Last week we’ve celebrated our one year “travelversary”… Indeed, for already more than a year you have been reading about our naked travels all over the world on this website. Pretty amazing, right? Well, at least it is to us. Time is going so fast, it seems like only yesterday when we stepped on that airplane in Brussels with a one way ticket to Croatia in our pockets. The very start of an epic adventure.
We roughly had an itinerary in our heads, but by now we can tell you that little of it remained to the original plan. And that’s amazing! If we would have been able to predict everything that was going to come on our way for the next months, it would have been far less fun. The surprises, the changes, the people we met who gave us amazing tips for other places, it’s all part of the game.
Although we are very happy to receive those many messages of you thanking us for the insights and the help to take the first steps, it was never our intention to educate. In fact, those many other websites about nudism and naturism which all sounded way to patronising were one of the main reasons for us to do something completely different with Naked Wanderings. And also because they didn’t answer our own questions, what’s keeping away the youth for example.
Our goal was to learn and what we learned we would share with you. And boy did we learn!
Our goal was to learn and what we learned we would share with you. And boy did we learn!
Travel is the way to open your mind
We had been nudists for about seven or eight years before we started this adventure and we figured that we knew most of the lifestyle. We often spent afternoons in spas, when the weather was fine we went to a nude beach in Belgium or the Netherlands and in summer we went to nudist campgrounds in France or Croatia. We thought that was it, what more could nudism or naturism eventually have to offer?
It didn’t take more than a couple of weeks on the road before we started realising how wrong we were.
It didn’t take more than a couple of weeks on the road before we started realising how wrong we were.
Until then, nudism had been very black and white to us. On one hand there was the textile world, which obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with public nudity. They would think we were perverts for exposing ourselves to strangers and they would think that we were having huge orgies behind our fences. And on the other hand were we, the nudists, a struggling minority anxiously protecting our grounds. We would think of every clothed person that entered our beaches as a pervert, a voyeur, someone waiting for an unguarded moment to take a good look at our naked selves, or even worse, take a picture of us.
A big eye opener came when we were only little more than two weeks traveling and volunteered at a clothing optional camping in Montenegro. “Clothing Optional” was kind of a new thing to us and we had figured that it was just another term for nudism. Something softer, with less of an undertone. In this black and white world, we would never have guessed that clothing would actually be an option at this place. However, by learning to be comfortably naked among the clothed, by seeing how one could respect the other without prejudices and by seeing how some of the textiles eventually gave nudity a try, we learned to appreciate this new form of nudism. Our black and white world suddenly had a huge grey zone.
Nudism in culture and religion
We would see more of this clothing optional thing on nudist island Ada Bojana, at the whole other side of Montenegro, which more or less was a whole clothing optional island. And then just one border crossing later, into Albania, all options to get naked were suddenly gone. From days of wearing whatever we wanted (and most often nothing), we moved on to a country where we could be thrown in jail if we got caught naked. Skinny dipping was not a possibility anymore unless we were very very careful and talking about nudism was also not an option. We had become closet nudists.
This didn’t take long though, two weeks later we were in Greece where naked sunbathing on the beach was pretty common again and where we experienced luxury nudism for the first time, in a real naturist resort.
Greece would be the source for many other new impressions, and then we’re not talking about the great food and wines. We would see a darker side of the clothing optional scene at the nude beaches on Antiparos island where nudists felt pushed towards the very end of their own beach and we would also get a new perspective about religion.
Greece would be the source for many other new impressions, and then we’re not talking about the great food and wines. We would see a darker side of the clothing optional scene at the nude beaches on Antiparos island where nudists felt pushed towards the very end of their own beach and we would also get a new perspective about religion.
In Western Europe, many people have their opinions about nudism and their reasons not to give it a try. Body confidence, jealousy, insecurity and the link with sex are common, cultural and religious reasons not so much anymore. But then we met Ralf and his family in Greece, all dedicated Orthodox Christians and equally dedicated nudists. They had found signs in the bible which pleaded in favour of nudity, especially in a natural environment and found that their religion and nudist lifestyle went hand in hand. A philosophy we could very much appreciate.
