Monday, December 24, 2012

Destinations: Argentina and Uruguay

Brazil is better known for hedonistic tendencies, but it's not the only country in South America that has possibilities for vacationing naturists. Argentina and Uruguay both have a few venues to offer.
Let's start with Uruguay: A small Spanish-speaking country sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil, it's best known for Punta del Este, the resort city fronting on the Atlantic, which has gained a worldwide reputation for being a party center. Not surprisingly, among its many beaches, it has an officially nudist one: Playa Chihuahua. Nudist Day hasn't been to this beach, but it's on the to-do list. If the photos are any indication, it's a winner, despite the proximity of the Punta del Este airport.

Argentina also has just one legal nude beach, Playa Escondida (Hidden beach), located south of Mar del Plata. The official website is at 
http://www.playaescondida.com.ar/, but again it's only in Spanish. The country also boasts several rustic landed clubs, mostly located around Buenos Aires, the capital, and one particularly large [in acres] club near Cordoba [Yatan Rumi] that will surely please nature buffs [pun intended].
Buenos Aires is a huge, cosmopolitan city, and therefore boasts some avant-garde events, such as nude Yoga classes [
http://www.yogadesnudo.com.ar/], and a nude photo art group that stages shoots in public places [http://urbanudismo.com/].

Note that both countries are located in the southern hemisphere, so the seasons are reversed. To get there during their summer, plan to visit from December through March.

Destinations: Naked Canary Islands

The Canary islands are a group of seven big volcanic islands off the coast of Morocco. They're part of Spain, a country where public nudity is protected by its constitution. The islands have countless official nudist beaches as well as several naturist communities.


 The most nudist venues are located on the islands of Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, and Tenerife. The Maspalomas naturist beach on Gran Canaria is world reknown. One place that boasts the most nudist beaches of any in the world is El Medano, on the island of Tenerife. Better known for its surfing and unspoiled by tourism, it has a huge clothing optional beach, "La Tejita" to the south, and another large one, "La Pelada", to the north, that's surrounded by spectacular rock formations. Add to that several other smaller nude beaches, a beautiful surfer town with a boardwalk, and the incredible backdrop of the huge mountain complex, "El Teide" and you have an unforgettable holiday. You can even climb the 300 ft red volcanic cone that so identifies the town, and do so naked! 

Not all is perfect, however: the area is infamous for its strong winds, so some beaches are miserable on some days, and the water can be quite cold in the winter. Traveling to Tenerife is normally done by connecting via Madrid. Flight time is around 3 hours, and Tenerife is minus one hour from Greenwich time.

Of Things NOT Nudist

 Let's get one fact straight: Nakedness alone does not make a nudist! Were it not so, the entire human race could be classified as nudist!


There's a few things that get passed-off as nudist and definitely aren't. For example, the Hedonism II and III resorts in Jamaica aren't nudist venues, even though you often see them mentioned by nudist websites. True, nudists are free to go there, but the resorts are all about sex. Sexual behavior and acts happen openly there. The last thing the nudist community wants is to be associated with such things, lest we give ammunition to the right-wing fanatics who are constantly vying to put an end to our lifestyle.

Businesses like the one on State Highway 19 in Florida near New Port Richey, called the Oasis, who claims to promote the nudist lifestyle and is in reality a club for titillating males: Shapely naked females attendants keep male patrons company for a fee, and for yet more money will get them in a room. This is an affront to all nudists!

The Ponderosa Sun Club in Roselawn, Indiana, is not a nudist club, despite being portrayed as such by the media. This is the location of a yearly "beauty" contest, whose contestants are often porn stars. Fully dressed depraved men from all over the US pay to attend this event and are allowed to snap pictures. This sort of publicity nudists don't need!

Then there are the countless shameless clubs that mix the swinger lifestyle with ours,  where "anything goes". Lastly, there are all too many websites who pay lip service to nudism, yet you find erotic and pornographic content either directly on the sites or links to such content.

