surfboard territory and always will be. A bodysurfer can ride one and enjoy it, but you’ll be watching a lot of wave go past you unused.
Small, gutless summer surf is where the comparison flips hardest. This is the condition that ruins a surf session and barely bothers a bodysurfer, because you need so little wave to get going. Half the year at most Australian beaches falls into this category, which is a large part of why I ended up here.
Do You Actually Have to Choose?
No, and framing bodysurfing vs bodyboarding as a fight is mostly a thing that happens online rather than in the water.
Most people I know in the surf do more than one. They’ll take a board when the swell is worth it and swim out with fins when it isn’t. That’s the sensible approach, and it means you’re in the water on days you’d otherwise sit out.
The one thing I’d say is that they reward different amounts of attention. Bodyboarding gets good quickly and then plateaus for most casual riders. Bodysurfing is slow at the start and keeps opening up for years, because the skill is in reading water rather than in equipment. If you only have the appetite to get properly good at one, that’s the one that pays back longest.
Which One Should a Beginner Start With?
My honest advice, and it isn’t the answer you’d expect from a bodysurfing site: start by bodysurfing whether or not you intend to stick with it.
Not out of loyalty. Because it teaches you the ocean faster than anything else will. With no board to hide behind you learn where waves break, how rips run, what a sandbank does to a swell, and how it feels to be held under briefly and be fine. Every one of those transfers to a board later.
Surfers who bodysurfed first read water better. That’s the argument, and it’s a practical one rather than a romantic one.
Then pick whichever you enjoyed most. If that’s a bodyboard, good. You’ll be a better bodyboarder for the month you spent without one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is bodysurfing harder than bodyboarding?
To start, yes, considerably. A bodyboard gives you flotation and planing surface immediately, so you’ll ride something on your first day. Bodysurfing gives you neither, so catching a green wave takes days or weeks of getting your positioning right. Once you’re past that, the two are hard in different ways rather than one being harder.
Can you bodysurf without fins?
Yes, and plenty of people only ever do. Fins give you the speed to match a wave and catch it earlier, which makes a real difference in anything but shorebreak you can stand up in. They’re the one purchase worth making, but the sport works without them.
Is bodysurfing a real sport or just messing about?
It’s both, which is most of its charm. There are national bodies and world titles, and organisations like USA Bodysurfing run a proper competitive circuit. There’s also nothing stopping you doing it badly at your local for forty years, which is what most of us are up to.
The Short Version
Bodysurfing vs bodyboarding comes down to what you want from the water. A board buys you a faster start and access to heavier waves. No board buys you a sport that costs nothing, travels in a pocket, and keeps giving you something new for decades.
Try the free one first. Then spend money if you still want to.