It’s not always like this, once we moved on to Asia, more specifically to Sri Lanka, we would notice that the link Ralf had made was very uncommon. It didn’t take long to realise that we hadn’t made the smartest choice by picking Asia as the next step in our naked journey. Long story short, Sri Lanka appeared to be a big NO when it came to public nudity, India was supposed to be our next destination, but the more we read about it the more we got convinced that it would also be pretty difficult over there with no nudist resorts, no nude beaches and only a couple of secret meetups scattered over this immense country.
This is where fate never fails to help us out. A couple of days before we were leaving to India our visas got rejected and we only had three days left on our Sri Lanka visa. We took a map, looked for the nearest country that we could enter without a visa and half an hour later two flights to Malaysia were booked. A Muslim country where social nudity was considered making porn. Our plan for Malaysia was to try again to get a visa for India, but meanwhile we hadn’t been able to get naked somewhere out of our hotel room for quite a while and that was exactly what was not our plan for this trip.
We noticed there was an actual nudist resort in Bali, changed our plan and moved over there. This was where we learned that it doesn’t mean that when a country has a private place where you can be naked, nudism is socially accepted. Bali appeared to be as conservative as can be. Although in a bit of a weird way. It was pretty common to see men and woman bathing naked in a river without any shame, we had the chance to go to a public bath house which was connected to a temple (of all places) and where nudity was completely normal. But the nudity needed to have a purpose. Being naked just for the sake of it could end you up in jail for a long time. Because we were there in low season we did find some empty beaches for a quick skinny dip, but the thought about Balinese jails was never far so neither were our bathing suits.
New and old nudism
Off we went to Thailand, the only country in Asia that actually has a couple of nudist resorts and after the struggles of the previous months we decided to visit all of them. Truth has to be said, we have seen very little of the tourist spots in Thailand. We spent a month traveling from one nude resort to another and being as much naked as possible. We loved it!
All over Asia, Thailand, is known as the number one nudist destination and nudists from all over the continent travel here to get comfortably naked among others. An interesting side note: these nudists were often about our age. We had found the solution to our question about the age difference: Moving to Thailand. An interesting thought, but there was so much more world left to explore. The only question was where to go next. By visiting Bali and Thailand we had covered all official nudist spots in Asia, a continent where we had initially planned to stay about a year. We couldn’t decide about our next destination. Maybe Japan, where they have onsens (thermal baths that are often visited naked), maybe Taiwan which appeared to have a nudist federation or maybe India anyway?
There came fate again. A friend sent us an e-mail that she was throwing a party in New York and that she’d love us to come. This was completely not in line with our original itinerary but it would provide a lot of options. Some time later we were crossing the Pacific ocean on a flight from Bangkok to New York. Meanwhile it was late April but the New York weather forced us into jeans, sweaters and jackets. This wasn’t exactly a huge step forward towards more naked time.
New York wouldn’t be New York if it didn’t provide options and few days after we had landed we found ourselves completely naked with about twenty five others in a nude yoga studio in central Manhattan. While moving from the downward facing dog towards the warrior pose, we would see the golden lit skyline of New York through the windows. There are worse places to practice.
Naked yoga wasn’t new to us, we had done this before in nudist resorts where the sessions are very casual. Much more about just having a good time in a good atmosphere than about actually learning yoga. Our Naked in Motion class was pretty much the opposite. This was serious business. Where the instructors in resorts often leave out poses which might be a bit too compromising for the average nudist, over here it was all about doing yoga as it should and about gaining confidence being naked, no matter in which position.
