While certain changes of plans are not uncommon when you’re living a traveling life like ours, the last 15 months have been by far the strangest ones of our lives. Absolutely nothing went according to plan. We had to escape Cuba just hours before the island would close its borders, then we got stuck in Mexico for three months, then things got a bit better and we went on a camping trip through France, but by the time it was over, the virus took the upper hand again and new lockdowns appeared everywhere around us.
Just before Belgium would implement a complete travel ban, we managed to flee to Spain. We arrived in Alicante and hoped to travel south from there, maybe even all the way into Portugal. But the Spanish government decided otherwise and closed the provinces. Today, we are still at less than 50 kilometers from the airport where we arrived almost 6 months ago. North of it, in fact. The only time when we went south of the city was to celebrate Nick’s birthday at Finca Pura B&B.
Never waste a good crisis
When your whole life plan is based on the idea of traveling from one place to another, it’s quite a shock when that suddenly stops. We were like “now what?”. How can we keep holding on to our quest to travel to naturist places around the world and talk about them online, when there are no places to go to anymore?
Well, that is not exactly true. There have always been options. We could have boarded a plane back to Mexico, or to a handful of other countries that still allowed travelers. But that just didn’t feel like the right thing to do. Instead, we started thinking about new ways to talk about naturism than blog posts and Instagram pictures.
We had been messing around with videos before, meaning that we merely created crappy slideshows of the pictures we took. Then, at the start of the pandemic, we launched the Virtual Resort Visits. When nobody could travel, we asked resort owners to show us around their place with a short video. Later, we gave birth to the Nudist News Show, where we talked about fun news facts that were related to naturism. And we started doing video podcasts with naturist resort owners, called the Naturist Resort Sessions, to learn about their experiences.
The Virtual Resort Visits were a huge success and on the Naturist Resort Sessions, we regularly received the remark that viewers had hoped to see a bit more of the resort. This made one thing very clear: There is an interest in videos about naturist destinations. This could be the next big step for Naked Wanderings. Next to writing about places and taking pictures, we could make videos as well. Welcome to the Naked Wanderings Vlog.
Naked Wanderings 2.0
Another issue we started struggling with was that it started to feel as if we were continuously telling the same stories to the same people. Along the way, we managed to gain many dedicated readers who enjoyed our naturist travel stories and our visions about naturism in general. But with traveling being reduced to little to none, so did our travel stories. And for the general naturist blogs, we more and more lacked inspiration and new insights.
We started wondering, if we would be long-time followers of Naked Wanderings, would these blog posts still be as appealing to us as they used to be? Back in the day, we started Naked Wanderings to provide the information that we personally, as young naturist travelers, couldn’t find online. Today, it feels as if we are drifting away from that idea.
Of course, much of this has to do with the pandemic. If we can’t travel, we can’t share travel experiences. And when all of this is behind us, we will hopefully be able to start traveling again (in fact, we’re already quite sure about it, but that is something for the next blog post). But it made us think about the concept of “the traveling naturist”. We are not the kind of traveler who lays naked next to the pool all day. We love spending time at naturist places and nude beaches, but we also like to absorb cultures, try the local cuisine, enjoy art and nature. Even if that requires us to put some pants on.
On our blog, it would be ridiculous if we would start publishing blog posts about the best things to eat in Rio de Janeiro, the historical treasures of Florence, or our favorite temples in Bangkok. But we do see this opportunity with video. In our video about Villajoyosa, for example, we take you to the nude beach but also to the colorful town and introduce you to the local – very delicious – seafood. And we feel that this is exactly what the younger versions of ourselves would have appreciated as well (and so would the current and probably future versions too).
Connecting the dots
Naturist destinations aren’t the only important thing though. The main reason why we are still on this journey is that we believe that we haven’t experienced every possible aspect of naturism yet. When we started in 2017, we had this European idea that naturism is better than nudism and that naturists only camp. Because of our travels, we’ve seen so many different angles of this story. We’ve talked with so many people who showed us that things can be different than how we think they are. And that they are equally amazing.
This will remain to be an important red line of Naked Wanderings: How naturism is experienced around the world. It will be more difficult with video, many naturists don’t mind if we write down their story and publish it under a possible fake name, but appearing on camera is a whole other thing. We’ll see how that works out.
