Arctic Surfing Is A Real Sport, And Anyone Can Do It

If you've always wanted to plan a surf trip but just haven't gotten around to it, allow us to speed up the process.

Behold Arctic surfing -- yes, it's real and yes, regular folk can do it as easily as the pros.

The professional Arctic surfing community is addicted to the icy waters in Norway and Iceland. Surfers routinely hike over boulder-covered snow fields to brave 35-degree waters wearing nothing more than a wetsuit five millimeters thick.

It might sound rough, but the whole experience is impeccably cinematic: think waxing your board in a Nordic cottage, riding waves alone under magnificent rock towers, making wetsuit snow angels and curling up near a campfire under the northern lights.

Photographer Chris Burkard recently documented the experience in his new SmugMug film, "Arctic Swell." The footage is otherworldly and guaranteed to give you a serious case of wanderlust.

Non-professional surfing folk have an opportunity to explore a world overrun with tourist destinations with tour groups like Arctic Surfers. All that's required is intermediate surf knowledge, which you can easily master before your trip. The Iceland-based company takes adventurous travelers on five-day sojourns around the remote tundra, stopping the car whenever they find a new surf spot worth sampling.

Arctic Surfers' "Adventure Surf Tour" sometimes includes a day trip to the Silfra fissure, where you can take a break from the board to scuba dive an underwater crack that separates two continents.

Or if snowboarding is more your style, consider the "Surf and Snow" tour, in which wannabe shredders take to Iceland's backcountry mountains and "snowboard right down to the ocean" for a surf session. There are also daylong surf trips from Reykjavik, Iceland's central tourist city.

Hawaii's great and all but there's something way more epic about the surf scene below.