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Molise · Termoli south of the harbour · Campobasso · Termoli

Rio Vivo

also known as Rio Vivo Termoli, Riovivo, Termoli Rio Vivo

advanced onlymedium crowds

Nearby Termoli Kite Beach 5 km · Campomarino Lido 6 km · Marina di Vasto 24 km · Marina di Lesina 33 km · Casalbordino 37 km · straight-line distance

Seasonno season namedthe months riders and schools nameHow windy9 knotssynopticLaunchmediumaccess rules on record, belowWatersea26.4°C in summer · 11 things riders flagLevelIntermediate to advancedwith a caveat, in the Level sectionSchools3named at this spotFrom the airport65 minPescara Abruzzo Airport (PSR)

When it fills in

Gradient wind, not thermal. It comes in with the northern synoptic setup and can hold through the night, so the front decides when you rig rather than the hour of the day.

Rio Vivo, the beach immediately south of Termoli harbour in Molise, starts working when the wind turns north. The harbour wall bends the swell so it wraps onto sand instead of closing out, and on a clean north to north-east day the waves can run to around 2 m, which for the mid-Adriatic is unusual.
Where you sit on the beach decides the session: under the port the waves are smaller and damped, and by the southern rocks they get steeper and longer and a lot more demanding.
N and NNW come in side to side-off from the left, so a broken line here means a swim toward rocks rather than a walk back up the sand. Winter brings the bigger days.
The Molise bathing season runs 1 April to 15 October, when a 5 m strip from the waterline stays clear for transit and the beach fills with swimmers and services. A strong northern forecast pulls riders in from Abruzzo and farther, so the good days are busy water.
Intermediates and wave riders who can look after themselves will like it; beginners should learn somewhere else.

The wind

locals call it Tramontana, Grecale, Maestrale

Direction

beachwater
cross-offNwind blows away from land — rescue cover matters here

Kite sizes

567891011121314151617

metres · typical quiver highlighted

Character

synoptic

fills in: Gradient wind, not thermal. It comes in with the northern synoptic setup and can hold through the night, so the front decides when you rig rather than the hour of the day.

Typical strength

No spot-level measurement. The long-run coastal baseline at the town station a couple of kilometres away is 9 knots average with mean gusts near 25, over 2002 to 2026, and that describes the coast as a whole rather than a session here. The beach only comes alive on the northern gradient days, which sit well above that average.

Northern setups give the cleanest waves. Near the rocks it turns radical.
Winter brings the bigger wave days. Summer has the beach services running, and the Molise bathing season with everyone else on the sand.

The quiver, in words

No local size log. Indicative, worked from the wind band the northern gradient days deliver: a 75-85 kg rider on a marginal 15-18 knot setup is around 10-12 m, on a solid 22-28 knot tramontana around 7-8 m, and on a wave kite rather than a big freeride shape when the swell is running near 2 m.

Direction to shore

N and NNW described locally as side to side-off from the left; NE is reported as a working direction around the harbour wall.

Dominant direction

N, NE, NNW

Forecast

Next three days, from Windfinder · full forecast

Month by month

  1. Jan56
  2. Feb44
  3. Mar48
  4. Apr51
  5. May31
  6. Jun29
  7. Jul28
  8. Aug35
  9. Sep40
  10. Oct26
  11. Nov52
  12. Dec48

per cent of the month at force 4 or more

  1. 12Jan13°
  2. 11Feb13°
  3. 11Mar14°
  4. 12Apr16°
  5. 10May19°
  6. 10Jun24°
  7. 10Jul28°
  8. 10Aug29°
  9. 12Sep26°
  10. 9Oct22°
  11. 12Nov18°
  12. 11Dec14°

