Guidance Councilor

The Inherent Bummer Guides to Surf City, the North Shore, Santa Cruz, San Clemente, Portugal and Southern California.

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I took my mom on a trip to Atlanta, Georgia once. We root for a famously average football team from there and had long wanted to attend a game in person. Bucket list birthday present. My mom, who isn’t a big traveler, entrusted me with the itinerary. I took it upon myself to make sure we were dialed from the TSA line to the 50 yard line — illustrating for her all I’d learned on all those last minute surf trips that scared her half to death for the majority of my life. The only problem was I didn’t know shit about Atlanta. 

Sure, it’s one of America’s biggest cities, so how hard could it be to get some reliable information on where to stay, eat, drink, sightsee and maybe some tips on what to avoid. Right? Turns out there isn’t much — well, I should say, there is too much. 

The internet has become a diluted sack of crap when it comes to reliable information on traveling now that our info and tendencies are sold to corporations like chocolate chip cookies. I have no idea who to trust anymore for things like this and my google search would have us eating at Chick-fil-A six days a week. I needed insider help, but I never really found it outside a Vice Guide to Travel for 2015 that suggested some great rave spots and gay bars but not many great spot to get a beer with your mom before a football game.   

We rolled the dice a lot and our results were just as mixed. We found a few gems due to our naive willingness to just try random places. But we also found ourselves one turn away from being somewhere we definitely shouldn’t ever be on more than a few occasions. Not a great feeling.

Pulling into a surf town can feel the same. Familiar and alien all at once. You’ve no doubt heard about “The Lane” in Santa Cruz but no one is going to tell ya how to jump off the rock, where to sit, and that burrito spot you got to try.

Over time, we wanted to build up a reliable network of guides to our favorite destinations — guides that are informative but leave just enough meat on the bone for you to experience things for yourself. The first ones we’ve done are below and now all in one spot.

They include suggestions from our friends who are some of the most influential inhabitants from these places.