Destination guide
Langebaan, South Africa
A shallow turquoise lagoon an hour and a half up the coast from Cape Town, and one of the best places anywhere to learn.
About Langebaan
Langebaan sits on South Africa's west coast, an hour and a half north of Cape Town, around a lagoon that is entirely unlike the surf beaches to the south: shallow, flat, protected, and turquoise enough to look Caribbean.
The season is the southern summer, October to March, with November to February the peak. Wind is reliable at force four to seven, and air temperatures sit at 24 to 26°C — though the water is West Coast water, which is to say cold, and a wetsuit is advisable.
Three flat-water zones do most of the work: Pearly's Beach, Cape Sports Bay and Shark Bay, which despite the name has no sharks in it. The lagoon's combination of shallow depth and flat water has made it one of the best places in the world to learn and to build freestyle, and it works equally for riders who already know what they are doing.
For waves, Swartriet to the north and Yzerfontein to the south are each about an hour away. Otherwise this is a quieter, more developed and considerably calmer proposition than Cape Town, which is exactly why many people prefer it.
When to go
Best months: January, February, March, October, November, December.
Kite areas
2 distinct riding areas documented within this destination.