We could go on for many pages, but the point of this exercise was to signal to you that our lifestyle is often hijacked by unscrupulous profiteers who have little respect for us. Of course you shouldn't encourage them by giving them your business, but you should also protest loudly wherever and whenever you can, because our lifestyle is being misrepresented. Politicians, the media and the public at large don't know the difference between nudists and these losers unless we tell them!

Things you can do Naked: Everything!

Okay, you can do almost everything naked! Obviously, handling nuclear fuel rods or deadly Ebola virus while nude would be rather unwise! 

This author, like many naturists, has gone to the gym naked, had dinner nude in a fine restaurant, cycled in the buff, hiked up a mountain au naturel, gone shopping starkers, and so on. Then again, I spend most of every day without a stitch of clothing on. Clothing is uncomfortable and quite suffocating, so wearing something is only when I'm forced to, usually because I'm moving through the world of the textiles! I envy the Naked Rambler, but I never want to find out what it's like to be jailed, even if I was the Naked Convict! 

Just about everything that could be done clothed can also be done nude. Why, some go as far as performing winter activities whilst unclothed. I'm not going to be anywhere cold, so I won't be joining that club any time soon! If this world wasn't hampered by shame, nudity would be acceptable in any circumstance. It would be a matter of choice and personal comfort. 

Few can argue that there are many scorching days where being naked is the only way one can be comfortable, and certainly wearing a swimsuit makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe a more advanced society of the future will change all this. After all, shame isn't logical.

At the Nude Yoga Class in Buenos Aires

T'was on a cool day in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that my female companion and yours truly decided to attend a nude yoga class. It wasn't so much a passion for yoga that led us there, but more because nudist activities are reduced to a minimum in cold weather, and we also wanted to experience the phenomenon that's been sweeping several continents.


Nude yoga is really just yoga without clothes, nothing more, much less! I would argue it gives you more freedom of movement to practice this discipline while nude, as I've found working-out in the gym sans-clothes. The big difference is that in yoga, many positions will prominently display your genitalia. What we soon found-out is that everybody is so busy executing the movements demanded, nobody is paying any attention to anybody else anyway!

This was to be a very small class of just us two and the professor, Eduardo Ferrara, who, by the way, is the gent who maintains the only nudist portal in Argentina, sernudista.com. He offers nude yoga classes throughout the week, some just for men, others mixed and then some just for couples, as well as private classes, as was our case.

Eduardo greeted us at the door of an apartment building in the heart of the city and took us up to a small, unfurnished apartment with the requisite Oriental music and incense. He informed me that he only uses this location for the classes. He led us to a closet in a corner of the room and instructed us to hang our clothes there. We promptly stripped and each sat on a tatami covered with a towel which had arranged at the center of the room. He then appeared, nude of course, dimmed the lights and posted himself on another tatami at the back of the room, facing toward a wall.

We first began with relaxation exercises, and then after a while, he turned the lights up and we got to more complex (and sometimes painful!) positions. We ended the hours course with exercises for couples, which was a nice touch.

The cost of the course was only about 13 US dollars for both, and we both left happy with the experience and intend to take more classes with Eduardo when we visit this magnificent capital again. He does speak a bit of English, by the way, although his website is only in Spanish (http://www.yogadesnudo.com.ar)

I should point-out that this was my companion first experience in social nudity and she took to it like a veteran. This suggests to me that this may be a good way to introduce someone to nudism!

Photographers of the Naked Masses


Most folks, especially those of the nudist persuasion, have heard of Spencer Tunick, the American photographer who has managed to get groups of several thousand volunteers in cities all over the world to congregate at dawn in sometimes frigid temperatures to pose together for his camera. Most compositions require that complete strangers be close together, even touching, yet no one complains, as it's seen as a privilege to participate in one of Tunick's artistic "installations", as he himself refers to them. Organizing one of his massive events is complicated but does generate a considerable amount of press coverage and garnered him a worldwide reputation as an avant-garde artist.

