Best Surf Spots for Beginners in Florida

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These 25 Florida beginner surf spots are at their best on small, forgiving surf — the easiest waves to learn on, clustered around Port Orange, Cape Canaveral and Ponce Inlet — ranked by how highly LazySurfer surfers have rated them. Every break gets bigger on a good swell, so open any spot for its live report before you paddle out.

• Bethune Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Sunglow Pier — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, mid incoming tide
• Sunglow Pier Northside — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, mid incoming tide
• New Smyrna Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• A St — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Crescent Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Pensacola Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the south, mid outgoing tide
• Juno Pier — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Cocoa Beach Pier — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Cocoa Beach Pier Southside — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Cocoa Beach Pier Northside — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Ponce Inlet — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Main Street North — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Wilbur by the Sea — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Hightower Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Jensen Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the northeast, high incoming tide
• Spyglass Dr Panama City — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the southwest, mid outgoing tide
• Ft Pierce Inlet — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Jacksonville Beach Pier — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Jacksonville Pier Southside — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Flagler Beach Pier — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high outgoing tide
• Atlantic Beach — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide
• Lake Worth Pier Southside — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the northeast, high incoming tide
• 40th St — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the northeast, high incoming tide
• Pelican Beach Park — best on a 0–2 ft swell from the east, high incoming tide

Frequently asked

What's the best beginner-friendly surf spot in Florida?

By LazySurfer's session ratings, Bethune Beach is the top-rated beginner-friendly surf spot in Florida. Sunglow Pier and Sunglow Pier Northside rank close behind. Each spot's page shows its ideal conditions and a live NOAA buoy and tide report.

What are the easiest waves to learn to surf on in Florida?

The easiest Florida waves to learn on are the small, forgiving 0–2 ft breaks — spots like Bethune Beach, Sunglow Pier, Sunglow Pier Northside are at their best at that size, the most approachable for a first paddle-out. Bigger swells still reach them, so check the live buoy report on each spot's page before you go.

Where should a beginner surf in Florida?

Florida's most beginner-friendly breaks cluster around Port Orange, Cape Canaveral and Ponce Inlet. Each of the 25 spots on this list has its own live NOAA buoy report, tide chart and ideal-conditions breakdown, so you can pick the calmest, smallest day to learn.

How does LazySurfer rank surf spots in Florida?

LazySurfer ranks each break by the surf-quality ratings real users logged there, and trains a custom deep-learning model — a PyTorch neural network with per-user embeddings, retrained weekly on those logged sessions — to predict the 1-to-5 star rating you personally would give, rather than a single average for everyone.

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