When Haakon VIII became King of Norway on August 28, 2026, the world learned more about the man behind the crown.
Former Crown Prince Haakon is a sailor, skier, outdoor enthusiast, and, perhaps most surprisingly for a European monarch, a committed surfer.
Nevertheless, he's not the first. Charles III, King of England, has surfed before, as have previous British royals.
But let's focus on the newly crowned Norwegian king who has already spent years chasing waves.
Haakon surfed in California while studying at the University of California, Berkeley, and later returned to the water in Norway with his family.
The Nordic royal helped bring the European Surfing Championships (Eurosurf) to Norway and watched his daughter compete in the sport.
Then, in a 2023 interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, he revealed how serious his surfing ambitions might once have been.
Are you curious already? Let's see how surfing conquered Haakon VIII.
A royal discovers surfing in California
Haakon's connection with surfing goes back to his student years.
The royal member studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1990s. Norwegian accounts of his time in the United States say that he wanted to study somewhere where he could enjoy outdoor life and surf.
California offered both.
The future king also valued the relative freedom he could find there. Away from Norway, he could experience university life with more privacy than would have been possible at home.
Surfing became part of that experience.
The connection between Haakon and California later continued through family trips.
A 2017 profile in Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv described the royal family's outdoor holidays and their interest in surfing.
The family had traveled along the California coast in a motorhome and had also spent time surfing in Denmark.
Surfing had become part of Haakon's idea of a good holiday.
That is a revealing detail about someone whose official life is usually built around schedules, ceremonies and public duties.
"If absolutely everything goes wrong, I can always just surf"
One of the best descriptions of Haakon's relationship with surfing appeared in Dagens Næringsliv in 2017.
The headline of the article translated into English is essentially: "If absolutely everything goes wrong, I can always just surf."
But Haakon does not appear to see surfing only as a sport.
In the Dagens Næringsliv interview, surfing was used as a way of talking about much bigger subjects, including crisis management and the challenges of public life.
The ocean seems to offer an escape when things become complicated, something that is rightfully in line with what peasant surfers feel, right?
The article also described Haakon's family searching for an environmentally friendly surfboard.
Their surfing holidays could involve a trip to Hoddevik on Norway's west coast, a stay in Klitmøller in Denmark or a journey along California's coastline.
For a man who would eventually inherit the Norwegian throne, surfing offered something remarkably ordinary and simple.
It was a water sport he could do with his family.
Surfing in Norway
Haakon has not limited his surfing to warm-water destinations.
The Norwegian Royal House has documented several occasions when he surfed in Norway.
In October 2016, Haakon was photographed surfing off Sunnmøre.
A year later, he returned to Hoddevik with Crown Princess Mette-Marit and their children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus.
The Royal House described Haakon as an avid surfer and noted that the rest of the family also shared an interest in surfing.
Hoddevik is a fitting place for the royal family to surf.
The beach sits on Norway's rugged western coast, where cold water, exposed coastline and changing weather are part of the experience.
For Haakon, however, surfing in Norway appears to have been about more than finding the easiest possible conditions.
In a separate interview about outdoor life, he described summer days by the coast in terms of looking for waves, wind for kitesurfing or places to sail.
The ocean was clearly part of his wider relationship with the outdoors.
Haakon helped bring Eurosurf to Norway
Haakon's interest in surfing also reached beyond his own time in the water.
In 2017, Norway hosted the European Surfing Championships at Borestranda on the Jæren coast. Haakon was involved with the event's main organizing committee.
The event gave Norway an important moment on the European surfing calendar and put the country's own coastline in front of international surfers.
Suddenly, Haakon was somehow involved in an unusual combination of royal duties and personal interest.
He attended an event because it was part of the royal calendar, but he was also involved in a major surfing competition in a country where he himself surfed.
His connection with Eurosurf also helped show that his interest in the sport was not a passing hobby.
By then, he had already been surfing for many years.
Family surfing tradition
The royal family's relationship with surfing did not stop with Haakon. His eldest child, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, became a competitive surfer.
In 2020, she won the Norwegian junior women's surfing championship at Borestranda on Jæren.
Her result gave Norwegian surfing an unusual new storyline.
The daughter of the future king was competing in a sport that her father had loved for decades.
The family had already been photographed surfing together at Hoddevik. Haakon's involvement in Norwegian surfing also meant that Ingrid Alexandra was growing up with the sport as part of family life.
More than a curious royal footnote, she was competing in her own right.
The World Tour dream
The most striking chapter in Haakon's surfing story came in 2023.
As he approached his 50th birthday, NRK asked him what he might have done if he had not been Crown Prince.
His answer was direct.
"I would have been a professional surfer on the World Tour."
He immediately softened the fantasy with a reference to his age, saying he might already have been an ex-professional because he was nearly 50.
The comment quickly attracted attention in Norway. Dagbladet reported that the answer had also caused a stir outside the country.
International surf publications then picked up the story, and Reuters included the same detail in its profile of the new Norwegian king after the death of Harald V.
The comment is particularly striking because Haakon did not describe surfing as something he might have enjoyed professionally.
He chose the World Tour, and that's bold.
The Nordic royal imagined himself competing and was speaking about an alternative life he might have chosen, showing that surfing has been a serious and enduring interest.
"Surfing has fascinated me since I was a little kid"
Haakon has also spoken about why surfing appeals to him.
In connection with the 2017 European Surfing Championships, he described surfing as something that had fascinated him since childhood.
He spoke about the simplicity of being with a board in the waves and connected the sport with his experience of nature and the elements.
That idea fits closely with his other comments about outdoor life.
Surfing removes much of the structure that surrounds a royal, and that may help explain why the sport has remained attractive to him.
As Haakon himself put it in the 2017 interview, if everything else goes wrong, he can always surf.
By the way, do you know how to say "Surf's up" in Norwegian? If our Norwegian isn't wrong, it should be something like this: Det er surf!
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