Tunick is by no means the only photographer of "mass nudes". Not as well known, but also a celebrated artist is the German Henning Von Berg. He too takes his camera to the four corners of the world, cities actually inviting him to use their communities as the backdrop for one of his compositions. Unlike Spencer, however, his work does not involve as many people: For Von Berg, a half-dozen models is plenty. Also, Von Berg is a nudist, and that's actually how he found his vocation.

From our perspective, nude art is a celebration of the human body and a rejection of shame. These artists have succeeded in bringing it into the mainstream. Let's hope the public doesn't tire of this artform as they did of the endless rash of nude charity calendars!

Nudism in Thailand


Thailand has two thousand of mile of coastline, including countless secluded beaches, a tropical climate and a culture that's not  puritanical. Sounds like a place where nudism could thrive, doesn't it? That's what Bruce Kendall, founder of the Thailand Naturist Association is hoping for.

Kendall's group was launched in 2007 and is struggling to draw tourists to Thailand as a naturist destination. There's only 3 properties listed on the association's web page, including one, Chan Resort in Pattaya, a city on the gulf of Thailand just over a hundred miles from Bangkok, which doesn't appear to be functioning as of yet. Another has a very similar name, Chan Twin Resort, also in Pattaya, which leads us to suspect the owners are the same people. Finally, one can rent a single villa on Phuket Island where its seclusion allows for unfettered nudism, albeit not socially.

Reading the very few comments of visitors to Chan Twin Resort on Travel Advisor, including one from Kendall himself, we're not sure what to make of this as a nudist venue: two people comment that there are cameras everywhere on the property, a definite no-no where nudists are concerned, even if a reply by the resort's owners claims that said CCTVs are unobstrusive.

All in all, we do hope that Thailand grows as a nudist destination, and it already offers an option for Asian naturists who have so few on the continent as a whole!

Nudie Toons!


The nudist world has virtually everything, including its own cartoon strips. Years ago, we wrote about Stephen Crowley, the Australian cartoonist who created the nudist comic series Loxie and Zoot, among others. Now we bring you Ron Coleman, he of Nudie Toons...

Many of you will recognize his work, as his cartoons have appeared in various  nudist magazines and web sites. Ron, an Oregon native, has been creating cartoons for 50 years now, and has been featured in The Saturday Evening Post and a slew of other publications. He didn't start out making nudist gags: that began in 1998, when he was approached by the NetNude web site. The one panel series was later picked-up by other major nudist sites and magazines, and Coleman claims he's never done better than in his current niche!

To date, Coleman has inked 600 Nudie Toon cartoons. He feels no shame in admitting that he got his start responding to a magazine ad offering a correspondence course on "How to make money drawing cartoons".

You can enjoy some of his cartoons via his website (link below), or by downloading one of his ebook compilations  from Amazon or Barnes & Noble for a ridiculously small price.



What is Cambium?

 Cambium, a nudist village being built in the Dominican Republic. The founder and manager of this nudist utopia, Francois Harley, wrote to us to fill in some of the blanks...

We were unsure about the exact location of the village. According to Harley Cambium is "only 1.5 km down an unpaved road off (the main coastal) route 5 connecting Puerto Plata and Samana. We are paying for this unpaved road to be improved and access to the village is certainly not a problem. Cambium is at La Yagua, mid way between Gaspar Hernandez and Rio San Juan on the north coast of the DR in one of the most beautiful parts of the island". We couldn't find the village of La Yagua, but Google maps has Cambium marked anyway. It's 58 kms, or 46 minutes driving, from the airport at Puerto Plata, the major tourist city on the north coast and your most likely arrival point.

We also wondered about the proximity of any nudist beach. A key selling point really! Harley responded: "Cambium is only 2 kms (a bit over a mile) away from a "nudist friendly" beach, Playa Magante".
Harley also updated us on how far along the project is: "We have sold 86 plots, installed 5km of road, water mains and electricity conduit, built the reception house, installed 24/7 security, nearly finished the first restaurant and helped the first 3 residents to complete the building of their houses. 5 more houses are starting in the next couple of months. All this in 12 months since (the) acquisition of the property".

