Most people are somewhat familiar with snowboarding nowadays, even if they have never done it themselves.
But sandboarding is becoming just as popular, and far fewer people have heard of it or know what it is.
Beyond that, though, often the first question on people’s minds is, “How are they different?”
Obviously, sandboarding is done on sand dunes, whereas snowboarding on snow-covered slopes and hills. Sandboards are much shorter than snowboards and broader. Sandboarding is more often compared to surfing than snowboarding, and the two activities are very different in sensation.
Though they both involve riding a board down a slope, the two things are very different and require different skill sets.
That said, they are certainly more similar to each other than they are to a great many other sports.
Let’s find out more about both.
What is sandboarding?
Sandboarding, as it sounds, is riding a board on a sand dune.
It’s an extreme sport, in which you ride a board down a steep slope, either with your feet strapped in or not.
There are also other ways to sit on the board while sandboarding, such as lying on your belly, sitting down, or even on your back.
This is often considered practice for standing up on the board, but both ways of doing it are certainly fun.
Specialized sandboards are the vessel of choice for sandboarding.
They are shorter than snowboards, as well as broader.
However, you can also do sandboarding on things like sleds, the deck of a skateboard, a surfboard, or indeed even a snowboard.
But the ideal vehicle is certainly a dedicated sandboard.
Naturally, sandboarding is most common in deserts and coastal areas where there are sufficient sand dunes to make it possible.
For a number of reasons that I’ll get into, it is not quite as popular as snowboarding, but certainly one of the most obvious reasons is that appropriate mountain tops for snowboarding are far more numerous.
It is currently practiced on every continent, and locations are available all over the world.
Sandboards are made from Formica, or Laminex, in order to help them slide on the sand.
They are typically waxed on the bottom to reduce friction.
It is most common in Australia, Africa, and the United States.
Now, let’s turn our attention to snowboarding.
What is snowboarding?
Snowboarding is much like sandboarding in many regards—but I’ll get into that more specifically shortly.
Let’s first just look at snowboarding on its own.
Like sandboarding, snowboarding is a relatively recent invention, beginning in the middle of the 1960s, in Michigan.
At the time, they fastened two skis together to form a board.
He eventually sold this design as a toy for children which sold incredibly well. at this time, though, it was still called “snurfing”—a combination of surfing and snow.
Today, snowboarding is a globally popular competitive and leisure activity.
There are tournaments everywhere snowboarding can happen.
In terms of the activity itself, you fasten your feet to a long, but much narrower, board, and surf down the slopes.
You might jump off ramps for tricks and style points.
You can get a great deal of speed and it is naturally very dangerous, earning it the title of an extreme sport.
Though the popularity of the sport has been in a steady decline for a decade or so, it is still enormously popular, and there are countless competitions held worldwide every year.
Anywhere skiing lodges exist, snowboarding is also almost always an option on their slopes.
So, let’s finally compare the two.
How are sandboarding and snowboarding similar?
The ways that the two sports are similar are perhaps more obvious.
Firstly, both involve riding a board down a slope, using the power of gravity—and gravity alone—to pick up momentum.
You can’t propel yourself using your feet, although you may get a helpful push down.
Since both generally have your feet fastened onto the board, they are similar in how you can maneuver, too, though there are a lot of differences.
They both require excellent balance and core strength to be done effectively, and both are done primarily as leisure activities.
Nonetheless, both are highly competitive in some circles.
Let’s turn to differences now.
How are sandboarding and snowboarding different?
Despite appearances, sandboarding and snowboarding are more different than they are similar.
Firstly, you use very different equipment.
Sandboards, as I said, are short and broad—snowboards are long and narrow.
Sandboarding really feels more like surfing than snowboarding.
It’s about catching the “waves” of sand properly to get the most momentum.
Snowboarding is purely a downward descent.
Sandboarding doesn’t need a weight-forward stance, unlike snowboarding.
So, they’re very different in terms of how you physically approach them.
The main reason that snowboarding is so much more popular is really just an issue of getting people up dunes.
On snowy mountain slopes, you can have cable cars and lifts to take people up.
Sand dunes are always shifting, so it’s impossible to have any infrastructure to get people up there without walking.
So, despite the similarities on the surface, sandboarding and snowboarding are definitely two very different activities.
They require different skillsets and are ultimately very different experiences.
It may well be that one is much more your speed than the other, though it’s likely you’ll enjoy both if you enjoy one.
But both have their unique pull and attraction, so give both a try.
