25 Years Of Story Telling

 

In 2022 The Path turns 25, we're not going to celebrate that though, we were closed down six years ago, re-born, we've barely survived a pandemic, but what we have done is inspired and created a totally open platform for telling stories about surfing. By open we mean open to anyone, we've had some fo the greatest writers in the surf world interview some of the greatest surfers and write about their own adventures and journeys in life, but more importantly we've created a platform over the last 25 years for anybody with a story to tell it. That is what we're celebrating in 2022 25 years of storytelling in surfing, we're going to look back at every tale we've told, and we're inviting you now to tell your own story, in words and pictures or in film. 

 

When The Path started it was mocked, I can remember being in conversation with the owner/editor of one of the world's largest surf mags (and it still is), and he said 'oh there is some hippy travel mag coming out called The Surfer's Bridleway' he said it had no chance. I was editor of Wavelength Mag for a while, and in an advertising meeting at Billabong in France we'd just signed them up for another years adverts, but the then ad director said, 'of course everyone's favourite magazine is The Surfer's Path, amazing stories that we can all relate to, but it doesn't speak to our target demographic so we can't advertise'. 

That really affected me, sure I loved shooting cutting edge high performance surf, but it's the tales that mattered. I even worked for Factory Media when they made the cal, largely based on positions like the one held by Billabong to can the magazine. But through all of this the stories survive, no one remembers those first images of some hot surfer from 2001 landing a huge air somewhere or other, but we do remember, get inspired by and pass on epic tales of adventure, that is what we have always been about and continue to be.

So having barely survived the last year, only due to all our supporters, we're going to celebrate the surf tales and adventure for the next 18 months. Issue 105 and 106 are in the bag and coming out, then 107-110 are our celebration of surf story telling, and we'll be making some tweaks to the magazine and we'll be running a series of films as well, which are looking incredible. 

We have some incredible writers lined up, but really it's about all of you, we want your tales, looking back over 104 magazines, it's your tales of adventure that made them so special. So get thinking and writing and we'll do the rest. In the meantime if you can support us you can HERE

We're going to start with some inspiration from he first four issues -

 

ISSUE 001

Morocco was the lead feature in the first issue, the feature by Pete Ash (father to Reubyn and Joss) is particularly spectacular, as a genuine adventure from he golden age of discovery and travel. 

Spencer Hargreaves Shot by Alex Williams

There was also a feature on The North Shore and the first Agree to Disagree and Land Sea Sky

ISUUE 002

Issue number two was focussed on Barbados, had a splattering of The North East and some awesome imagery from Sri Lanka

Images like these of Sri Lanka just make you want to travel, Pete Ash again delivering some glorious images and tales. 

Gabe Davies at home in The North East

ISSUE 003

Tales from J-Bay dominate, from locals to 'recent arrivals' like legend Derek Hynd, it's an awesome insight to Africa's most famous right-hander, we also travel to Fiji and Constantine Bay...

 

ISSUE 104

The Basque Coast is centre stage in 004, with appearances from Carwyn Williams and and early trip to Iceland plus a great feature on the legendary Mark Cunningham 

It's tales like these which we want to keep on telling and in film as well, if you'd like to support us you can HERE

You can also donate anything from 10p to £100 to continue independent surf content creation.