If you love to surf and are excited to find new places where you can do it, this news will thrill you. Global destination developer Aventuur just announced that it will create 11 mixed-use surfing, leisure and wellbeing spots across North America—the largest rollout of this type. The company builds bespoke lagoons and its Wavegarden technology generates up to 1,000 waves per hour by moving water particles similar to ocean swells. The best part? You don’t need an ocean. These lagoons can be built inland.
Wavegarden's sustainable practice lets operators adjust wave characteristics at the press of a button so that beginners can have gentle waves and professionals can try to get as close to conditions at Nazaré as possible (maybe it’s not possible, but it’s fun to think about!). This technology uses up to 10 times less energy than other analog systems that do the same thing—and it tries to be as realistic as possible, with successive waves replicating the wave generation of the natural ocean. Per hour, the energy required to run the system is less than what is consumed by a single quad chairlift at a ski resort. And its water replenishment requirement is about what is typically used to irrigate three holes of golf (can we just say: worst. golf.course.ever).
A 5.5-acre lagoon will anchor each development, including retail, hospitality and residential spaces. They’ll be in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Nashville, Phoenix, and Los Cabos (Baja California Sur). Projects are also in the planning stages for Los Angeles and New York, and the company has also spearheaded projects internationally in Australia and New Zealand.
Editor's note: This story has been edited to reflect the opening of 11 new parks, not nine as originally stated.