Our new Destination Clothes Free website is getting into shape. It’s been online for roughly a month (if you include the early access on Patreon), and many of you have already taken a few looks. Thanks a lot for that!
Some of you also had a few questions. Very fair ones, because we have made a few choices that are probably not that obvious at first sight. Why are we using the term “clothes-free” and not the obvious “naturist” or “nudist”? Who is this website for? Is it a blog like Naked Wanderings? And the one that everyone wants to know but few dare to ask: Are resorts paying us for a page on Destination Clothes Free?
Why clothes-free?
After a decade of blogging on Naked Wanderings, one of our main struggles has always been picking the right term. If you follow online discussions about social nudity, we’re pretty sure that at one point or another, you’ve ended up in a “naturist or nudist” discussion.
These labels are perfect for describing to the masses what we actually do, because they are so generally known. But many actual naturists or nudists have a strong preference for one term, and more often than not kind of dislike the other term. The use of “naturism” and “nudism” is also a geographical thing. For example, Europeans are more likely to call themselves naturists, whereas Americans lean more towards nudists.
What might have pushed us towards clothes-free the most though, is that we think that it’s more accessible for newcomers. “Clothes-free” can easily be applied to places (as in “a clothes-free resort”), but unlike naturism and nudism, it cannot be applied to people. You cannot be a clothes-free-er. Well, you could, but it sounds pretty weird. Our goal is not to put labels on people, our goal is to bring people to clothes-free places. If that makes sense.
What makes Destination Clothes Free different from Naked Wanderings?
One of the biggest differences is that Destination Clothes Free is not our personal story. Of course, you’ll see many places listed that we personally visited, because we have the experience and the information, and it would be strange not to use it. But unlike Naked Wanderings, Destination Clothes Free is not about our story, it focuses purely on information about places.
In fact, in recent years, a part of Naked Wanderings was already becoming a prototype for Destination Clothes Free without that ever being the goal. We just had a lot of information to share about places, and we wrote quite a few blog posts that had little to do with our own experience. At some point, we wondered if we actually needed a separate brand. Naked Wanderings is well-known and has a large audience. Couldn’t we make it more informational and less about us?
Two things kept us from rebranding Naked Wanderings. One is that we learned a while ago that we have two distinct audiences: those who are looking for information about places and those who are looking for our personal experiences. By rebranding Naked Wanderings, we would stop satisfying that second audience. The second thing is that Naked Wanderings doesn’t have the format we want for Destination Clothes Free.
Is it a blog, a directory, or what is it actually?
So what exactly is that format? Websites in our niche usually come in three different formats. There are location-focused websites like those of resorts or clubs, or a few slightly broader ones like Zipolite Mexico. Then there are the blogs like Naked Wanderings, and then there are a variety of directories that aim to show you as many different places as possible, usually organised by country or region.
We knew that we didn’t want to create another directory. There are already plenty of those, and keeping them up to date is nearly impossible.
It’s important to us that our information is easy to scan, because not everyone wants to know every single thing about a place. Maybe you’re just wondering about the facilities or how to get there, and this information has to be easy to find. So a blog was also not the right option. Eventually, we just built our own format. If we had to give it a name, we would say it’s a “travel guide platform”, but feel free to call it whatever you want.
Why does Destination Clothes Free feel more travel-focused than ideology-focused?
Naked Wanderings has maintained several different faces and voices over the years. Sometimes we’re your travel assistant, sometimes we’re the hippy aunt telling you about her wanderings across the globe. Other times, we were the politician, the historian, the lobbyist, or the ethicist.
Although we enjoy talking about all those different aspects, we decided that this is not what Destination Clothes Free should be about. On that platform, we will be your travel assistant. Nothing more, nothing less. For all the other things, there’s always Naked Wanderings.
Is Destination Clothes Free meant for beginners or experienced clothes-free travellers?
Our primary focus is on those who are somewhat experienced in clothes-free getaways. Maybe you’ve been to a naked sauna and want to know what else is out there or maybe you’ve been to every single place in Europe and are ready to get naked in another continent. The number of clothes-free experiences under your belt doesn’t really matter, but you need to be somewhat aware of what you’re getting into.
We did create a First Timer Section because we know that not everyone is aware of the full scope of clothes-free travelling (oh, if only we got a euro for every time we surprise someone with the fact that there’s more than campgrounds). Or because we may have some good tips about going to a nude beach that you haven’t heard yet. But don’t expect us to explain what non-sexual nudity is.
