Gabriele Steindl: Professional Kitesurfer & Freelance Writer - Action, Lifestyle & Travels

A trip to the Solomons will take you right outside your comfort zone in many ways. Largely isolated from the outside world and with only about 6000 tourists per year, this is truly “off the beaten track”.

My plan was to search for wind and waves, in a country that not many (if any!) kitesurfers had ventured to before. I took Stephan Kleinlein, an amazing action sports pro photographer with me, to capture this epic adventure. A broad archipelago of 992 islands, the former British colony covers 310.000 square kilometres of ocean between Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Statistically showing see breezes during summer months, I knew it would be a challenge, but I was committed to pioneering kitesurfing and finding the best places for it.

My four-week-explorer-adventure took me to the most remote corners of the already very remote Solomon islands and was without a doubt the wildest, most hardcore trip of my career, challenging me in many ways.

Although I got so sick, I could have died, I’m grateful to have had these unparalleled life-experiences in a world adrift in time, so rich in new friendships and bonds with warm, welcoming people, many of which have no more than a roof over their heads, yet who live a peaceful, happy existence and find joy in the simple things — only a 3 hours flight from Australia. It was all worth it.

Read my article in Spanish below (you can download the PDF or read online) or check out The Kiteboarder for the English version, a slightly different English version in Action Asia, Kiteboarding for the German article and/or 4Kitesurf for the Italian version.

Happy reading 🙂
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