Lastly, we compared his venture to the not so successful nudist utopia in Brazil, Colina do Sol. Harley had this to say: "I am aware of the pitfalls of the Brazilian enterprise of a similar nature and I am not so complacent as to imagine that we cannot fail. However, to have achieved this in the midst of the harshest recession of our lifetime is, I believe, a positive sign. Our clientele ranges from unemployed manual workers to highly qualified professionals, from people on benefits to millionaires. When we are all naked and appreciating the environment, such distinctions count for a whole lot less."

Of course, as enthusiasts of naked living ourselves, we do hope Cambium thrives. For those of you who are pondering investing in Cambium, we advise that you treat it the same as any real estate transaction, although the difference is that at Cambium you can live naked!

How You Get a Woman to Try Out Nudism


It is a simple fact that most nudists are men and therefore most of our readers are male. For men, nudism seems to be easier to adopt. Perhaps it is because our bodies are not "sexualized" by society in the way the female form has always been. Perhaps it is women's fondness for fashion. Whatever the reasons,  almost every nudist man will experience difficulty in convincing his wife, girlfriend or female friend to take a step forward and give nudism a try. It might seem like an impossible task, but as a man who has persuaded many of the fairer sex to open their minds to this liberating form of recreation, including my current spouse, perhaps I can offer a little help...

Only once have I dated a woman who was already a nudist before I met her (she volunteered that information our first time out),  but our personalities did not mesh, so nothing came of it. The likelihood of meeting a nudist is very slim and the mere fact that she's a nudist should not be the main reason you're attracted to her! You'll likely meet your significant other in the textile world, and she'll likely only have a vague idea of what nudism is about, but if you're right for each other, then there's a pretty good chance you might try out each other's interests for size, but if all she does is accept this side of you, count yourself lucky already!

Firstly, it's generally not a good idea to present yourself as a nudist to anyone you have not known for more than a few days or even weeks. A woman telling a man she's a nudist (as one of my dates did) probably won't be ill received, but I'm afraid the reverse is rarely true. Such are the differences between the sexes! If your lady friend is not well acquainted with nudism, she may find this creepy and not only will you not have a nudist girlfriend -- you might not have a girlfriend, period!

When you truly feel the two of you are comfortable with each other, then you can broach the subject by introducing it as "there's something you should know about me". She probably will be expecting something shocking and be relieved when it turns out you just like to romp around naked! She'll naturally be curious about how you became a nudist, so let her ask you the next question. That will be your cue to explain to her what attracted you to it. I will give you some ideas on how to present your case a little further on, but let me forewarn you that you should not, at this point, suggest that she join you for a nudist experience! Give her every opportunity to make that offer herself. You will have told her about the wonderful world of social nudism and there is a fair chance she'll say "sounds great, could I try it sometime?," Why? because you did not push the agenda. You shared something with her in complete sincerity. Never pressure anybody into trying nudism. Nobody likes to be pushed into anything.
Another way to broach the subject is to have a nudist publication strategically placed in your home when she visits. Not front and center, but perhaps in a stack of other magazines. She will come across it and ask you about it. Be casual in your answer and follow the same script as described earlier.

What's the best way to present nudism? As something completely logical and natural.  She'll agree with the simple fact that we were all born naked and that it's  society that made it shameful. Why should we be ashamed of what we are? Make the point that nudity isn't sexual, that provocative clothing is more sexual than a merely nude person. It may also resonate with her when you confess that ridding yourself of your inhibitions has made you a happier, more relaxed person  and that being nude in a social situation becomes completely natural. Let her know that it's easier to make sincere friends in the nudist realm, perhaps because clothing reflects status, whereas when we're nude, we're all equal.