avg knots per month · water °C below · season highlighted

MonthForce 4+KnotsFromAirWater
Jan56%12.2 ktSSW9.5°C12.9°C
Feb44%11.4 ktNW10°C12.5°C
Mar48%11.3 ktNW11.5°C13.9°C
Apr51%11.7 ktNW14°C16°C
May31%10.2 ktNW18.8°C19.1°C
Jun29%9.9 ktNNW23.9°C24.1°C
Jul28%9.8 ktNW27.4°C28.3°C
Aug35%10.2 ktNW26.5°C28.6°C
Sep40%11.5 ktNW22.7°C25.7°C
Oct26%9.1 ktWNW19.6°C22.2°C
Nov52%11.9 ktSSW14.2°C17.9°C
Dec48%11.1 ktSW10.9°C14.4°C
modelled

A weather model's cell over this place, not a station on it. Good for comparing places, weaker for one beach.

Modelled from weather reanalysis on a 10–25 km grid (2022-2024), not a ground station: reliable for trade and synoptic winds, understates thermal sea breezes and valley winds. The typical daily max and the direction are columns of the table above, month by month. Highlighted months are the riding season from the spot record.

ERA5 reanalysis grid point (modelled) · Open-Meteo historical weather API — ECMWF ERA5/ERA5-Land reanalysis, not a ground station · 2022-2024

The water

Type

sea

Standing depth

Not measured here. Sandy beach with a gradual entry. Through the bathing season the concessions have to sign the limit of safe water for non-swimmers at roughly 1 m depth, which gives you a visible line on the water for where it stops being wadeable, but nobody has published how far out that line sits at Rio Vivo.

Temperature

26.4°C summer · 12.4°C winter

Wetsuit

Termoli sea temperature averages about 26.4-26.7 C in August and about 12.0-12.4 C in February; use lycra/shorts in high summer and a full wetsuit in winter.

13–29°C water
Sandy Adriatic beach and wave spot below Termoli harbour. The harbour wall helps clean waves wrap onto the beach in northern winds, with wave sections from smaller, damped waves under the port to steeper, longer and more demanding waves near the southern rocks.

Your level

not for beginners hereintermediateadvanced
Parts of the wider beach are rideable at most levels if you pick your zone, but the core Rio Vivo wave setup, with side to side-off wind, the harbour influence, rocks and steep waves, is no place to learn.

The scene

What riders come here for

wavefreeridejumping
A regional wave spot with its own locals; a strong northern-wind forecast brings riders over from Abruzzo and farther.

Launch and rules

three ways on to the water, and what each one asks of you

With a school or a boat

3 schools name this spot

See who they are

On your own

Room to launch: medium

access rules on record

Somewhere else

Termoli Kite Beach, 5 km

Every spot within 40 km is on the map at the top of this page, with its distance under it.

Rescue

No dedicated kite rescue. The cover on the beach is the lifesaving service the Coast Guard makes compulsory on the concessions from 22 May to 13 September 2026, 09:00 to 19:00, and outside those dates and hours there is nothing on the sand at all: the winter northerlies that make this spot work fall entirely outside it.
Each station has to carry two ring buoys on 25 m lines, a rescue craft marked SALVATAGGIO parked near the waterline, and red, yellow and green flags on a four-metre mast.
At sea the number is 1530, the Coast Guard blue number, or 112. The Termoli Capitaneria di porto is on Viale della Guardia Costiera 38 and answers on 0875 706484.

Launch

Free beach on Lungomare Sud / Rio Vivo below the harbour, near Circolo della Vela. Large open parking area on the square facing the sand. In summer the beach concessions run and everything is serviced; out of season it is an empty beach with nobody on it.