And we also want to explore the other things naturists care about. In our recent blog post about whether naturism could become a trend, we mentioned the connections with many other aspects in life like mindfulness, eco-awareness, and sustainability. We would like to move away from just the being naked thing and get a grasp of the whole possible concept.
Your Naked Wanderings
The scariest part of it all is that, even though we may think that we have amazing new ideas, it all depends on you. If you think that our newly gained visions are pure baloney, we’ll end up talking to a big black hole in the world wide web. And we, obviously, don’t really want that.
So we would appreciate it if you’d share your thoughts in the comment section of this blog post. Do you think that Naked Wanderings 2.0 is a good idea? Do you think that we should just be doing what we’ve done all this time? Do you think that video is the best or worst idea ever? Should we focus on naked places and nothing else or should we expand our vision? Do we really need to care about what other naturists think or just promote our own ideas?
We are not Naked Wanderings, we are just Nick and Lins. Everyone who has been inspired by our writings in any possible way is part of Naked Wanderings. So your opinion is as valuable as – if not more than – ours.
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You guys have always been able to keep your blog fresh with new ideas and/or new angles on old ideas. I think you have to keep changing and exploring new areas in order to keep it fresh and always have something new to present.
I think videos are a good idea, but would personally not like the written blog posts to stop in favour of video.
I say try new things. If they’re popular keep them going if not kill them off, treat them as a failed experiment and move on to the next one. I’m
Sure you’ll have more hits than misses
Thanks a lot for your feedback Stephen, and don’t get us wrong, the blog isn’t being put on a sidetrack. One of the reasons why we want to do more video is to have a platform to try out new angles without having to change the concept of the blog.
We (extended multi-generation) nudist family going back to the 1950’s , rate your efforts at a 9 out of a possible 10. Only criticism is the rare piece of hypocrisy, green anti-carbon rhetoric while globetrotting. We do fully support travel and discovery.
Thanks a lot for the feedback, Francine. And you’re absolutely right that our ideas for a greener world definitely not always fit with our globetrotting lifestyle. We’re always trying to find a balance and search for ways to reduce our ecological footprint. But things like planes are unavoidable in what we do and we’re well aware of the consequences of those.
I’ve been watching your videos recently in Spain and find them very valuable since my family and I would certainly be going to those naturist venues or beaches. And, as you mentioned, we would want to put on some pants and explore the region. Focusing solely on the venues would not be enough of a draw to pack up and go there. It would be quite disappointing to arrive and realize that the only thing to do around there is to stay at the resort itself.
If you create a travel blog that gives all of the information about what to do within a certain radius of the venue, that would be very valuable information. Since we would be researching those things independently if we watched a video of yours about a resort or beach that interests us, having it all in one place would be helpful to us and others I am sure.
If your videos had more practical information with restaurants, cultural events, or other relevant information with opening times, costs, and links to the business or organization, this would be super helpful.
Thanks a lot for the feedback! We think that it will be very important to find the perfect balance between being informative enough for those who are actually planning to visit one of the places that we blog/vlog about, while not becoming too boring for those who just like to watch beautiful places or who want to follow our journey.
I think this is a wonderful idea. As the world opens back up you are helping people to make travel plans. By blending many aspects of travel you also make being bare at times as part of the travel “normal”.
Let’s make it clear that it isn’t us against them. It is just that there are things to enjoy naked and others clothed.
Exactly! That’s how we feel as well.
Hello, this is my first time leaving a comment, but I have been following the two of you for some time now. Your blog is the first I have followed as it relates to nudism. You have a gift and have explained nudism to me in ways I did not understand before. Thanks to you, I have opened up more with my wife and obtained a deeper understanding of why I enjoy being naked so much.
With that said, I have two suggestions. First, your blogs are extremely helpful for new and perhaps experienced nudists. I found that you explained nudism and certain principals in far better ways than I can. I often shared blogs with my wife so that we can communicate better and she can understand why I like being nude. Often, I would read a blog and tell myself that is exactly how I feel, but just couldn’t understand why before. So, I would like to see more blogs aimed at couples and new nudists. Perhaps the phycology of being nude and how it impacts couples. What benefits couples have and the best resorts for couples.