If she expresses interest and wants to see for herself, where should you take her? The worst place is a public clothing optional beach. There's too much of a risk that there will be many clothed people, making her feel self-conscious, not to mention the voyeurs, the new nudist experience killers! I've found that a nude yoga class is a great introduction, mainly because many women relate to yoga and everybody is busy doing exercise so she won't feel their gazes. If no nude yoga class is offered in your area, plan a visit to a reputable family oriented nudist resort, or perhaps an event organized by a local non-landed nudist club, such as a nude aquatics or bowling night! The idea is to show her that normal people get together and do normal things, except that they're all nude and are much more relaxed than "normal" people! It's important that there be a good mix of people,  not overwhelmingly male or extremely old, lest she panic! The presence of families and young people will definitely help put her at ease. You might want to do a little homework first before picking a venue! Remember that if her introduction to nudism is positive, there's a better chance that she'll adopt it as her own and future expeditions will be consensual!

What if she reacts with disgust to your confession? Then, my friend, you may have landed a judgmental, non open-minded partner, and you have to ask yourself if this is a relationship worth pursuing? If it is, calmly let her know that you care deeply about her and  don't expect her to participate and that you will not let it get in the way. If that is not well received either then I can only say "good riddance".
In my experience, people's prejudices aren't always etched in stone and their opinions may change as your relationship grows, so don't despair if your initial sortie out of the "nudist closet" didn't result in her warming to the idea. One of my girlfriends years ago thought it was outrageous at first, but a few months later she did try nudism and became fanatical! Another former girlfriend had told me that if I got naked on the beach (it was Spain), she would leave. I didn't force the issue. Recently she confided that she was dating another nudist man and she was now comfortable with his public nudity. Somehow I feel that my nonchalance may have had something to do with her eventual acceptance of naturist behavior, albeit with someone else.

In conclusion, be nudism's ambassador, not its dictator! Also, bear in mind that if you are a woman, the same suggestions apply if you wish for your partner to accept and perhaps embrace your nudism!

What is Nudist Weather?


It does not take a genius to know that not all weather lends itself to nudism. It would be suicidal to go for a leisurely stroll completely naked though the snow with temperatures below freezing!  But what is the ideal temperature to be nude outdoors? There is no simple answer to this question since it depends on your age, your health, your gender and where in the world you live.

Younger people tend to feel comfortable within a wider range of temperatures, but an older person who is in top physical shape can also have a higher tolerance for cooler weather. There is no doubt that the elderly bodies generally have trouble staying warm, making anything lower than 75 (24 C) rather chilly for nude recreation.
Photo by Kolanda
People who live in a tropical climate do not have the same type of body fat as northerners do and can even feel cold in temperatures as high as 78 F. This is not scientific, but in all my years as a nudist, I have observed that female nudists cover up much sooner than males do when the temperature drops. I am not sure if this is due more to males being stubborn or actual physiological differences between the sexes!
Wind plays a big role in whether nudists stay nude or throw  some clothes on. A stiff breeze can make 75 F feel like 68 (20 C), and for most that is not naked weather! Of course, there are a few die hard nudists out there who eschew clothes outdoors no matter how cold it gets, albeit for a quick dash from the house and back! You are more likely to find such people in places where the climate is rather harsh, such as Canada, Russia, the UK, or Sweden. There is always the option of being nude indoors, but that just cannot match the joy of communing with nature!
If we are going to be practical about this subject, I think everybody can agree that anything in the eighties F  (27-32 C) is ideal nudist weather. A bit of wind will be agreeable in that range. Anything in the low to mid seventies (21-26)  is marginal nudist weather, where any wind could spoil the joy of being naked, and being in the shade might give some people chills.  Exiting the pool or lake will have most shaking in this range. Anything below 70 (21 C) is only for the hardiest naturists.
On the opposite end of the scale, when the thermometer passes the 90 (32 C) mark, at some point even being naked is not enough to keep you perfectly happy, but then that is what a dip in the water is for! Of course, those poor textiles are suffering miserably and wishing they could ditch their sweaty, clingy duds!
Get naked and enjoy, but don't forget to use sunscreen and hydrate well!