Can solo travellers use the site too?
We try to provide information for every clothes-free traveller, whether you’re a couple, a single, a family, or a group of friends. Whether you like mountains or beaches, camping or cruises. Not every place we talk about will cater to everyone though, so we’ll try to make it clear for whom each place is a good fit.
Have all the places on the site been personally visited by us?
At the moment, for 99%, yes. In fact, only the page about the nude beaches of Brac in Croatia contains info not provided by us but by our ambassadors Kasia and Kornel.
We visited A LOT of places during the last decade, and there are many more on our list. So you can expect that most places we cover on Destination Clothes Free will provide first-hand information from either ourselves or from people we trust.
How do we decide which places get featured?
We really only have one rule: The places need to be interesting to the clothes-free traveller. We know that the small cove you use as your personal nude beach behind the corner may be the best in the world for you, but if it’s not interesting for visitors from another country, it will probably not appear on Destination Clothes Free.
Similar for clubs with tight application procedures. We have no doubts that some of those are great clubs, but the average traveller doesn’t go through a pile of paperwork and weeks of interviews before going on a vacation. The same for meetups at people’s homes, etc.
Every person is different, and you are welcome to disagree with our strategy. This is just the focus we decided on.
Why are there so many European destinations compared to other regions?
When we were making lists of all the places we visited, and that deserve a spot on Destination Clothes Free, it’s fair to say that we were a bit… overwhelmed is probably the right word. There’s a lot. And creating all these different pages takes time. So we decided to create them in phases.
As summer is just around the corner in the northern hemisphere, it’s logical that we focus on these destinations first. And since we don’t have much about North America, there’s a lot coming up about Europe right now. But no worries, we will expand to many other parts of the world in the coming months.
Can readers submit destinations or reviews?
Our goal is to provide quality and correct information, but we don’t think that we need to be the only provider of that. We’re not that vain. So we very much welcome Ambassadors. What that means is people who regularly travel to clothes-free destinations and can provide us with information and content.
We are not looking for single travel logs and reviews. Everyone’s opinion matters, but we prefer to work with a small team rather than just have people create individual pages.
Are the resort pages sponsored or independent?
At the moment, no. Nobody has paid us anything to be on the Destination Clothes Free website, and this will remain the same for quite a while to come. Of course, at one point, we would like to make some money for the work we’re putting into this, but that will be more in the form of banner advertising or other paid marketing services than for resort profiles. Because we want to keep a high level of quality and correct information.
Can I trust the beach information to still be accurate?
The problem with every directory website is that they all start with relatively decent information, but from there, the quality goes down because things easily change over time. The nude beaches of today may not be the ones of tomorrow. Resorts and clubs change owners who may do things completely differently. And so on.
Of course, to some degree, the same will happen to Destination Clothes Free as well. We wish we could visit every place every single year to get an update, but that’s just not possible. Therefore, many pages have a “last verified” line, showing the month and year when we or one of our ambassadors was there last. Because the month is also shown, you get an idea of what a place is like during a specific season, because that too can differ.
This covers most of the questions we received. Hopefully, it gave you some insights into how Destination Clothes Free works and what you can expect from it. Our goal is simple: To help you have the best clothes-free vacation possible. Enjoy!
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I have always loved being nude but there has always been a shame element to it. But this year, the shame just went away and I have embraced nudity. I have came across a few nudist websites and they are very interesting. I love your website and enjoy the content. Love it!!
Thank you very much!
It sounds like you are now having different websites. I am very interested in hearing about different locations and their attitudes.
Thanks, your advice is always helpful.
You’ve never visited “L’Île du Levant.” Is there a particular reason, or have you never ended up there?
Bracco
We haven’t yet, but it’s on the list!
Hi my wife and I really embrace the naturist lifestyle visiting probably the usual places a lot do in Spain/ Canary Islands so we find your YouTube channels very entertaining and informative, so my question is, what has happened to the Nick and Lins YouTube channel apology if you have explained this somewhere and we have missed
Last winter, we weren’t traveling much so we couldn’t make any long Nick & Lins videos. Instead, we focused on our Destination Clothes Free channel and on creating short videos on Nick & Lins (https://www.youtube.com/@NakedWanderings/shorts). Now we’re back on the road, but we aren’t sure yet of which direction we’ll take our personal youtube channel.