I'm Josh Galt, and I love to SUP Paradise.

In brief, I'm a waterman - and while I like to use "wherever there's sunshine & h2o" because it's catchy, it's also 100% true.

Give me the warmth of the sun and clean water - whether an ocean, a river, or a high-pressure garden hose - and I'm going to be living at my happiest.

There's just something utterly simplistic and yet profoundly spiritual about water. And considering its mood is much more joyous when it sparkles with life under the beam of the sun, that's the combination I'm looking for.

I've spent my whole life in and around water, and the last decade and a half focused on whitewater - primarily the extreme sport of Riverboarding. Through my company, Face Level, I was able to help creatively shape the industry, travel the world making a ton of amazing connections, and experience life in a way I probably couldn't have otherwise.

Ironically, though, when my brother and I started riverboarding, our first brainstorm sessions were centered around looking for ways to stand up and go downstream. I was just a kid learning to snowboard, and I had the notion in my head that'd be a blast.

My whitewater snowboarding fantasies lasted all of about a week when the limited info online yielded nothing more than a surfboard / jetski hybrid, and our attempts at coming up with our own design wouldn't even float in a lake. The powerboard didn't look like it would last long in a Class IV rapid, so we scrapped the idea and just started to "nage-en-eau-vive" as they say in France (swim in the river).

But since I love to swim, Riverboarding was a natural sport for me, and still one I enjoy. There's no more intimate, intense, fully-involved way to experience whitewater rivers, in my opinion. I've taken many types of watercraft downriver, from hardshell kayaks to huge rafts, and there's nothing like the experience of being IN the flow.

But the sport has its limitations. While some people in Europe use Hydrospeeds as mini-dive platforms, for me the thought of a really long, slow swim pushing a big foam bobber for 3 miles to get to a dive site just isn't appealing. Sea Kayaks are ok, but then you're sitting, and I'm not such a fan of sitting sports. I'll lay down or I'll stand up.

Enter SUP, or Stand Up Paddleboarding (also Stand Up Paddlesurfing, but that's more surf-focused than the general paddleboarding terminology). The sport has been around for - what, centuries? Probably. But it's only been in the last few years that it has seen an explosion of growth and mainstream popularity, thanks in large part to surfing legend (and a personal hero of mine since I was a kid) Laird Hamilton. Yes, we can all BLAME LAIRD.

SUP has quickly become my favorite tool to use for experiencing water, in all its various forms. And since I love to travel - and when I have a choice I travel to the most mind-blowing places on the planet - I thought it'd be fun to create a new entity through which to share my SUP travels.

Planet Earth is a beautiful, mesmerizing place. Typically, wherever there's sunshine & h2o, it is for me a slice of paradise. For this component of my life, that's what I am in search of.

SUP Paradise - I'm Josh Galt, and I'm walking on water wherever there's sunshine & h2o.

LATEST SUP TRAVEL BLOGS