Here’s another addition to our list of interesting road-trip chronicles: Surfing 50 States. Stefan Hunt and Jonno Durrant, two friends from Australia, are traveling around the U.S. in an attempt to surf in every state in the Union. It begs a few questions, beginning with: Are these guys geographically impaired? To get a few answers, I dropped the guys an e-mail this weekend. Stefan replied somewhere on the road to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Surfing all 50 states is a great idea, except that there wouldn’t seem to be waves to surf in every state. How are you doing this?

I guess that is the catch to our trip. You wouldn’t think there are “waves” in every state but it depends on what you consider to be a “wave” or “surfing” for that matter. Everyone knows the ocean has waves and that’s it, but when you think outside the box you can definitely do it! Surfing is so widely used these days that you can be riding the waves of the ocean, on the Internet, or even on top of a crowd at a concert and its all “surfing.” We reckon that as long as you are on a surfboard, and have some form of momentum, we can call that surfing.

And the bigger question: Why are you doing this?

Simple as this: We are young and full of energy. We love traveling, film-making and surfing and when we combined those three we came up with the idea of surfing 50 states.

And why are you driving around in an ice cream truck?

Funny story that. Our main sponsor Hurley had an old 87 GMC ice cream truck sitting around in their parking lot, collecting cobwebs. After some serious begging and persuading they let us take it, on the proviso we get it back to them in one piece. We thought we had really scored until we realized its mechanical condition. So far we have had to replace an alternator, muffler, window and, worst of all, engine. That has really hurt our tightly budgeted adventure but we don’t let it worry us, life is too good!

Glad you’re not letting your troubles get you down. What’s been the best session so far?

Every place has been unique in its own way. From surfing in the air (on wires) at a Wizard of Oz stageshow in Kansas, to riding down piles of beets and potatoes in Idaho (pictured), our sessions have been hilarious. The scenery in Alaska was unreal, but South Dakota was equally amazing, just a lot different. That’s the best thing about this trip, every state is different from the previous, and we get to see all 50 of them!

Any particular place in the U.S. you’re looking forward to surfing?

Definitely New York! It is a place I have wanted to go all my life and we have a pretty crazy idea for what we will do there! It involves snow, Christmas, Santa and ice skating. Enough said!

Looking forward to checking that out. Cheers, guys.

For more about their adventures, check out their MySpace page and this feature on NPR’s Day to Day. 

Photo and image courtesy of Stefan Hunt and Jonno Durrant.

Related on World Hum:
* Oprah Winfrey, Amanda Congdon and the New Golden Age of the Cross-Country Road Trip