Kitesurfing & Walking The Kite

One of the most popular pastimes in Zandvoort is kitesurfing. We started covering this topic in our Zandvoort Blog a while ago when we did our first post about kitesurfing in Zandvoort.

Classed as an 'extreme sport' it attracts many kitesurfers to the Zandvoort beach every year. We always enjoy watching them and this summer we took more photos than usual, even filming a kitesurfing teacher Okke Engel (photographed below walking his kite after a long kitesurfing session). You can watch Okke showing how it's done in our kitesurfing video.

Below is an interesting picture of a girl who was learning to kitesurf last summer - she was able to kitesurf downwind (towards the north beach) but had not yet learned how to sail into the wind and return back southwards. So every time she went as far north as she could within the kitesurfing zone, she had to come in to shore and walk her kite back up.


Kitesurfers always keep a keen eye on the weather and with Zandvoort weather you have to know what you are doing. The winds can be very strong and the weather sometimes unpredictable. Understanding the weather conditions is crucial to safe kitesurfing.

Read more about kitesurfing - check out the some kitesurfing FAQs (kindly written for us by Okke Engel).

Here is a list of kitesurfing locations around the world.

A Busy Summer Day In Zandvoort - The Car Park Barometer

If you ever wanted proof of Zandvoort's popularity when the sun comes out, just look to the car parks - they are all usually full to overflowing by 10am!

Here is a picture we took in the summer of 2009 on such a day - the forecast for Zandvoort's weather had predicted high temperatures, no wind and little cloud so everyone for miles around headed to Zandvoort beach as early as they could that morning.


Note - this picture was taken the same day as the one with the cows in the dunes published on the previous post. As we said before, the cow didn't seem to mind the people and the noise!