A revolutionary experience and somehow we thought that we had found a modern kind of nudism, but then we got catapulted back to the time of the early nudist camps when the instructor started reading the rules. The obvious things like “don’t stare”, “you have to be naked” and “don’t touch each other” passed by, but then more uncommon (at least to us) rules like “don’t compliment anyone about their appearance”, “don’t ask anyone to have a drink after class” or “put down a red card if you don’t want the instructor to touch you”. Very specific boundaries were created. Quite uncommon for two young European nudists who had learned that freedom was an important pillar of nudism. But then again, most of these people were not nudists…
Nudist, naturist, clothing optional or …
This was probably the biggest insight we got during that hour of naked yoga. After class we asked our instructor how long she had been a nudist. Her answer was: “Oh, I am not a nudist! I do go to a naked spa once in a while, in summer I go to nude beaches and I teach naked yoga, but I’m not a nudist”. So this twenty something year old girl did all the naked things we had been doing for years, but did not consider herself a nudist. That evening we would hear several others saying the exact same thing. At the time we had no idea what to do with this information, but we would see a similar movement when we traveled to an American state with much better weather than New York: California.
California would be like Thailand all over again, moving from one nudist resort to another and spend as much time as possible being naked among others. When it came to the average age at the resorts, we were back to European style. Either we were the youngest or certainly among them. But when we went to the nude beaches we would see a much younger crowd.
One day we were sitting at a resort with the president of a local nudist club talking about how they struggle to gain new, younger members and the next day we would be on a nude beach with loads of twenty and thirty somethings. Where was the missing link? We had never felt this close to the answer to our initial question about what keeps youth away from nudism. But we could not touch it yet. Our grey zone had expanded even more. We had found out that there are nudists, textiles and clothing optional environments where both were combined, but now we also had people who loved to be naked but didn’t call themselves nudists or naturists.
The piece of the puzzle finally fell a month later when we were invited to a barbecue organised by the nudist club of Guadalajara in Mexico. Hector, the president of the club and meanwhile also of the national nudist federation of Mexico was only twenty six years old and had been able to attract a huge young public. At that barbecue, our age was actually the average one. Hours and hours, fuelled with lots of beer and wine, we have talked about this subject. Was it because Hector was this young that he could attract young people? Was it because he used a lot of modern forms of communication, social media and youtube instead of newsletters and magazines? Or was it something else?
An important point, according to Hector, is the fact that nudism in Mexico is something new, something few people have ever heard of. “So, tell me again, you do regular things with a bunch of other people but everyone is naked?”. This tickled people’s curiosity, especially the young who love to try something new. We remembered, years ago, when we had engaged in nudism for the first time that it was for the exact same reason. We were curious.
The nude trip around the world continues
Clearly, a conclusion we have to make about all this is that either nudism is completely misunderstood or that the definition of it is just not attractive and that people are finding new ways to accomplish pretty much the same. And what does that means to us, the western nudists? Unlike the Mexicans we do have a historical background in nudism, should we redefine it? Should we make it more attractive? Should we just drop the name and call it something completely different?
We don’t have those answers yet, but we do feel that we’re coming closer. Will we ever be able to answer the question about how to secure a future for nudism? We don’t know. What we do know is that the time to go home has certainly not come yet, we have much more to learn and to experience. Maybe other parts of Mexico will teach us more, maybe we’ll gain more insights in Canada or in France or maybe somewhere else. We keep searching for answers and we believe that fate will help us a hand where necessary.
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Woooow Time sure does fly hah.
I remember when u told me about doing this adventure, i was wo no way..(considering where im from ,this sounds like a no way thing,for young ppl to make so much money that they can not work for a year and still have enough of it) ,but there u are.
Always good subjects and great places ,and nice retrospective of things so far, i hope u guys are making some notes or however u wanna call it, so u can have some kind of a statistic about generally what ppl are like at what country and stuff ,that would be really interesting to hear one day, in the sence of how open are ppl about things, what is allowed what is not, all of those things comparing different countries and making a list + and – .
ps sorry if i double posted lol
Good that you still think that we have lots of money… Because that’s exactly what we’re going to write about in one of the following blog posts 🙂
Hahah well i kinda ment that considering that u werent working for a whole year ,u know what i mean.
