Surfing is the cheapest way into all the water sports. The gear is wonderfully simple: a board, a wetsuit, a leash, a bit of wax, and that is all you need. In the end, the priciest item is often not the equipment, but the trip to the wave. Let us do the honest maths.
The lesson, cheap and important
A surf lesson is pleasingly cheap. A group session often sits in the low double-digit range, board and wetsuit included. It almost always pays off: you learn to read the wave, to paddle properly and to stand up at the right moment. On your own, it takes far longer and gets frustrating. What the first steps look like is covered under Learning to surf.
Board, wetsuit, leash and wax
Your own gear is manageable. A beginner board, ideally a soft, high-volume soft-board or a used one, roughly falls in the three-digit range. Add to that a wetsuit suited to the water temperature, a leash and wax or a pad for grip. Which suit works for our waters is settled by the wetsuit comparison, and for your first board the surfboard buying guide helps. Buying used, you get away very cheaply here.
The priciest item: finding the wave
This is where the real price lies. On the Baltic Sea there are waves only with a good amount of wind, mostly in autumn and during storms, and that is not reliable. When surfing is worthwhile with us you can read under Are there waves on the Baltic Sea?. For consistent waves you travel to the Atlantic, and that trip usually costs more than the entire gear. That is not a downside, just honestly priced in: with surfing you pay less for the material and more for being on the road.
Our advice: start with a lesson where waves run reliably, and rent the board there. Your own gear only pays off once you know how often and where you really surf. Until then it holds true: surfing costs little money and a lot of anticipation.