Best Watersports Destinations in Southeast Asia

by Yannick SchrothAug 3, 20266 min read

Photo: jaspreet kaur / Pexels.

What makes a good Southeast Asian base

Southeast Asia is where cost and water quality overlap most generously, so the selection is less about finding good water than about which places also survive a working month. Connectivity is the usual failure point, and monsoon timing the other: this region rewards moving with the seasons rather than picking one base and hoping.

On the legal side, two countries here now have a proper remote-work route rather than a tourist workaround: Indonesia through the E33G remote worker visa and Thailand through the Destination Thailand Visa. Both guides are checked against the issuing authority.

Picking a Southeast Asia base

• Cheapest and easiest to base: the Philippines (Moalboal, Panglao) and Bali.
• Best diving: the Visayas, Palawan, and Indonesia (see the scuba roundup).
• Best surf: Bali (Canggu, Uluwatu) and Siargao; best kite: Mui Ne and Boracay.

How these Southeast Asian bases differ from each other

Southeast Asia's spread is the widest of any region here, from islands where a month costs less than a European week to bases with genuine city infrastructure.

Who these Southeast Asian bases are wrong for

Cheap and warm hides the real constraints in this region, which are connectivity, monsoon timing and how far you are from a hospital. Here is which applies where.

• Canggu: think twice if you want quiet, empty waves or dislike traffic and crowds
• Moalboal: think twice if you need fast, guaranteed wifi or big-city amenities
• El Nido: think twice if you need reliable wifi or hardcore wreck scuba (try Coron)
• Siargao: think twice if you need easy access and rock-solid infrastructure
• Gili Islands: think twice if you need reliable bandwidth; the wifi is the weak point
• Nusa Penida: think twice if you are a new diver (strong currents) or need reliable wifi

1 of the 7 guides here do not state a drawback in their summary.

Southeast Asia does not have one season, it has two calendars

The thing that makes this region hard to plan is that neighbouring islands can be in opposite halves of the year. Two published calendars do most of the explaining.

The first is the typhoon count. The Japan Meteorological Agency has kept monthly numbers for the western North Pacific since 1951, and its 1991–2020 normals run 0.3 in January and February, 1.7 in June, 3.7 in July, 5.7 in August, 5.0 in September and back down to 1.0 in December, for 25.1 a year. That curve is the single best summary of when the Philippines and the South China Sea are easy and when they are not.

The second is the Philippine season definition, which PAGASA publishes rather than leaves to custom: the rainy season from June to November and the dry season from December to May, the dry half splitting into a cool dry season, December to February, and a hot dry one, March to May. Add the detail that the country's average monthly humidity runs from 71 per cent in March to 85 per cent in September, and the shape of a year's travel falls out of it: dive and kite in the cool dry months, take the rainy season cheap and wet, and plan August around the forecast rather than the brochure.