Space

medium

Hazards riders report 11

  • harbour wall
  • waves around 2 m on good days
  • crowded water on strong days
  • southern rocks and breakwater
  • steep waves near the rocks
  • side-off components in N and NNW wind
  • crowded water on good wave days
  • summer swimmers and marked bathing zones
  • No lifeguard cover outside 22 May to 13 September 2026, 09:00 to 19:00, which is when the best wave days happen
  • The 200 m exclusion around the harbour mouth sits immediately north of the launch
  • Until 15 October the first 300 m of water is reserved for bathers and a kite may only cross it through a marked launch corridor
Rules & access
The Termoli Coast Guard bathing safety ordinance for 2026, which replaces and abrogates ordinance 11/2025, reserves the sea within 300 m of the waterline for bathers from the date it was issued until 15 October.
Inside that strip the transit of any craft, windsurfs and kitesurfs named explicitly, is banned, and launching or landing a kite is allowed only through a marked launch corridor (art. 4.5).
A corridor usable by kites must run at least 500 m offshore, be 30 m wide at the waterline and 80 m wide from 250 m out to 500 m, be edged with yellow or orange buoys on a floating line, carry white flags on the outermost buoys at the seaward mouth and a sign ashore reading DIVIETO DI BALNEAZIONE - RISERVATO AL TRANSITO DEI NATANTI (art. 9).
Bathing is banned within 200 m of the harbour mouth and the outer harbour works, which is the water immediately north of Rio Vivo, within 3 m of breakwaters and groynes, and within 50 m either side of a navigable river mouth (art. 5).
Beach concessions must keep a 5 m strip from the waterline clear of gear for transit (art. 7.2). Article 11 refers kitesurfing and the other sea activities to applicable law and the standing Termoli Coast Guard ordinances.
The 2026 Molise regional bathing ordinance sets the regional bathing season from 1 April to 15 October and requires authorization for beach sports events.

Access rules drift faster than anything else we hold — check locally, and propose an edit if this has changed.

Rider tips

  • Launch from the free beach on Lungomare Sud below the harbour, near Circolo della Vela.
  • Ask locally which section is running before you rig: mellow under the port, serious by the rocks.
  • Treat the southern rocks and the breakwater as your downwind limit and stay upwind of them.
  • Between 1 April and 15 October keep out of the marked swimming zones and leave the 5 m transit strip on the sand clear.
  • Lycra or shorts in August water at 26.4-26.7 C; a full suit in February, when it sits at 12.0-12.4 C.
  • Nobody is watching the water out of season. The compulsory lifeguard service runs 22 May to 13 September 2026, 09:00 to 19:00, and the best north-wind days are outside it.
  • At sea, call 1530. The Termoli Capitaneria answers on 0875 706484.

Getting there

Airport

Pescara Abruzzo Airport (PSR) is the practical regional airport, listed at 82.6 km from Termoli station. San Domino Island is geographically closer but is not a mainland kite-travel option.

Route

Termoli is on the Adriatic coast and the Rio Vivo launch is on the south seafront below the harbour. Pescara Airport to Termoli is about 104.6 km by road, with train and shuttle options around 1 h 25 min.

Transfer

65 min

Cost level

medium

Staying

Termoli has town and beach lodging. Nothing kite-friendly is named.

No-wind days

Termoli old town and castle · Tremiti Islands day trips · Vasto and Costa dei Trabocchi coast

Photos

Pier At Termoli (216447469)
Matias Piipari, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

FAQ

Is Rio Vivo suitable for beginners?

No, side or side-off wind, nearby rocks and steep waves near the harbour make it better suited to intermediate and advanced riders.

What is the wind like at Rio Vivo?

North, NNW and NE winds (Tramontana, Grecale, Maestrale) work best and are often reported stronger here than at nearby Abruzzo spots.

Are there rules or restricted zones at Rio Vivo?

The 2026 Molise bathing ordinance runs from 1 April to 15 October and keeps a 5 m strip from the waterline free for transit during that season.

What are the main hazards at Rio Vivo?

The harbour wall, southern rocks and breakwater, and side-off wind components are the key risks, with crowded water on the best wave days.

Are there kite schools at Rio Vivo?

Circolo Vela Termoli advertises kitesurf courses with IKO-certified instructors near the spot.

Last updated: August 2026