South Padre Island to Corpus Christi. All wind directions, all year long, butter flat to ocean waves. Cheap. Uncrowded (except for spring break and college girls in bikinis). Tons of travel options and destination airports. Whatever lifestyle you're after--chill-o to party-hard. Lodging from cheap camping to modern AirBNB's. Great folks. Super helpful.
South Padre Island has some super fun, super shallow, flat water for your unhooked riding pleasure. Useable wind directions are 360 degrees, with the big ocean on one side and laguna madre on the other side. You can even cross back over the bridge to Port Isabel and kite Holly's Beach (wear water shoes, I'm told Holly's is not nice to feet). On the laguna madre, extra entertainment is found with some slippery, black-ish green, slimy shit at the water's edge at most of the launch sites, which makes for great comedy! Keep your GoPro rolling when your friends are walking into and out of the water. You'll remember to shuffle your feet after you get up off of your ass the first time. Or the second or third time.
Don't be afraid to fade down wind of the crowd and sneak off behind a bush if you forgot to relieve yourself beforehand. Your friends will show up, thinking you need help, only to be surprised to find you perfectly fine and completely nude--albeit smiling happily relieved.
Watch out for sharp oyster colonies scattered here and there nearshore Once in the water on the laguna madre, at the most it's chest deep with comfortable sand and short, soft sea grass. Even with the most memorable offshore wind kitemare, you can pack it up and walk back to the launch site. Prokite, SPI Kite, Air Padre and others are on South Padre Island with good folks like Jason Norwood, Joel, and Petra around to help in every way. Dining-wise, they have cheap Denny's bad-service artery-hardening food, to delicious Italian fare and pizza at Gabriella's Italian Grill and Pizzeria.
"Up" the coast is Corpus Christi, Texas, which has everything the Lone Star State can deliver. Check with Jeff Howard at his awesome kiteboarding business, Kiteboarding.com, headquartered in Corpus Christi, with everything you need kiteboarding and more--custom, stock, newbie, professional, buy, rent, brick and mortar store or website orders. Jeff is super friendly, helpful, driven, and has been in the wind business since he invented wind. Wiki "Jeff Howard wind inventor". Robin generally answers the phone and will help you or find the help you need. They always do a great job in customer service. Newsflash...I've heard of groups of friends coordinating their windy kite vacations to include boats and multi-day/night trips between Corpus and SPI. When you set it up, invite me! Food and lodging abound. Corpus is home to Whattaburger. You can live on three Whattaburger meals a day. Also, for some karaoke fun and authentic Cajun seafood--boils, raw, and beer, check out Crawdaddy's. They put a baby bib around your neck, spread paper out on the table in front of you, dump the mud bugs, new potatoes, and corn in front of you, and hand you paper towels and big huge mugs of cold beer. The owner sounds like Willie Nelson when he's on the mic. Good times! Pre-Nick Jacobsen, Adam Koch kited off of an aircraft carrier here.