Hi Nick and Lins, Congrats on 1 year. Next week is the 1 year anniversary of The Terra Cotta, Palm Springs being open. We really enjoyed meeting you guys as did our guests. There is always an open invitation for you guys to return. Enjoy your travels. Tom
Congrats, Nick and Lins. Have really enjoyed reading and looking at your “journey’ and continue to be fascinated by your perspectives and sometimes conclusions. Looking forward to seeing what happens next. But either way, you have changed the face and direction if naturism/nudism for many of us around the world
Thanks for the kind words Colin!
That was very insightful, and it shows some of the challenges nudism must address moving forward.
It seems that rigid rules and regulations drive younger people away. Nudism is freedom and there should be just one rule: Be respectful.
I was also surprised that some younger people in the USA go to the nude beach, even do nude yoga but don’t consider themselves nudists. They think that nudism is almost a cult-like “alternate lifestyle”. This should change. Nudism is fun, nudism is for everyone.
What scriptures did the Greek Orthodox Christians use to prove their lifestyle was in line with their faith. As a Christian, myself I’ve wondered if there was anything in the Bible that says whether being naked is sinful or not, I’ve found that it’s not clear cut. Interpretations of scripture seem to go both ways.
I find it hilarious that they think they are accomplishing something. All they are doing is traveling to different nudist destinations around the world or taking risks. All their interactions are pretty much with like minded people. There is no mention of them opening the mind of a textile.
The younger generation is into their electronic devices which they say are banned at nudist places. What Nick and Lins are doing isn’t realistic for 99.9 percent of people. Most people have jobs they have to go to clothed. For some people, they can’t be open about their nudism. Not everyone is going to be 100 percent supportive of a person’s decision to be a nudist. The freedom they talk about is a false freedom.
It’s highly unlikely that nudism will expand beyond designated areas around the world. I highly doubt a civilized country will make nudity completely legal. The public practice of nudism May die off with the older generation. Traveling the world naked isn’t going to change nudism. People are going to practice it or they are not.
Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Although you think differently, we believe that we are making a change. Maybe not directly because we are indeed visiting naturist places and thus getting mostly in contact with other naturists. But we receive regular messages from our readers telling us that we’ve helped them taking the first steps.
What we are doing is indeed not realistic for many people, we are completely aware of that. We have also never said that we think everyone in the world should start traveling naked full time. We are taking the risk of spending all our savings pursuing a cause of which we’re not sure if we will ever succeed. But we couldn’t care less… We’re having an amazing time anyway.
The freedom we talk about is not something that can only be accomplished if you’re full time traveling naked. You can get the same feeling during a two week holiday or an afternoon at the nude beach.
A couple of decades ago people said that it was highly unlikely that gays would ever be allowed to hold hands outside their designated areas…and look where they stand now. It’s impossible to predict the future, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But if we don’t try we always lose.
Well Andrew, of course that 90% of the ppl reading these blogs are nudists as well.
Its like saying that at a Friday the 13th movie convention, 90% of the ppl are fans of Jason?.. of course lol , they wouldnt be there if they werent.
The thing is, im not a nudist, nor i ever was nor will i ever be.
I recall maybe once that i saw a few nudists at our local river when i was a kid, and didnt think much of it ,just found it funny that they are naked and thats it.
Its be long cc 30 years that have passed, since i even tought about nudism in general, not doing it but, just tought of it, it never crossed my mind in any way ,like its something that doestn exist, eventho as i said i knew about them since i was a kid.
Its like i almost had an amnesia about the fact that nudism exists.
I do agree with u about the freedom part, i pretty much say that my self every time, and Nick&Lins know that by now lol.
But, what they are doing is that they are promoting it, they have social media and many ppl ,kids and oldold are using it, and they can get to know about it more and more.
These blogs are more stories ,if the soc medial is the visual, this here is the “audio”.
So they do promote it to those that have never heard about it or know very little about it.
