Since we started traveling full-time, back in 2017, not a year has gone by that we didn’t end up in France. Still, there are several French naturist venues that haven’t been crossed through yet on our bucket list. For long, La Jenny was one of these places, and year after year it moved more towards the top because people we met who had been at La Jenny before had nothing but praise. We just had to go there. In the summer of 2021, the time had finally come and we found ourselves driving through the sandy hills towards the entrance of La Jenny.
How to get to La Jenny
One thing is certain, you need a car to get to La Jenny as there are no bus stops or train stations anywhere near the resort. Most guests who visit from France or the neighboring countries are traveling with their own transportation. If you’re coming from the south, the road signs towards Bordeaux should be your main point of focus. For the northern countries, it might be more interesting to drive towards Nantes and travel south from there. Especially for visitors from the UK who take the ferry in Bournemouth, Nantes will be your direction.
But driving all the way is not a necessity. The city of Bordeaux is only an hour away from La Jenny and has both an international airport and a TGV (high-speed train) station. In fact, we were coming from Paris and the train ride only took 2 hours. If we’d driven, we would barely have been halfway in that time and by plane, we would probably still be waiting at the airport. So do consider traveling (at least a part of your journey) by train.
Both the train station and the airport have a variety of rental car offices. It’s always a burden to find the best car rental deals without getting overcharged with extra fees and insurances. We recently found an excellent website to help us with this: Orbit Car Hire. We’ve booked our rental car in France through them and can highly recommend their service.
Where to stay at La Jenny
La Jenny is one of the “BIG 4” naturist villages on the French Atlantic coast, completing the list of Arnaoutchot, CHM Montalivet, and Euronat. But there is one major difference with its southern sister resorts: La Jenny is not a campsite. Although the domain is about 127 hectares large, you won’t find a single camping pitch and it makes no sense to arrive with a tent or camper.
Interestingly, La Jenny is not a hotel either. It is a true holiday village that consists of many wooden bungalows in all different sizes but that are more or less built in the same style. This makes La Jenny unique in France and we dare to say even in the world.
The term “naturist village” has become quite popular in recent years and more and more resorts are calling themselves this. But they rarely have the real feel of a village. Yes, you can go to the restaurant and do your shopping naked, but which real-life village consists of mostly campsite pitches or has a huge hotel as its main town building? La Jenny is one of the few places where we actually felt like being in a village. Not the typical French village, but more like a secret village in the woods, almost a magical village. A place where like-minded people gather and where the dress code of the outside world just doesn’t apply.
Video Tour
What to do at La Jenny
When it comes to facilities and activities, La Jenny is very much comparable to the nearby naturist campsites. The central area has its typical swimming paradise with several pools and sundecks for those who are working on their tan or are looking for a welcome refreshment during the hot summer months.
Surrounding the pool area are the bar, the restaurant, a number of shops, sports facilities, and playgrounds. One of the highlights of La Jenny is, of course, its direct access to the Atlantic ocean with a designated nude beach. If you’re a beach person, you’ll love this part of France. While the Mediterranean coast is more popular, the Atlantic one is by far more beautiful. Endless coastline, a sandy beach that is more than 100 meters wide during low tide, the gentle waves of the ocean, and nothing surrounding it but dunes and pine forest.
Although the nude beach will be the main point of interest for many of the guests, there is one other thing that makes La Jenny really unique: Its golf course. La Jenny is the only naturist resort in the world that has an official golf course. We don’t know much about golf, but from what we see on TV it’s a sport that has quite a typical dress code. Well, not at La Jenny. Just like at the other facilities of the resort, the dress code at the golf course is also nude.
Around La Jenny
We only spent 3 days at La Jenny and never felt the need to set one foot outside of the resort. That is mostly because we had already explored most of the area before. If you have the time, we can highly recommend visiting some nearby places.
Just south of the resort, you’ll find the peninsula of Cap Ferret at the Bassin d’Arcachon. The sandy beaches, the surrounding nature, and the beachside restaurants will make you feel like you’re on a Caribbean island. Cap Ferret town is often called “the Saint-Tropez of the Atlantic, but with less decadence”. If you’re into seafood, you definitely want to visit Cap Ferret as it is the official oyster capital of France.
Another highlight in the region is the nearby city Bordeaux. It’s UNESCO World Heritage and the historical center takes you back to the early eighteen hundreds. Bordeaux is also one of the very few cities in France that has wineries inside the city center.
Talking about wine, the Bordeaux wines probably don’t need an introduction and you’ll find wine chateaux around every corner and behind every hilltop. This is what we recommend you the most: Enjoy the good life of France while you’re at La Jenny. The food and wines of the region are excellent and you’re likely to fall from one culinary surprise into another.
