About Kuma
Built around one break.
Kuma Surf is a surf house on Edava beach, a school, a kitchen, a terrace, and a slowly growing family of people who came for three days and stayed for three weeks.
Not a resort.
A house that surfs.
Edava is the quiet end of Varkala, eight minutes from the cliff, a world away from it. The break out front is a soft-bottomed beach break that forgives beginners and still gives the good days teeth.
The house grew around the surf school: first boards, then a kitchen for the surfers, then rooms because nobody wanted to leave after breakfast, then a terrace because the evenings needed somewhere to land. That order, surf first and hotel last, is still how the place is run.
The school works alongside the Surfing Federation of India community on this coast, and most of the coaches learned to surf on this exact sand.
Four things, done properly.
The school
Group and private lessons, max five students to an instructor, ninety minutes in the water.
Have a look →The house
Five private rooms and one four-bed dorm. Kerala breakfast comes with all of them.
Have a look →The camps
Six a year. Five days, four nights, one group, the same faces at the same table all week.
Have a look →The retreats
Built around your group rather than a calendar. Yoga, recovery, backwaters, or all of it.
Have a look →The founder
When your name is on the door.
Kuma is a nickname, one that stuck since school, carried by the kind of person you just don't forget. Long before there was a surf school or a guesthouse, there was simply Kuma: known up and down Varkala for his radiant smile and big, voluminous curly hair that spread good vibes wherever he goes.
When he built Kuma Surf School, and later Kuma Surf House, the name already meant something. That's also why you can trust it. When your name is on the door, you make sure the door is always worth walking through.
The team
The people who teach you.
Patient, ISA Certified instructors who know how to read the ocean, and their students. Calm, encouraging, and genuinely happy to be out there. On a good day, Kuma himself joins in.
Nirmal (Nimmi)
Surf instructor
Son of a fishing family, Nirmal comes from the east coast every season to teach his passion to everyone eager to learn. He is patient, kind, and that big smile of his will make you smile too, even when you fall. Nimmi will make sure you are having fun, and that you are safe. In that order.
Kuma
Founder
His story, you probably already know. If not, ask him. It won't be a short answer, and it will be worth it.
Also on staff
Pulli.
Self-appointed head of vibes
The house dog. Follows you everywhere. Sometimes a little too far. Not allowed in the guest rooms, a rule he considers open to negotiation.
How we run it
A few things we don't do.
We don't write our own reviews.
There are none on this site. The links go to Google, Booking.com and Agoda, where strangers said what they actually thought.
We don't invent prices.
Where a rate isn't confirmed yet the page says so rather than showing a number you'd later be argued out of.
We don't oversell the group size.
Five students per instructor, fourteen beds, five sign-ups to run a camp. Small numbers are the product, not a limitation of it.
We don't take card details over chat.
Payment happens through the booking link we send you, and nowhere else. If anyone asks otherwise, it isn't us.