How to make a Nude Beach Successful? Lessons from Ågesta (Sweden)

We went to Stockholm with the idea of making a video about all the nude beaches around the city. And there are quite a few. From our research, we learned that 6 were pretty solid on the “you can be naked guaranteed” front, and three others were a bit more uncertain. In the sense that we could find remarks from someone who had gone naked there, but it may have been a while.

The first beach we ticked off was called Svärdsön, at the coast of a fjord in the southeast of the city. The coastline was made of large boulders, from which you could get into the water if you were very careful. Not the most comfortable place, but the setting was really beautiful. Then again, we’ve been to very few places in Sweden where the setting was not really beautiful.

Let’s say the nude beach was fine for an hour or so. There was quite some sunbathing and trying to have a skinny dip. But we were not amazed. We’re very well aware that because of what we do, we are very spoilt when it comes to nude beaches, and if Svärdsön happens to be your go-to place, please don’t take this the wrong way. But we thought the city probably had something better to offer. So we went to Ågesta beach, and that changed our whole plan.

If there’s one thing our research pointed out pretty clearly, it’s that Ågesta is Stockholm’s most popular nude beach. When we read the words “popular” and “nude beach” in one sentence, we know the drill… This means we have to wake up early and get there before the crowds, if we want to shoot any video. That didn’t go 100% according to plan, but we made it to the beach close to 10 am. And it was crowded.

Thinking back, there weren’t really that many people, but Ågesta beach is diamond-shaped with a large grass field in the back that leads to a narrow sandy beach on the shore of Magelungen lake. Since there were already people on the beach and spread around the grassy areas, we did not have a single decent angle to film.

The vibe was fine, and it was more mixed than what we had seen at Svärdsön. There were couples and singles of all genders, but everyone was just doing their own thing. Let’s say it was an okay morning and we were thinking about our plan for the rest of the day. Video-wise, it would have been smart to just leave, check out a few other nude beaches around the city, and come back the next day early (for real, this time).

But since this beach was supposed to be THE nude beach of Stockholm, we decided to stay a bit longer because we really wanted to know what the fuss is about. It was still morning. Would the atmosphere change in the afternoon? Or did the lovely people of Stockholm just not know what a great nude beach is like?

From a sign near the entrance, we had learned that this nude beach has its own community called Naturistföreningen Eos. According to their website, they sometimes sell hot dogs, drinks, and cookies, but none of that was there at the moment. They also run a sauna on the beach, which was closed as well. Not really to our surprise, even the Swedes don’t do sauna before noon.

They are also often present at the beach, and can be recognised by an orange flag. We spotted them in the distance, two ladies chatting on the grass under the flag. While we were wondering if we should head over and introduce ourselves, “that guy” walked by. Again. Probably for the third time in less than ten minutes.

When we started paying closer attention, we could see that he kept walking the same route. Awkwardly close to the women on the beach, not even hiding his stare when he walked by. After a few of his rounds, he would disappear into the bushes. Now, we try to be careful with judging, some people just have a small bladder that needs emptying a few times per hour. But the fact that he already started wanking before he was totally gone kinda gave away his intentions.

Lins decided that instead of introducing ourselves, she would walk over to the ladies with the orange flag to notify them. And then it went pretty fast. The ladies walked over to “that guy”. He walked off to where his bag was, put on his clothes, and was gone. The beach felt more at ease, and maybe we’re imagining this, but we think we saw relief on the faces of other people as well.

We have been praising naturist beach clubs before on this blog, and this is yet another example of how they can really make a difference. Even though they don’t own the space, everyone recognises their authority, and they help solve annoying situations like the one we just had.

By that time, noon had passed, and more and more people started to arrive at the beach. While earlier, it had just been too crowded for us to film, now it was really getting crowded. The vibe was warming up too, people smiling, greeting each other, companies moving towards other companies to form a bigger company. The kind of atmosphere that’s rather common at naturist resorts but often a lot harder to find at nude beaches.

We enjoyed watching the change. We had come here to make some quick early shots in the morning to then move on to film other beaches. We ended up staying nearly seven hours and left because we were getting really hungry.

Before we left, one of the club members, who had now also grown in number, informed us that the next day, their yearly crayfish festival would happen on Ågesta. And that we were invited. Before we arrived in Sweden, we had no clue that anyone ever celebrated crayfish, but here this is serious business. It’s a social tradition that happens all around the country, and we already accidentally attended one when we were at naturist camping Paradiset. Then we had no idea what was happening, now we were prepared.

So the idea of this festival is that everyone buys buckets of crayfish. For non-Swedes, that’s a lot easier than you’d think, they just sell these in every supermarket. Then you get together, someone makes a huge fire, you grill, you eat, you drink. If you don’t like crayfish, it’s completely acceptable to bring any other food and put it on the grill. As we have no idea how to grill crayfish, we decided on bringing hot dogs. To keep at least one Swedish tradition alive, we ate our hotdogs with shrimp salad. Which is surprisingly delicious, by the way.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The idea was never to come back another day to Ågesta because we had other beaches to film. But these are the times in our life when we have to choose between content and personal life. Did we want to spend the next day rushing to nude beaches to make a video? Or did we want to have hot dogs with shrimp salad with a bunch of nice naked Swedes? We already gave it away, didn’t we?

The weather was nothing like what it had been the day before. Bright blue skies had changed to greyish clouds, and the temperatures would be described in many naturist circles as “Donald Ducking weather”. If you have no idea what that means, look up a picture of Donald Duck, we’re sure you can figure it out.

Yet, Ågesta beach was even more crowded than how we left it on yesterday’s sunny afternoon. There were people everywhere. Some were part of the club and already grilling whatever they brought to grill. Others happened to just be there. One person caused complete chaos by opening a can of surströmming (if you ever meet us, ask us about this, it’s a fun story). We moved to the grill, listening to people talk in a language we don’t understand a word of, and it was beautiful.

We won’t be able to present you with a video about the nude beaches of Stockholm, because we’ve only been to two and at Ågesta, we never managed to film a single shot. But we’re not sorry about it. Our time in Sweden was coming to an end, and these will likely be some of our best memories.