Many times I’ve received questions from couples interested in exploring nude recreation asking how my wife and I got started. They want to know if we were nervous? What concerns we had prior to dropping her swim suits and what we thought afterwards.
This is actually our first blog post. I thought I would share it again and add a few thoughts too. If you’re reading this and interested in learning more about social nudity and what it could be like for you and your spouse, read on. If you’ve already discovered the Nudist Secret… that spending time together naked is safe, refreshing, relaxing, exciting and fun, please share with me how you and your spouse first decided to take the nude plunge.
In 1996, me and my then girlfriend (now wife) first ventured on to a clothing optional beach. We went to Black’s Beach outside of San Diego and for the very first time ever, took off our bathing suits and our inhibitions. As we marched down the cliff trail from the Torrey Pines parking lot to the sandy beach below, we both wondered why we were making this trip? Why go against everything our parents had every told us about the importance of covering up, wearing a bathing suit and never revealing too much skin. We were both 25-years old and while we were free spirits, we had never done anything like this before.
So we found our spot on the beach, laid out our towels and looked at each other… it was the moment of truth. I pulled off my t-shirt and then as if in slow motion, pulled down my swim suit and watched it hit the ground. There I was, standing completely naked, outside for the first time in my adult life and feeling more exposed and naked than I had ever felt before. My girlfriend made a nervous laugh and said I was looking a little cold too. My manhood and I were both cold and shy at that moment. It was not your typical sunny and 75-degree California day. While the sun was shining, it was windy and chilly. I no longer had any fears about getting physically excited.
My girlfriend sat down on her towel and then untied her black bikini top and carefully pulled off her bottoms. She folded them up and put them back in her bag. Even naked she is as tidy as ever.
There we were. Naked. Outside. For the first time. Ever. And it wasn’t at all what we thought it would be like. We lasted about an hour before we agreed the cold wind was too much to take, especially when you had only a towel to keep warm. We didn’t see lot of hard, bronzed bodies walking the beach showing perfect bodies that day. The few women I saw reminded me of ex-hippies who while naked and fine with it, looked like blobs of silly putty sitting in the sun. Care free and happy but the men, they were a different story. By far the men were in much better shape and many walked by our sandy outpost to see the two of us with our blinding tan lines. While at first I thought I needed to protect my girlfriend from their wandering eyes, she quickly pointed out that we had found our perfect spot in the sun on the gay section of Black’s Beach.
While far from a perfect day, we both agreed the experience had been thrilling and the feeling of sunshine all over our bodies was amazing. Why had we thought this was wrong? When we had gotten over our sense of fear and anxiety, we found we felt great and that it was an amazing experience for us as a couple. While not sexual, it was intimate. Besides, how could 100 gay, naked men lying in the sun be wrong? We still laugh about it today.
That was nearly 20 years ago. What started as a fun hour or later on an afternoon, has turned into days and weeks for us on vacation and often with all of our clothing stored in carry-on luggage. Finding the perfect nude beach, clothing optional pool, nude resort, or clothing-free B&B has been a wonderful journey for us and we have shared many great times, met wonderful people and have many good memories. Simply put, some of these destinations are wonderful to visit. They’re beautiful settings with surf, sand and great food and drinks.
So again, why a blog about nude travel? When we started visiting clothing optional destinations, there was often very little information to guide us. We literally got hurt many times walking down trails that doubled as mud slides to reach beautiful secluded beaches where we could get an all-over tan with other likeminded people. Since then, the internet has become a treasure trove of information for the closet nudist or want to be skinny dipper but I’m surprised at how often when I’m looking for travel information about a clothing optional destination, all I see is highly sexual images and behavior that is best saved for the bedroom. I honestly don’t want others who are interested in discovering this side of themselves and sharing it with their significant others to be turned off by what they believe happens when swimming suits are set aside. We don’t become crazed wild animals only interested in sex and foreplay on the beach. Not to say that you don’t need to be careful, but that’s where I believe we can help you out so that it’s a positive experience.
From what we’ve seen, most couples discover clothing optional travel when they are in their 40s and beyond. I’m thankful we figured it out in our mid-20s, but we weren’t the norm at all and we really didn’t embrace nude travel till we were into our 30s. We still find we’re often the youngest couple at the resort or on the beach and we’re into our 40s now. Thankfully that’s beginning to change. Our last trip to Hidden Beach Resort had many young 30s couples.
My vision for this blog is to share our experiences as we got more comfortable with being naked by ourselves and later with others and to tell you about the places we have visited and why we did or didn’t go back. By offering honest information, I hope we can be a resource to others with questions and hopefully give the push another couple might need to try this out and see if it’s for them.
So are my wife and I nudists? I guess so. Although naturists applies better to us. We enjoy bonding with the environment around us without clothing. So are we normal? We live in the midwest in a nice suburb surrounded by friends and family who know nothing about where we travel or why. We are parents and business people. We are active in our community. We are very normal and probably very boring to many people out there. We don’t sit around the house naked or plant trees in our backyard so we can lay out nude on our patio. We only recently started going to a local nudist club so we could lay out and enjoy the sun and take a cool relaxing dip in the pool when we had some free time. We’re not members. Just visitors. We don’t bring our children. This time is for us to share and I’d like our children to discover how it feels to be naked on their own.
Interested in hearing more or am I boring you already? Well, let me tell you where we’ve gone and where we’ve been naked. The list is long: Tahiti, Cancun, Tulum, St. Martin, Grenada, Palm Springs, San Diego, South Beach, New Orleans, Toronto, and beaches, clubs and skinny dipping spots across North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
So what won’t we talk about… Sex and sexual intimacy in a nudist environment. Nudity does not mean sex or foreplay or touching. That’s a misconception. A big misconception. I’m not saying that spending time nude together with your spouse or partner might not stir some exciting moments later, but it is not appropriate to do this in the open. Especially on a clothing optional beach or nudist club or property. Ever.
We have a lot to share. We will share with you the naked truth about being naked. It’s been a wonderful experience for us. Enjoy the ride. And let us know what questions you have. And again, if you’ve got a first time experience (especially if you’re a woman), we’d love to hear about it and potentially share with other couples on a future blog post.
Many of the images used for this post I found on https://www.reddit.com/r/naturists/. If any of these images were shared on reddit. To my knowledge, none of the images are copyright protected. However, please let me know otherwise.