Second, I was just listening to a podcast today and it was talking about thinking outside the box. They gave an example of someone who would read an hour a day about different industries. This person was in the fast food industry and eventually visited grocery stores, warehouses, and eventually ended up at a bank to learn how they run their business. At the bank, he noticed they had a drive-through and that is how he had the idea to install a drive-through at his burger joint. So, I would suggest to look far outside the box and great ideas will come.
Hi Juan, thanks a lot for your comment! What you write is exactly one of the goals of Naked Wanderings: making naturism more accessible and easier to understand.
We’ll definitely keep focusing on providing interesting insights for beginning naturists and also for couples, singles, etc.
You’re absolutely right that thinking outside the box is extremely important. This is kinda what we mean by “connecting the dots”. It’s gathering ideas from many other aspects in life and see whether we can or cannot implement them in our own lifestyle.
I’d suggest (although it means more work for you) that in addition to posting censored videos to YouTube, that you put uncensored ones on Vimeo. With the blog, you can link to both and see what kind of traffic each one sees. I watched a bit of the video on the Spanish nude beach, and the censoring pixelation over the buttocks was very distracting. Having to censor simple nudity also detracts from the theme of the blog.
Hi Roger, we’re currently looking into possibilities to also provide uncensored content, but it’s not as easy as it seems. We’re currently struggling with 2 main issues:
1. Most other platforms are paid. Including Vimeo, if you want to post regular videos, you need to pay a monthly fee.
2. Upload times can be long. At this very time, we’re uploading a video to Youtube and in total it will take more than 4 hours. And we’re on a DSL connection. This is because we like to work with high quality.
If we need to upload the uncensored version as well, we’re looking at double upload times for each video.
Any business has to keep expanding and tweaking their product to stay alive even if it means rebranding. So I want to say I really appreciate your work so far and I support your thoughts about moving in slightly different directions. I am a member of Bare Oaks in Canada but I started my nudist/naturist journey at Orient Beach in St. Martin. Learning about nudist venues in other places in the world is fascinating to me and gives me ideas about where to visit in the future. But like yourselves, being a multi-dimensional person means that I will enjoy exploring parts of those places where one has to be clothed.
That’s interesting, we learned (and still learn) a lot from Stéphane from Bare Oaks. He has also managed to keep Bare Oaks a genuine naturist place, while constantly modernizing.
I say “go for it”! You’ve done excellent work so far, and I look forward what you will be offering next!
Abrazos,
Gerardo
Ditto. Your instincts have been very good so far. You should trust your instincts as you move forward. And most of all, you should do whatever you enjoy.
Thanks a lot Gerardo!
I’d love if you managed to build a community, with a forum and maybe member profiles that would hopefully not end up swarmed by bots and sad men pretending to be ladies, like they usually do.
A place for naturists from all over the world, especially the younger generations, to exchange views, tips and ideas.
Actually, that community already exists, it’s called NaturistHub.com 😉
How do you get invited to join NaturistHub.com?
You need to be invited by an existing member 🙂
It is a good idea as becoming Naturist oriented post retirement we have discovered many naturist beaches as part of our travels as may stay at a naturist venue for a few days. In Mallorca we stay at on place as a base and they gave guidance on the naturist beaches and point of interest in the district. We like to wander and experience the local culture than just stay around a pool. So a broader approach would be good
Thanks for the feedback Marcus!
My opinion is that while video is good, I agree that censoring them or constantly keeping it from head to shoulders is distracting. I perfectly understand why you’ve done it this way up until now, but if you’d venture into more videos of you interviewing others or showing the fun at each destination, I think you’d have to show it unfiltered.
It does sound like the Vimeo fee would be an obstacle. But on YouTube, they do allow nude content while being tagged “age restricted”. Is there any way you could release a censored AND uncensored version of each video on YouTube? I don’t know if that would look or seem repetitive for you, or if it would translate into too much work, but it’s just one idea I have.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’ve been a nudist in Wisconsin for a couple years now, and I am 100% immersed in the culture. Your blog has helped.
