Dreaming of Dreamsea Surfcamp
The sun is baking hot, there is an intoxicating smell of pine trees in heat, and gentle chilled out music floats through the air. People are chattering — but in the languid way of those dealing with great heat. There is a general unhurried atmosphere. You could be on some Caribbean waterfront, surrounded by forest and sand, sunshine and chilled travelers.
Welcome to Dreamsea, Portugal. An hour and a half outside of the cosmopolitan city of Lisbon, perched on a cliff overlooking azure Atlantic Ocean, little tipi tents and tiki huts built into the forest provide stunning vistas that leave you feeling a million worlds away. Surely this cannot be Europe?

Found at the edge of a regular campsite, which appears mainly frequented by Portuguese holidaymakers, Dreamsea has a vaguely ethereal quality (or maybe that was just the heat haze). Built amongst pine trees, into the sand, are wooden and canvas structures, looking sturdy enough that the first reaction isn’t to run a mile, but also temporary enough to not permanently maim the landscape. The tipi tents are grouped together around what is effectively a communal living space. There is a bar, a halfpipe, a ping pong table and stacked surfboards waiting to be abused by newcomers. Beyond the huddle of more basic tents, down a small bank and up the other side, is the glamping area. Hello happiness.

I have graduated from the time-rich money-poor part of my life to the money-rich time-poor part. Holidays are precious entities that need to be maximized. Every moment needs to count when your days off are literally, being counted. And it was therefore with rather a lot of trepidation that my boyfriend and I went to Dreamsea. The website made it look fantastic, but this is the internet, all sorts of things can look fantastic when they are in fact, not.
We booked the glamping plus option. We had no idea what the difference between glamping and glamping plus was going to be, but as we were only going for a short period of time (four days) and not the full week, it was the only option presented to us.
And thank God for that! The glamping plus went above and beyond our expectations. Food is included in all packages, but in glamping plus the food was served (rather than buffet) in a little hut with only other glamping plus guests. It was sensational! In absolutely no way could I fault the food. It was fresh, varied and delicious . My boyfriend has been a vegetarian since his teenage years, and my relationship with fish has always been complicated, so we both opted for the vegetarian menus.
The chefs Hugo and Nathan managed to create little plates of heaven every night, that had me conspiring as to how I could bring them home with me when we left.
Every morning, there was a huge buffet breakfast with one variable hot option (one morning we had pancakes, one morning eggs, another porridge). For lunch they brought out huge salads and tupperware which you filled up with picnic goodies to eat wherever your heart desired. For dinner, amongst the smooth jazz and dangling fairy lights, we were served a three course meal. The chefs were too lovely for words. Super friendly, they managed to find the perfect balance between easy going and professional.
The glamping tent was also idyllic. We did get extraordinarily lucky in the tent we were assigned (sea front, almost no one around) but they all had a big double bed, bedside tables, a chest and electricity.
They were clean (not an obvious feat when by the beach) and had little terraces cleverly designed to not overlook anyone else’s. We do however remain within the realms of camping. The facilities are communal, toilets built into a little wooden structure that, while we were there, was still very much in the process of being built (every day gave us a new amenity, but the locks were still to be installed when we left).
All of this probably sounds very lovely, but the true draw that this place had on us, the reason we booked it in the first place, was for the surfing. So what about it?
In the best way, Praia Galé is not what you would call a ‘surf beach’. The beach is tricky enough to access, down a very steep slope at the very end of the campsite. The slope of the beach itself means that it can only be surfed at low tide and between the powerful waves and said sandbank, the point was very clearly hammered home that we all needed to be very careful. But the spot is also quiet. The only people we risked mowing down when we caught a rogue wave, was other Dreamsea surfers. They were also the only ones who risked running us over — there is a nice equality in that.

I have done so many beginners surf classes that I have lost count. But here, the technique was completely different to anything I have ever learned before, and, for me at least, infinitely more effective. Rather than jumping from a pushup position into the surf-stance, we were told to drag the back foot up the board, bending the knee so that both foot and knee are on it (chicken leg). The next step is to place the front foot between your hands and then, with the stability afforded by five points of contact between surfer and board (two hands, two feet and one knee) — stand up. In theory, that is. And actually, this mechanism, particularly on the white waves, was remarkably doable (the green ones needed a little more speed than this approach offers, as I learned after two fabulous nosedives and the instructor yelling “get up, get up!”).
The waves were wonderfully powerful and that thrill of getting back into the water, back on a board was sensational.
Standing up (to huge encouragement by fellow surfers and instructors), and cruising the waves into the beach felt right; the adrenaline, the sounds of the ocean, the punishing smack of the waves if you lose focus — surely no sport can offer so much with so little?
Anyone can, at any point take a board and head down to the beach for a surf. The gear is freely available with the sole, quite reasonable caveat, that you bring it back up from the beach (which given the slope, and the post-surf exhaustion is no easy feat!). This is afterall an adult camp. In fact, Dreamsea has done a remarkably good job of positioning its vibe somewhere between laidback traveler scene and a summer camp with booze.
Having done both summer camps as a child, and travelling as an adult, I immediately felt relaxed at Dreamsea. It achieves a chilled easygoing atmosphere (1€ beers and someone strumming a guitar probably helps with that), despite everyone being in full time employment or education. It was easy to be social, as the usual exchange of stories and experiences occurred. You do not have to engage with anyone if you do not want to, but everything about the camp’s setup is to encourage getting to know one another. Flunkyball, where from what I could tell beer drinking meets sprinting on a volleyball pitch, seemed to take competitive drinking to a new (and from a spectator’s viewpoint hilarious) level. I liked the people, I liked hearing different life stories, where they come from and what they work as (North Europe and in some sort of digital marketing as far as I could tell). Dreamsea suited me down to the ground.
My boyfriend never went to summer camps, and it took him longer to get comfortable with the environment. He is social, but not used to being social for extended periods of time, or being expected to open up about his life to strangers. I think the experience took him a little out of his comfort zone. And yet, he embraced the newness of it all. Being able to share surf stories, a common interest of everyone there broke his shyness, and by the time we were at the airport leaving Lisbon he was chatting away with the random men we were sharing a cramped table with waiting to board our flight.
I am very glad we had the glamping plus experience (and that we thought to bring our own mosquito net with us). There is a clear age divide between the non-glamping crowd (students) and those enjoying the little luxuries (some part of me felt old, most of me just felt happy). Dreamsea offered me the escape I crave and my full time job somehow keeps me from. The ability to live simpler, in stunning weather, to surf, to wake up smelling the ocean and be fed delightful food.
It may not be for everyone, chatting the night away beneath pine trees with people who you may never see again. To open up and share parts of your own story with people you do not know.
And yet, we live so much of our life in the comfort zone, choosing paths that provide easy and resistance free solutions. Maybe this is what holidays should be about? To float just on the other side of our comfort zone, in that space where we can grow as people and embrace new experiences. Take surfing for example. You may not always feel comfortable, donning a wetsuit and wading into chilled water to be bashed by the waves. And yet, the thrill, the adrenaline, the pleasure taken from it cannot do anything but leave me happy. The sea ruthlessly wipes away my bad humour. I always feel more connected to nature and myself when I emerge from it, the world feels brighter. That is the joy of the sea. It always leaves me smiling.
And if you are going to step out of your comfort zone, surely no where will be quite as comfortable as Dreamsea?

