Naked Wanderings originated from the combination of our passion for travel and our passion for naturism. Which is not a weird mix, lots of naturist places around the world are vacation destinations. And many naturists prefer to spend their holidays clothes-free. This was how we felt as well. We wanted to explore the world, but we also wanted to fully enjoy our naturist way of living. It wasn’t all too hard to come up with the idea to make the search for naturist options around the world the quest for our upcoming travels.
The media likes to call us “the couple that travels naked around the world”. We get it, it’s catchy and sensational. When people read that headline, they want to read more about which place to go to (or to avoid) if they want to encounter two naked hitchhikers. Of course, that description is only part of the truth. If you read our blog or look at our Instagram, you can indeed see that we’ve been naked in many places around the world. What you don’t see is all the time that we need to spend with clothes on.
Our non-nude travels
Since Naked Wanderings is about naturism and naturist traveling, we don’t see much added value in writing blog posts about a great restaurant that we visited in Barcelona or how much fun we had at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, because those things have nothing to do with naturism. A certain part of our lives is very public, but this isn’t The Truman Show. We also do lots of stuff that doesn’t make the blog or social media.
Although Thailand has some amazing naturist resorts, we can’t just go to the country and not visit the impressive temples, not taste the amazing street food or not explore the northern jungles, just because we can’t be naked. We can’t go to Brazil and not visit Rio de Janeiro, just because the city doesn’t have a naturist resort. We can’t pass by Marseille and not stop for a pastis, just because the waterfront terraces are not nude-friendly.
One could say that we have two different lives. Our naked life and our clothed one. Our public life and our private one. An interesting side note here is that, unlike the large majority, it’s our naked life that is actually our public one. Before you think that we’re some kind of schizophrenic, what we do doesn’t feel like two different lives at all. In fact, both parts really go very well together. They actually stimulate each other.
Off the beaten track
As travelers, we love to see the highlights of the places we visit. Impressive architecture, ancient history, wonderful nature, gastronomy, you name it. But we also like to look further than the tourist’s eye. We like to explore the path less traveled, go to the villages and see how people are living and what keeps them busy. We want to see how things look behind the tourism curtain.
Naked Wanderings often helps us a hand with this. In many countries that we visit, the naturist places are well hidden and, especially if you travel by public transport, not all that easy to reach. When we visited Rincão Clube Naturista in Brazil, we had to take a bus that went on forever to some town, from where we needed to take an Uber for the last kilometers to the naturist resort. Our Uber driver told us that we were among the first non-Brazilians he had ever had in his car.
This happens everywhere. Bali is one of the most touristy islands around the world and can get very crowded. Yet the north-eastern corner of the island is somewhat forgotten territory. This happens to be the location of Au Naturel resort. When we walked out of the resort, we really got a glimpse of how a Balinese village looks that’s not yet polluted by tourism. If it wasn’t that we absolutely wanted to visit the naturist resort, we would probably have never made it to this part of the island.
Another way of traveling
When we plan our itinerary and look for new places to visit, Naked Wanderings always comes first. Our quest for finding naturist places is what keeps us going and it wouldn’t make much sense to pick a destination where nudity is absolutely impossible. But sometimes we end up in a gray zone. When we visited Sri Lanka, for example, we figured that social nudity wouldn’t be much of an issue. We had not done enough research, being nude was definitely not culturally accepted. This forced us to search for desolated places in nature and empty beaches where we could spend at least some time nude. And to search for private accommodations where clothing could be optional.
Our search for nude opportunities also brought us to plenty of activities that we may have never experienced if we didn’t have Naked Wanderings. We had nude Olympics games in the Amazon rainforest. Or the time when we did nude yoga in downtown Manhattan, with a view of the Empire State Building. Nude laser tagging in California, a communal shower at a temple, the list goes on and on.
Obviously, we wouldn’t have done any of those activities in the nude without being naturists. But we probably wouldn’t have done any of those activities at all. Who goes to a yoga studio when they visit New York? Who goes laser tagging during their road trip through California? Who plays games with a bunch of locals in the jungle of Brazil? Those opportunities just don’t come to you unless you have a very specific quest.
It’s always because of the people
Before we traveled to California, we had never heard about the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s one of the world’s largest hiking trails, crossing the USA all the way from the Mexican border to the Canadian one. During our first week in California, we hiked a small part of the trail. Completely naked. All of this thanks to Jeff and Grace, local naturists from San Diego who hosted us when we were there.
This is something we’ve learned a long time ago. If you want to get off the beaten track and have amazing experiences that you can’t find in the guidebooks, you need to make local friends. You need to listen to the people who live there. The difficulty is, how do you get in touch with the locals? Also here, naturism has played a big role in our travel experiences. Naturism is a small and very friendly community. At pretty much every place we visit, we meet other naturists. Sometimes other travelers, but many times also people from the region.
These people didn’t just give us tips for other naturist spots, they’ve given us also many recommendations. The best local restaurants, lots of cool places that you can visit for free, waterfalls that most tourists miss, you know, the local insights. Thanks to the many naturists that we meet around the world, our travels have become so much more interesting.
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I can’t help but comment that Rio de Janeiro, the state at least, does have a wonderful naturist beach, Praia de Abricó, with beautiful views of islands offshore, tranquility, and lovely people who frequent it (who have a society Anabrico). I have fond memories, even if it was the far side of the city from where I lived.
Naturist venues are often sited in less visited places, which makes visiting them a great way to see areas that one wouldn’t otherwise, and more importantly the different way of life, and communities, off the beaten track. Orienteering was a bit this way as well.
You are definitely right, we have visited Praia do Abrico. But when we did, we stayed in the nearest town: Recreio dos Bandeirantes. That’s a bit what we wanted to say, it would be weird to stay at a stone’s throw from Rio to visit the nude beach, but not move on for a couple of textile days in downtown Rio.
I should also mention some other, somewhat under the radar, sites in Brasil that are also amazing. Cataratas de Iguaçu (cormorant falls), on the Brasil/Argentina border, is worth a few days. Falls across miles, literally. And the world’s second largest hydro dam nearby, available for tours when I was there.
The Pantanal was unmatched. The car taking me there had to stop a dozen times on the way in for a “lifer”, some huge bird or animal that I’d never seen before. People have heard of the Amazon and it’s rainforest, which are quite nice, but often not this incredible place.
Yep, we visited both Iguaçu and the Pantanal too.
We’ve spent a lot of time in Brazil 😀
I wish I’d known when you were in Venice…I would have treated you both to (clothed) dinner.
Your point that this curated experience of your travels is not all of your travels, and that the community of naturists that you meet along the way opens you to a number of non-naturist joys, is a good one.
The truth of our lives is so much bigger than any one aspect of them.