When we flew to Japan Kai was just releasing Lost Atlas, and he wanted to start right away on his next project. This was the first trip we put together for Dear Suburbia,.

The waves we got were good but it seemed like they were always better than good somewhere else, like maybe where we’d just been two hours ago, so we spent a lot of time just driving around in hot vans. Boards on top, people inside, big piles of both. [...]

The desert could have killed us easily but it didn’t. It was good to us mostly. We stayed at a cool little house in a tiny fishing town, owned by a lady who discovered whale vomit on the beach ten years ago, just a big clump of it, like a basketball, but a rank and odorous basketball because it was still whale vomit. It’s called ambergris and it’s worth loads of money because it is, or at least it once [...]

Jack is nice. He doesn’t have to be. He’s paid to rip and looks like an Abercrombie model; people like that can be basically evil and still dance through life. But Jack was raised right. Also, Jack can really surf. He proved it when we went to Yamba with him, Evan Geiselman and Dillon Perillo last month (full feature and footage coming soon). He'll prove it further when the Billabong x What Youth film Daze At Sea comes out this [...]

Poler is fascinating: Their stuff is very fashionable, their skate team includes Arto Saari and Grant Taylor, and they make camping goods. Sleep-outside products.

It took only about a year for the tiny brand from Portland to become standard issue with surfers, skaters, snowboarders, and anyone hip pitching tents. Founder Benji Wagner’s apparent genius has been to make Poler gear fit in with a youth that wears Huf instead of North Face. “The reality is surfing, skateboarding — they’re not [...]

UNIV is a tiny pillbox of a shop in Encinitas, California, across the 101 from this really great pointbreak called Swamis. It’s pretty darn hip inside — which is interesting because they haven’t redecorated in six years of operation. UNIV is just ahead like that.

The shop is small but impeccably stocked. Every square foot offers up some limited-release shoe, or stuff from UNIV’s own private label, or a shirt that feels like heaven even as it stings at the [...]

If we’re being straight, this idea has the syrupy scent of the marketing department. But since we first wore Analog’s Wheel Wash denim (Dylan Rieder’s signature Dylan Jean) we’ve become fairly monogamous. We suggest you visit your shop and give it the touch test.

The concept: All denim is washed and treated before it reaches your hips. To get the look and feel right, most companies tumble their jeans with stones and chemicals in an industrial washing machine — [...]

What Youth Quarterly: Our book of photography, freesurfing, culture and fun. Real paper and ink like the pilgrims had. First issue on sale in June at whatyouth.com and in select shops around the US.

Sign up for our Letters From What Youth to be notified once this fine hunk of tree bark becomes yours for the taking.

Our crew was Dane Reynolds and Courtney, Yadin Nicol, Kolohe Andino and Conner Coffin, and we did so much wrong.

We went against advice from swell gurus, flew right into a typhoon, brought a chick, Dane ditched a pretty important contest at Africa’s most famous wave to come along, and on paper it was all risky — we’d probably fail to find the typhoon pipes we were chasing and go home in disappointment, probably.

But from the beginning this trip [...]

When we flew to Japan Kai was just releasing Lost Atlas, and he wanted to start right away on his next project. This was the first trip we put together for Dear Suburbia,.

The waves we got were good but it seemed like they were always better than good somewhere else, like maybe where we’d just been two hours ago, so we spent a lot of time just driving around in hot vans. Boards on top, people inside, big piles [...]

Photos by Stu Gibson | Hover for captions

Craig Ando, Chippa and Mitch were after a trip somewhere remote and uncrowded to get wild for the camera, Kai’s camera, hashtag shot on RED, and Kai knew the place to go: a desert outpost totally sweet for the goofs. Fun wedge-peaks, and just next-door to those, iffy slabs.

Kai had been wanting to go, but it’s not really a place to go, it’s more a place to stay away from and [...]