Staff of La Jenny
For resorts the size of La Jenny, it’s always difficult to give a general impression of the staff. First of all, because there are so many, and also because they are often invisible. We will definitely remember the friendly girl at the bar who was always up for a joke, the people at the gate who never failed to wish us a good morning, good afternoon, or any other greeting depending on the time of the day, and the receptionists who patiently answered all our questions (as bloggers, we always have more questions than most other guests).
But of course, there will be many more staff members who made our stay better in one way or another but with whom we haven’t been in direct contact.
Guests at La Jenny
We will be honest with you, we had heard rumors about the dress code before we came to La Jenny. Some of the long-time visitors had told us that the naturist paradise it once was had recently adopted more of a clothing-optional atmosphere.
We are happy to let you know that we noticed nothing about that during our stay. Maybe it’s because we visited La Jenny in September, right after the high season, but in our experience the one and only dress code was nude. There are many huge signs around the resort that encourage the guests to not wear clothes and you are allowed to be naked everywhere on the domain. Yes, that does include the restaurant, bar, and shops.
The majority of the guests seemed to come from France or the neighboring countries. We noticed quite a lot of Belgian and Dutch license plates and also the UK was very well represented.
Reservations & Contact
La Jenny has its own travel agency called La Jenny Vacances and this is also the main point for the bookings. You can contact them here:
✅ Their Website: https://www.lajenny.fr
✅ E-mail: [email protected]
✅ Phone: +33 (0)5 56 26 56 90
Summary
When we hear a lot of great things about a certain place, our expectations start to skyrocket and that is not always a good thing. But in the case of La Jenny, we found that the resort was even better than what everyone told us. We hope that with this review we have given you an insight into what La Jenny is, but we can also tell you that it’s impossible to completely describe the domain. La Jenny is one of those places that you actually need to visit to realize what all the fuss is about.
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A nude round of golf at La Jenny is on my bucket list. What they have at resorts like Cypress Cove and Lake Como don’t even come close.
LaJenny is Meandering Dan’s go to resort per his pontificate on his blog. Thanks for painting such a good picture of the place. However you did not mention if you have to speak French, as we have heard the French are not very accepting if Colonists that do not speak French?
The receptionists speak at least French and English, and probably some will speak more languages. Also the bartenders spoke English.
Since the visitors come from several countries around France, they too will often speak English.
We’ve been all around Paris (the epicenter of these rumors) and have never had any problems. This includes neighborhood restaurants outside the city center that don’t normally see any non-French speaking tourists at all. We do speak a little French, but soon reach our limits and people easily switch to English. We have been complemented on our French, which I know is just being courteous since my French is terrible. Mainly they are happy if you make an effort. It is the same with Italian in Rome, although my Italian is slightly better than my French due to four years of Latin study in high school applying more directly to Italian than French (when I can remember it at all!)
The French generally don’t appreciate it if you start a conversation in English. But if you first try to squeeze out a couple of words in French, they’ll be happy to help you. Even if that means switching to English at one point or another.
But there is a difference between a resort and the city. At a resort, people are being paid to make you feel comfortable and welcome. So they do speak different languages.
That’s a great review on La Jenny and very helpful. Although, as I have commented in other areas of your blog, that I am not really a resort type of person, I did have a look at La Jenny a while ago and may give it a try at sometime. What appeals to me is the size of it as well as it has accommodation which would fit in with how I like to enjoy nudity. Where possible I like to spend 24/7 in the nude and go for long walks completely nude, by which I mean not even carrying any clothing with me.
I like the idea of getting up in the morning, having tea or coffee and a little breakfast, then leaving and going for a long walk for several hours in the nude, not having to wear a stitch or carry one with you. On normal trips to the nudist beach, whether alone or with company, you can’t walk to the beach and back in the nude and it’s necessary for me/us to carry bags, however small, with some clothing and other items in. I like to have the freedom to walk out of the door in the nude, with absolutely nothing and walk 4 or 5 miles.
To fully understand the reasoning behind my desire to walk miles away from any of my clothes and other belongings in the nude you’d have to read a rather long story I’ve written about an experience one day. But to try and explain it in a nutshell, it’s a phsycological thing, you feel a little vulnerable, which makes you feel more nude and adds to the experience. Some nudists (including me) who shave (or use other methods to remove) their pubic hair say a similar thing, that having no pubic hair feels more nude.
Interesting that you’re telling all this… In the video we made about La Jenny, we will explore just how much you can do clothes-free at the resort 🙂
The video will be on YouTube on Sunday 31st, but you can already watch it on Patreon from Friday 29th.
Thanks, I’ll look out for the video and watch it.
I have been a nudist for a long time, spanning 7 decades, and I just feel that telling as much as I can about my experiences and reasons for preferring some aspects of it to others may put some things into context and also be helpful to some, especially newbies.
