For many of us, the image of nude recreation will always recall Peter Sellers and Elke Sommer (and Benny Hill’s unforgettable pas de deux [@ 35:15; or "ball masque", as it were? - Ed.; latest bad link replaced 6 Jul 09] with the swinging gates of a high-fenced nudist courtyard 
) but times have changed as the travel industry finds that to know nudes is good news, with disrobes for hire – even if we’re just A Shot In The Dark. And as the New York Times Travel section this weekend profiles those for whom nights in white satin reach their ends pajama-free, it seems the only nudie blues might come in being undressed down with nowhere to show. The industry, though, has now ensured the opposite with un embareass des asses riches. Nude air travel, an Age-of-Surveillance dream of many back in fall 2001, proves but one aspect of the right to bare arms and all else in the carriage trade: your Valley won’t be Hidden much longer when you’re at these dressing-free Ranches:
TravelNo Shoes, No Shirt, No Worries
The boom in nude vacations is coming at the high end of the business, as upscale hotels and resorts have begun to see the economic potential in the no-clothes crowd.
David Kadlubowski for The New York Times
The real boom in nude vacations is coming at the high end, as upscale hotels and resorts have begun seeing the economic potential in the no-clothes crowd. In 2007, nude recreation represented a $440 million industry — up from $400 million in 2001 — and it’s still growing. A new clothing-optional condo-resort, Mira Vista, left, in Marana, Ariz., has more than a hundred condominiums on the market.
<>In Germany, a travel operator has arranged for an all-nude charter flight this summer to take customers to a clothing-optional retreat in the Baltics. The naturalists will take off and land fully clothed, but shed their clothes once airborne. (Flight attendants and crew will, however, keep their uniforms on.)
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Most nude vacationers say that what they enjoy most is liberation from the typical pretenses of society. “When you don’t have any clothes on, you don’t know if someone’s a judge or a doctor, or a lawyer or a mechanic,” said Larry Massa. “You are what you are.”
Nude recreation, of course, goes back at least to the ancient Greeks, who competed in the Olympics sans clothing, and later, in the United States, both Benjamin Franklin and Henry David Thoreau lauded the benefits of nude nature walks, or “air baths.”
But it wasn’t until the dawn of the 20th century when nudism became organized in America, according to the American Association for Nude Recreation. Kurt Barthel, a German immigrant, is acknowledged as the founder of American nudism. On Labor Day of 1929 he led a small group of individuals to picnic in the buff in upstate New York and organized the first official nudist club, called the American League for Physical Culture, where nudists paid dues to gather to swim, socialize and relax in the nude.
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So many European guests were sunbathing topless on the beach at Starfish Trelawny, an all-inclusive family resort in Jamaica, that the resort put up a bamboo fence at the eastern end of its beach a few years ago to keep conservative guests happy and teenage boys from gawking. And Shan Kanagasingham, the general manager at The Tides, in South Beach, recalls her first stay at the hotel when she got the job about a year ago. “When I checked in for the first time to the Tides — and I’m not making this up — I opened the window and looked out, and all I saw was this sea of breasts and people walking around in G-strings.”
The spa at the Parker Palms Springs, which opened about two years ago, offers separate men’s and women’s areas each with pools and relaxation areas, all of which can be used in the nude. “And trust me, they are,” said Marisa Zafran, the hotel’s spokeswoman.
To make sure the experience doesn’t turn voyeuristic — or into a free love free-for-all, some resorts turn away single men. And most make it clear what the resort offers and what it doesn’t. “We make sure they understand it’s not a sexual kind of place,” said Tom Mulhall, who owns the Terra Cotta Inn in Palm Springs, with his wife, Mary Clare.
And while nude resorts say they don’t pressure guests to strip, guests are expected to be mostly naked for most of their stay. “We allow for the clothing optional until they feel comfortable with their own body and are willing to be nude in public,” said Dave Landman, co-owner of Mira Vista Resort near Tucson. “If someone we get is never nude I go over and say, “why are you here?’”
No matter how popular and upscale nude resorts become, one social convention is unlikely to change: Nudity and family vacations don’t always mix.
Just ask the Massas. They simply can’t convince their children, all in their late 40s, to join them on their two or three trips a year.
On vacation at the Couples Negril resort in Jamaica, which has a nude beach in addition to what she refers to as a “prude” beach, Ms. Massa said she casually mentioned to her son and daughter-in-law that she was going to check out the nude side.
“Mom,” replied her son, “I don’t want to see you naked.”
Hey Nude,
Don’t let me down.
What is birth control after the age of 40?
Nudity.
Loved the nudie blues line!
Steve
Very good post, image very good, Thank you.
All the free sunscreen you need would be the real selling point, at least for me!
Vacationing nude is no longer weird and has become mainstream. Forbes magazine publishes nude beach destinations from time to time. My wife and I have been to many of the major nude resorts in the Caribbean and the USA as owners of NFN Travel International specializing in clothing optional and nudist destinations including Grand Lido Braco, Grand Lido Negril, Caliente, Desert Sun, Hedonism II and III, Desire Resort, and more.