Tho again , i agree with u that i doubt that full nudity overall will ever be a thing .. we are all used to tshirts nice shoes and stuff ,in a way it can describe who and what we are .. aka ,wearing lets say a Linkin Park tshirt or peace sign shirt or even a ocult shirt if u want it..but the thing is, those same things can also be used against you,and thats a whole different subject .. i mean maybe today not so much as it was in the 60s 70s 80s 90s ..
The reason why phones are baned is cause some ppl dont wanna be outed and with phones ,internet, its just a click away.
If it would be an everyday normal thing, no1 would care less if u use a phone at a camp or resort.
As far as civilized worlds go, hum.. i dunno where ur from , but u do know that nudism as a thing was born in the western civilised world right? Germany.
Next to the German parliment u have a park where nudity is allowed.. same thing in Paris.
In many Prides, ppl are marching nude, not everywhere tho..
In San Francisco ,u have like a fetish festival in broad daylight in the streets, where ppl are ……… each other, and till not that long ago , there wasnt even an age restriction to who can attend, they put it up recently cause ppl complained , but its a public event so it makes no sence to have an age limit, anyhow what im trying to say is that ,in USA in SF it is allowed to have sex in the middle of a street during that event ,in broad daylight ,and not that long ago, any1 could attend as a guest/spectator.
Thats western civilization for ya.
Not to mention so many red light districts that are non resticted for any1 to see, so having these things in mind, why is nudism so odd comparing tho these things?
Of course that not every1 will be ever supportive to anything about anybody or anything in general .. i guess thats natrual.
To begin, while homosexuals are sometimes discriminated against, there are no laws against homosexuality except they couldn’t legally get married until now. There are plenty of laws against public nudity. Where I live if someone sees you and is offended by your nudity, they can have you arrested for indecent exposure.
It is a false freedom. You have to keep clothes by the door in case an unexpected guest comes to your door, you can’t have your blinds open, you can only do it in the privacy of your dwelling or designated nudist area, you have it hide it from some people.
You only have to hide it if you believe you do… But you’re right, it’s very location depended. Some countries are more inviting to nudity than others.
Does not being allowed to be naked all the time mean that we have a false sense of freedom? Then we could say the same about freedom of speech. Although we sometimes think we can say whatever we want to whomever we want, there will always be reasons not to. Sometimes we know it’s better not to say what we think and we’re ok with that. Sometimes we know it’s better not to be naked and be ok with that. That’s also freedom.
Freedom in naturism doesn’t exactly mean being able to be naked everywhere… Some experience a feeling of freedom when they put their clothes and their cell phone in a locker for a couple of hours. Is that false? We don’t think so.
The only limitations on speech is not making threats to harm someone and slandering someone.
Like I said before, what Nick and Lins are doing is unrealistic for most people. First, nudist areas in the United States are not cheap to visit. You are looking at $25-40 to go for the day and $75-90 to stay overnight.
If you aren’t able to go to places but on occasion, it is not very liberating. You have to be prepared for unexpected guests, you can’t have your blinds open.
Secondly, it is rarity that both people in a couple want to try nudism. In most cases at best the wife is reluctant.
Also, it’s isolating especially if none of your close friends and family aren’t nudists.
We don’t tell anyone that they should do exactly the same like we do. We just show the world what’s out there and if you want you can follow some, all or none of our recommendations. That’s up to you.
Nudism in the USA is indeed not as big as in Europe. The biggest nudist place we’ve visited catered for maybe 500 people. Only last week we’ve visited a resort in France that has 12 000 people per day in high season. And that’s not the largest one in the country. But nudism is gaining popularity and it’s certainly not a rarity that both people in a couple enjoy it. Over the last year we’ve met thousands of nudist couples. Is it isolating? Maybe in a way. But then again you gain a lot of other friends. Not all of your friends and family play tennis either, but do you get isolated if you’re an avid tennis player?