There are probably as many different reasons for being nudists and preferences on how to enjoy it as there are nudists.
Hi, Tim,
Is your long story posted here? (Or elsewhere?) A link would be great.
I’m sorry, no, it’s not posted anywhere at the moment. I’ll happily post it on here if that’s OK with the site owners.
We don’t publish any blog posts other than our own at the moment. But the comment section is yours 😀
Ok, so Nick & Lins have said it’s OK to post it in the comments. So here it is:
One of the best experiences I’ve had as a nudist was one day when my girlfriend and I went to the nude beach. We had travelled down the day before and stayed in a B&B. The following morning we were disappointed because outside the weather was overcast and there was light drizzle.
We had breakfast and checked out of the B&B then drove down to the car park at a holiday park by the beach where we always parked. The weather was still the same, overcast and raining light drizzle, but it was actually warm. I suggested going for a walk onto the beach but my girlfriend didn’t fancy it in the rain, however light it was. She said, “you go if you want to, I’ll sit here and read my book.”
So I decided that I wasn’t coming to the nude beach and not getting nude, rain or not, and I told my girlfriend I was going to go for it.
Even before we’d left the B&B we had both dressed for walking up the beach, which meant I was wearing a long rugby style shirt and nothing else. She asked me what I was going to do with the shirt when I got onto the beach. I immediately thought and responded, “I’m going to take it off now and walk to the beach in the nude from here!” My thoughts were, there wasn’t going to be anyone on the beach or between where we were parked and the nudist section of the beach, so it was unlikely that I would meet anyone. The car park was visible from the caravans on the holiday park 250m away at the nearest point and 500m at the furthest point, but I doubted anyone would be watching the car park. So, I pulled the shirt off over my head, gave my girlfriend a kiss, said, “see you in while!” and headed off, following a path through the dunes and onto the beach.
From the car park it’s 1km walk to where the official nudist section of the beach starts. The nudist section is 1km long and then it’s another 1.5km to where there is another camp site right next to the beach. That’s 3.5km/2.2 miles of beach. I walked the whole distance.
The sky remained overcast but the drizzle eazed off; the air was warm. There was no one on the beach except me for as far as I could see. I walked the 3.5km all the way to the far end of the beach, 1.5km beyond the boundary of the official nudist beach. The law in the UK is that public nudity is legal, so it wouldn’t really be a problem. But under normal circumstances it would be frowned upon by some to be nude on that part of the beach.
The most exhilerating part of this was that I was completely 100% nude, I didn’t even have any kind of footwear on, I was as naked as anyone can possibly be. I walked to the far end of the beach, 3.5km (over 2 miles) from my car, my girlfriend and my clothes. I had nothing with me whatsoever and it was the most amazing experience to be completely nude it was the most exhilerating thing.
Having reached the furthest point, very close to a non-nudist camp site, I went for a walk into the dunes. At the back of the beach is bank of high dunes and behind them is a whole area of dunes going back 1km at one end and 0.5km at the other, making an area of 215ha. You’re not actually supposed to go into the dunes for conservation reasons, but people do. After a good walk around paths around the dunes I returned to the beach.
I started on my way back along the beach. As I was walking, the clouds began to disappear and reveal blue sky. Before long the sun was beating down and in the distance I could see people emerging on to the beach. It did suddenly occur to me that I was going to have to walk 1km from the end of the official nudist beach back towards the car park and holiday park where I was likely to meet people coming to the beach now the sun was out.
But as I reached a point just after halfway along the nudist section of the beach I saw a something colourful blowing in the breeze in a gap between the dunes. It was my girlfriend folding a sarong. She had seen the better weather coming before I did and had come onto the beach with a bag full of things and was setting down in our usual spot. By the time I reached her she was slipping her dress off and getting naked. We spent the rest of the day there in glorious sunshine, nude and happy.
It’s difficult to explain how amazing an experience that was. Perhaps it was simply much more liberating than usual.
Hi,what you suggest for solo holidays ?
La Jenny is definitely a good choice for solo holidays.
Hi everybody!
As I am single, a (high handicap) golfer, german, but not bad at speaking french, and have finished working not long ago, I’m delibering to buy a chalet at La Jenny in which I can reside permanently. I spent a holiday there in the spring of 2001, so I do know quite well, what to expect from it. Now I have to check out some “behind the scenes” facts, decide, which type of chalet is best for me (maybe a Bengali, as it consists of a larger appartement for me and a smaller studio for having guests) and then try to find a decent offer.
Your YouTube report, Nick & Lins, gave me a little freshup. Bedankt ervoor!
Vriendelijke groeten,
Rainer
We hope that you can find a place at La Jenny, because we heard that they are in high demand.