YouTube has been quite a pain in our censored behinds lately. Here’s the thing, when videos are age-restricted, you can’t put advertising on them. And advertising is the only way for us to earn some money with our videos. If we don’t have that, we just can’t afford to put all that time into creating a video.
We could upload the same video twice, once with censorship and once without. But then we’re running into the issue with double upload times. And also, Youtube doesn’t like age-restricted videos because they can’t earn anything from them either. So these videos are actually just a cost for YouTube. If these videos become popular and get thousands of views, they become a really big cost for YouTube. And then it’s quite likely that they just kick us off the platform. As what happened to Hector Martinez and Topless Topics (among several others).
In my opinion you two are doing exactly what the naturist organizations should be doing. Profiling and promoting naturist places, the surrounding areas, sharing stories of naturists to personalize the experience.
Thank you for stepping in to fill a void left by others. I hope you find it rewarding & successful.
Thanks a lot for your support Phil!
Hi Nick and Lins,
I have been following your blog for over a year and I think you do a fantastic job. On the subject of video uploads I produce my videos in 720p format ( SD) and find this very suitable for uploading to You tube. I think its very easy to go overboard on definition when it is not really needed. Probably most people view your blog on smartphones so the screen size is small. Even on a reasonable size tv 720p is acceptable. The file size is only 1/4 of the equivalent 1080p (HD )
John
Thanks for the tip John!
We’ve been reading up a lot on video formats lately, and some voices are saying that with fastly improving technology, 1080p is the best chance to keep your videos relevant for quite some time to come. Many believe that at a certain point, youtube will start favoring 1080p over 720p in the search results and recommended videos.
Ik enjoyed your blogs very much in the previous years, they helped me to adopt naturism. Thank you for that!
For the future I would love it if you could devote more attention to possibilities for clothing optional activities and places, suitable for couples where one partner is not a naturist. Possibilities for and experiences with naturist happenings and activities (nude art, cycling, gardening, hiking, and whatever can be done naked) might also provide interesting topics. Please also continue with your musings, these and the subsequent discussions are very interesting and useful.
Personally I find it not so convenient to watch videos, I prefer written articles.
Thanks a lot for your comment, Jo! We definitely also want to focus more on naturist activities outside of the naturist resorts, or that are not as common as the default volleyball (or dare we say petanque) tournament.
We’ll definitely continue creating articles because we know that many people prefer written content, whereas many others rather have visual content. By combining the blog and the vlog, we can provide to both.
Howdy Nick & Lens!
We enjoyed our brief visit with you at NUDE before the world was thrown off it’s center. Hopefully, we can cross paths again in another exotic, nude friendly locale.
I love your new video format, bringing a fuller perspective to naturist travels. I especially like your inclusion of other established nudist/naturist people and organizations to your informative and varied outlets. There are an endless supply of others out there sharing your passion for normalizing naturism.
I don’t have any substantive criticism or improvement ideas. I just want to reinforce the support you have received here and let you know how much we appreciate you.
~Safebare
Thanks a lot for your support, Michael!
Hi Naked Wanderings…
I suggested days ago in twiter to you to make a journey around spain discovering many wonderful nudist beaches we have in Spain, but then I didn’t know anything about your evolution to a post-pandemic world, neither your trip to Italy.
I prefer to share my minds, and i try to imagine one of my trips from a nudist perspective. For example, I greatly enjoyed some weeks in New Zealand years ago, and all my nudist activity was a couple visits to a nudist beach. But I can’t imagine myself hiking in Tongariro alpine cross, or in a glacier in Alps NZ, or in Hobbiton, or diving in Poor Knight Island, or watching pinguins during the night, or crossing to north island in a vessel, and so on, naked. It was an oustanding trip, with my few nude moments too. So, it seems to me a utopia to do a trip like this focusing in the nudism, and more in a world full of intolerance.
Good luck with your choices. Regards
Thanks a lot for your comment, Rafael!
What you’ll be seeing on our youtube channel (or have already seen), is basically how we’ve been traveling for the last 4 years. We’ve always combined naturism with other cool things to do in the places that we visit. But on our blog, we only wrote about the naturist part. With our youtube channel, we also want to include some of the clothed things we do. Because they’re also often very fun and interesting and we think that people will appreciate that we share those as well.