Why a Nude Vacation is a Great New Experience

During the height of the COVID pandemic, nude vacations have seen significant growth. The reason was pretty obvious. People were looking for safe spaces to travel to, preferably somewhere in nature, where social distancing can easily be practiced, and where you can bring your own accommodation, food, and utensils. This is pretty much the definition of an everyday naturist campground. The fact that they would also have to leave the bathing suit at home was an element they happily agreed with if it meant that they would have a safe vacation.

A reason that was often neglected is that many people were also looking for a new experience. For the longest time, vacation experiences were measured in distance. Having the vacation of a lifetime often meant going to Thailand, New Zealand, or South Africa. Or if you happen to live in those countries, maybe it’s going to Spain or France. But now that planes were stuck to the ground and a one-week vacation could end up in a month-long horror story, everyone started looking for new experiences closer to home.

Theme vacations aren’t anything new either. For many decades, people have gone on cycling vacations or yoga retreats, they spend a week canyoning or dressing up like ancient Romans. The difficulty with most theme vacations is that they require a certain skill or interest, which may not always be there or shared with the family. This is where nude vacations are different.

Nude vacations require no skill or specific interest whatsoever, except for maybe a little guts to take that first step outside without a bathing suit or underwear. It’s literally something you can do together with your one-year-old kid and your ninety-year-old grandma. Being naked together has also been proven to strengthen connections between people. There’s nothing to hide, what you see is what you get.

As clothes-free resorts often focus on families, they regularly organise activities that are fun for all ages. If you’re not much into organised activities, just camping together can be a great experience on its own. Or you can just let your kids and grandparents run off to find friends their own age and enjoy some quiet time. Knowing that your loved ones are somewhere having fun nearby.

We all love comfort, so much so, that we don’t realise that it’s a real fun killer. Think about your last vacations, how many of your most memorable moments are about you dozing away in a beach chair? Except when something totally unexpected happens during your sunbathing session. Comfort is comfortable, but all the cool stuff happens outside of your comfort zone.

Society has taught us that certain body parts should be covered up at all times. Simply countering this idea is a huge step out of your comfort zone. It will boost all of your senses, you will see more, hear more, and feel more. You will be in the moment, feeling very alive.

We spent some time at Bagheera Naturist Resort in Corsica during the pandemic and saw many first-time naturists. We noticed the doubt on their faces when they were all set up and the time had come to drop their clothes. Then we saw the happiness in their eyes when they took the step and just like that created a lifelong memory.

Here’s an important tip for you: Enjoy this moment to the fullest. Yes, it may feel a bit uncomfortable, and yes, being fully naked among others may feel a bit strange. That’s all part of the deal. Later, when being naked feels much more comfortable than being clothed, you’ll wish that you can experience this first-time feeling once again.

Vacations are often meant to be an escape from everyday life. You leave behind your office, your kitchen, and your laundry room with the intention to not thinking about them again until you’re back. But there’s one element you can’t easily get rid of: You.

A lot of the stress we put on ourselves is our physical appearance. What will others think of me? Do I still look good in a bikini? Why did I quit that diet months ago? What’s the dress code for a night out in Buenos Aires? In the beginning, going fully naked might feel more stressful than all these other things combined, but once you’re at a place where everyone is in the same vulnerable state, you’ll quickly realise that you’re not better or worse than anyone else. You’re you. The only you.

Other than a naked one, we can’t think of a single type of vacation that can provide you with this level of de-stressing. A place where you can be truly you. Where next to your pile of paperwork, dirty dishes and overflowing laundry basket, also your personal doubts can stay at home.

Some people go on a nude vacation with the only goal of not wearing any clothes the whole time. If they packed anything, it returns home as clean as it left. Although this is a great way to spend a vacation, it’s a common misunderstanding that it’s the only way. Going on a nude vacation can easily be combined with other things you may enjoy, like sports, culture, or gastronomy.

Many people, including ourselves, often use nude resorts as a base to explore a region or country. During the day we visit beaches, go on hikes, or most often take a seat on a terrace and enjoy a bottle of wine and a tapas platter. In the late afternoon, we return to the resort for some sunbathing and skinny dipping or to have a chat with the other visitors. Unlike most other theme vacations, there’s no fixed schedule. You can completely work out your own itinerary, or no itinerary at all.

Nude vacations also often bring us to places that we might otherwise never have gotten to. Places that are not immediately in any Top-10 lists, but only show up on our radar because there happens to be a clothes-free resort. In our experience, places like this are often the most memorable. You can see the Eifel Tower, the Tai Mahal and Angkor Wat on the internet, but the warmth of a friendly local has to be experienced and is most often found where there are not many tourists.

What stops a lot of people from going on a nude vacation is that they don’t feel like a part of the community. They’ve read on the internet about the naturist philosophy and naturist values and think that it’s all a bit too heavy. You want to go on a vacation, not become part of a movement.

Some naturists will disagree with us on this, but we believe that nude vacations can be purely recreational. You don’t have to feel like a naturist, you don’t have to call yourself one, it’s totally fine to just enjoy being at clothes-free places.

What pushed us to visit a nude place for the first time, many years before COVID, was also because we were curious about this new experience. What kept us doing it again and again, was the comfort of being naked and not having to think about what to wear or think about wearing anything at all.

We never searched for the naturist values, but little by little, they found us. Today, many elements of the naked world, like respect for others, enjoying the moment, and body positivity, have found their way into our everyday lives. Even when we’re wearing clothes, we think as naturists. Although this was never the goal.