Photo of Dion Agius courtesy Morgan Maassen, Surfer magazine. See the whole gallery here, or click the photo above

For surfing’s elite, the two distinct career paths that have emerged within this ever changing surf industry landscape are that of the contest surfer and freesurfer. The contest route involves chasing points on a pre-scheduled list of exotic locales around the globe, and the pros are the star attraction of a traveling circus of sorts. The opposite course would be that of the freesurfer, who gets paid to score the best waves at any given time at any given chunk of water on the planet.

Dion Agius, Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson, and Nate Tyler are the cream of the latter crop, spending their days following the whims of the sea. The above photo gallery, which comes from Surfer magazine’s March issue, follows these lads through a recent stint in France. Something that would be the dream trip of a lifetime for us mere mortals is just another September in the life of a professional freesurfer.

It should be noted, however, that during this trip Dane Reynolds, who is widely regarded as the best surfer on the planet right now, took a short break from being a freesurfer to accept a wildcard into the Quiksilver Pro France, and he nearly won the whole event, losing to 11-time world champ Kelly Slater in the final. Only Dane could pull off something like that, which is why he gets paid to do whatever he wants.