We wonder what you are trying to prove with this conversation. That we give people the wrong idea of what’s possible? Because clearly it’s not impossible as (obviously) we are doing it. We think that if people want to do exactly the same like us many do have the possibility. But you need to be willing to sacrifice. We don’t have big screen TVs, we don’t have a car, we don’t have expensive furniture and we certainly don’t have a house. Everything we own fits in two backpacks. But it’s a lifestyle we’ve chosen and which we’re willing to pay for.
40 dollars may be a lot of money to visit a nudist resort for a day, but if that’s really what you want to do, it’s not impossible. But it might mean you’ll have to sacrifice on other things.
Andrwe i totaly agree with the 1st part, but then again, isnt it like that for us textiles as well?
I cant go somewhere, well mostly anywhere cause i cant afford it, but that has nothing to do with the fact that im a nudist or not a nudist.
But when they say liberating, they ment the feeling and u can do it home as well, u dont need a resort for that, to me its more about that special quote ,when nude , we are all the same that bothers me the most ,cause that aint true.
As for the last part, well .. thats true too, but when u go to a vacation, u go cause of ur self, not cause of friends or family, so i dont think that has much to do with anything.. at least the way i see a vacation, is to get away from anybody i would know.
About the “being all the same” thing.
Last week we were at O’Naturel in Paris, the naked restaurant. By the time we had desert, more or less the whole restaurant was talking to each other. How many times have you seen that happen at a clothed restaurant?
We were naked, but we entered with clothes that have been seriously bleached by the sun from traveling. There were 4 colleagues next to us who apparently had entered in suits (we didn’t know that at the moment of course because they were naked as well). We doubt that we would have ever started talking if we had still been wearing our clothes…
Well that is cool, tho thb i dont see the point of it.
You do not know tho if those ppl already knew each other from before, i mean, i suppose non of them were there for the 1st time so … but ya,either way its cool but still that dont or wouldnt do much for me.
I agree with iceman that just because everyone is naked doesn’t make everyone the same. I attend a lot of sporting events and just because most of the people there are wearing something with the team’s logo doesn’t mean we are all the same. We are all different people, maybe we choose ignore the differences.
Another myth you keep promoting is that body is becomes de-sexualized when you are around other nudies. People can still think sexually about someone. A nudist can fall into sexual temptation just like a textile.
There are many nudist men that are on their third or marriage because nudism came between them and their spouse. It comes down to priorities. What’s more important, staying married or being a nudist? For me I would rather stay married. Having both parties in straight couple be into nudism is rare. I’ve done online dating for several years and not one time did I met a woman that was interested in nudism.
I guess Nick and Lins have more friends that are nudists then textiles. When none of your friends or family would support nudism it can be very isolating. I have to choose between being with my clothed friends and family or being naked by myself, if going to choose being with friends and family. Most of family or friends don’t approve of being naked except for necessary situations.
I highly doubt that nudists will make any significant changes. How many politicians have you talked to during your wanderlust? I haven’t read about any I don’t see politicians being convinced to completely legalize nudity. Some liberal states have allowed the use of marijuana. Companies still choose to not allow drug use – which means enforce their employees come to work dressed.
I don’t understand what you all get out of nudism. I’m not taking about your wanderlust, I’m talking about when you all are just at your home in Belgium. I’ve had periods where I’ve gone clothes free but eventually I would get bored with it.
Well Andrew , it depends.
Tbh 2 sides to a story.
Yes one has to choose if it comes down to it, family/friends or being into nudism or porn or swinging…
One can say with full rights, what kind of family is that if they dont love u unconditionally.. but then again,u can ask, do i have to love some1 even if im disgusted with what they do?
Both ways make sence, but whats the right choice then?
Would u say byebye to ur parents, brother kids, for being a nudist or porn actor, or enjoying the “lifestyle” ? Wouldnt that be kind of selfish?
But then again, u live ur life, not others ,u live for ur self, not others, u didnt choose to be born, some1 else did, so they have to “bare” lol , with what u are now, …. Nick Lins? Maybe an inspiration for a new blog? heh.