Gift Guides: Surfer Dude
Hello everyone! The holiday season is right around the corner, and as such, you might be wondering what gifts would make your environment-minded friends and family extra jolly. Never fear! Planet Presents is creating gift guides to be used year round to inspire you to shop sustainably for gifts. We’ll split the first Gift Guides into four sections, based off of the Environmental Passions quiz on the Explore page of the Planet Presents website (to take the quiz yourself, scroll down below the charities and click the ‘Discover Now’).
This gift guide is for the people who love to spend time in the water - the Surfer Dudes! People who receive Surfer Dudes on the Environmental Passions quiz most likely have an affinity for water, so it’s important to take that into consideration when shopping for them. Of course, it’s probably not the only part of their personality that’s gift-worthy, but it is something they’re excited about and will certainly be a place to start looking for sustainable gifts. Let’s dive in:
Donations: Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Marine Mammal Care Center, and Coral Gardeners
It wouldn’t be Planet Presents if we didn’t create a space for charitable donations. It may not be the first thing that pops into people’s mind when they think ‘gift’, but a donation to an organization someone supports can tell them you care deeply about them and their interests. And of course, every one of the nonprofits on Planet Presents does crucial work to protect the environment, and any donated money will go to a deeply important cause. PMMC and MMCC are both marine mammal rescue centers in Southern California which save thousands of marine mammal lives every year, while Coral Gardeners is a coral rehabilitation and resistance program centered in French Polynesia, working to create more resistant strands of coral to repopulate the Pacific’s coral reefs. You can learn more about PMMC, MMCC, and Coral Gardeners using the links, or have your sustainability-minded friends and family create gift registries using the Planet Presents Donation Center (more on that soon)!
Surf Lessons
Often times, the most environmentally-conscious gifts aren’t material presents, but experiences. For Surfer Dudes, an amazing - and somewhat obvious - experience gift would be surf lessons! Whether your Surfer Dude has never stepped foot on a board or they’re a pro, surf lessons are a great way to spend a few hours at the beach enjoying the sun and the sea. Of course, you can book surf lessons for more than one person, so add yourself to the party while you’re at it! This may be a bit of a tricky gift to give if you or the person you’re gifting for lives somewhat far from the ocean or a major body of water (some lakes host companies that give surfing or sailing lessons), but if you’re near the coast, surfing is a quintessential experience! Doing an internet search for surf lessons will provide you with more than enough companies and experiences to choose from, so get to researching!
4ocean Bracelet
With multiple operations around the globe focused on cleaning and protecting the world’s oceans, 4ocean may very well be the most successful and impactful ocean-based nonprofit in the world. Over 30 million pounds of trash have been recovered by 4ocean since 2017, and if that trash is plastic cord, stainless steel, or glass, it goes into making one of the company’s signature bracelets. With dozens of designs to choose from, 4ocean bracelets represent special projects conducted by the nonprofit across the world, as well as different bracelets representing a multitude of sea life. If your Surfer Dude is fond of a certain species of sea life, there’s more than likely a bracelet to match their interest! You can shop for 4ocean bracelets and other merchandise - including water bottles, reusable utensils and stickers - here.
Reusable Straws
According to CNN, the average American uses around 35,000 single-use plastic straws in their lifetime. Don’t let your Surfer Dude be an average American! Reusable straws are a perfect and incredibly practical gift/stocking stuffer, and there are now so many different types of multi-use straws that you can choose a pack that best fits the person you’re buying them for. You could choose a pack of colorful silicone straws, a sleek stainless steel design, or a humble bamboo sipper. Just make sure the straws come with a scrubber to keep them extra clean, and a bag or container to carry them on the go. To find best of the best when it comes to straws, I would recommend this very helpful and detailed list/guide from the New York Times.
Outerknown Apparel
Founded by world-famous surfer Kelly Slater (pictured above), Outerknown is the ultimate sustainable clothing brand. Focused in sustainable materials, fair labor practices, and keeping clothes out of landfills, the clothing brand doesn’t skip on quality in its incredible array of products. Once you’re done with an Outerknown product, you can sell it on the website’s used product marketplace, Outerworn, to receive store credit and keep your clothes out of the landfill. With a variety of cozy flannels, sweaters, and shirts, Outerknown is a sustainable brand perfect for the colder winter months. You can read more about Outerknown’s sustainable practices here, and shop the online store here.
Animal/Coral Adoption
For a donation that doubles as a material gifts, many nonprofits focused on animal rehabilitation offer “adoption kits” as a special way of donating; after making a donation, you will be sent a kit with a certificate of adoption, information about the species or animal you adopted, and depending on the nonprofit/level of donation, a small gift. This can be an especially effective way to teach younger ocean lovers and Surfer Dudes about donating to an important cause, as it provides you with visual supplements to help visualize the donation. Nonprofits that offer animal adoptions are Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Marine Mammal Care Center, Oceanic Society, and the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys. Coral Gardeners offers a unique opportunity to adopt one of four coral species being planted in the Coral Gardener nursery. After the coral has matured in about a year, the coral will be outplanted to a natural reef in French Polynesia. You can take part in this unique experience by adopting a coral here.
UNDO Ocean Candle
For when your Ocean Lover can’t make it to the beach on a rainy day, a sustainable UNDO Ocean Candle is the perfect gift. UNDO Candles are known for their premium, sustainable materials that are carefully chosen for their impact on our planet, as well as their unique values of integrity, creativity, and courage. The Ocean Scented Candle is one of UNDO’s most popular products, bringing the “fresh familiarity of beach life with sparks of added wonder!” The candle’s unique scent is thoroughly attentive to all of the ocean and beach’s unique elements. Not only will this gift bring the ocean into any Surfer Dude’s home, but UNDO will donate 1 British Pound (about $1.25) to the nonprofit Just One Ocean, a group focused on “preserving the ocean for future generations through science, education and communication”. Click here to buy the UNDO Ocean Scented Candle, here to learn more about UNDO and their sustainable practices, and here to learn more about Just One Ocean.
Whale Watching
Another experience that’s perfect for Surfer Dudes and ocean lovers of all kinds is a whale watching excursion. This is a great opportunity to see the marine animals we work so hard to protect up close, and the gift is relatively hassle-free; just buy the tickets and show up at the dock! There is a multitude of whale-watching companies in every major coastal hub, so look for a company that fits your needs such as length of the excursion, time of day, and featured wildlife. It’s important to make sure whatever tour company you choose is focused on sustainability and the wellbeing of marine creatures. Most touring companies will have information about their environmental commitment and ethical practices on their website. If the company tends to shy away from the sustainability aspect of the tour, you may want to consider other options. Make sure your whale watching experience is just as enjoyable for the whales as it is for you!
That is it for the Surfer Dude gift guide! Whatever you end up purchasing for your ocean lover, whether it be on this list or not, we hope you were inspired by the sustainable items on this list. Be on the lookout for the rest of the Planet Presents gift guides! Be sure to follow our social media for updates on gift guides and more sustainable gifting ideas.
