Clothes-free travel
Road Trip: Who are the Nudists in Your Neighborhood
I think I was in Kansas, though it could have been Missouri or even out in the far stretches of Colorado, where you can safely set the cruise control at 90 mph while singing your heart out to the oldies. Siri helped me put through a call to the reception desk at Sunset Haven, the best nudist resort on the prairie. Perhaps that was the name of the place. Naming a nudist camp seems to be an exercise in the vagaries of double entendre. A language of secret codes and allusions that only naked people can decipher.
A person with a coarse voice picked up the phone. “This is Roz.” Or maybe, “This is Leslie.” Whatever they said, neither the timbre of the voice nor the name gave me any clue as to the gender of the receptionist.
“I just wanted to make sure I have a place to stay tonight. Can you confirm my reservation for a cottage?”
“Who are you again? You’re arriving tonight? You know, the gates close at 5:00 pm sharp, then I have to go feed the cats.”
I glanced down at the speedometer, locked in at 93 miles-per-hour. You could feel the van shudder on the heat-drenched tarmac. Making it to the gate in time for the cat feeding ritual was going to be a stretch.
“So what happens if I can’t make it by five? Am I just out of luck?” I’m sure I was sounding a little irritable having been stuck behind the wheel since six o’clock that morning.
“What time you think you’re gettin’ here, hon?”
A clue to the gender mystery perhaps? It’s not often that a Midwest farmer calls me “hon.”
“I’m sure I can make it by 5:30, but if I have to be there much earlier than that, I guess I’ll be sleeping on the side of the road.”
There was a moment of silence, then muffled chatter as she (?) apparently put her hand over the phone to confer with somebody else in the office. “You just get here as soon as you can and call me when you reach the gate. We’ll get you settled, alright.”
I should mention that I was behind the wheel of a Hertz rented panel van, en route from New Jersey to California to pick up a load of family heirlooms and haul them back to our home on the eastern seaboard. Gas prices were absurdly low that summer, and it was significantly cheaper to drive all the way out and back again than to shoulder up that one-way drop fee that was more than twice the cost of the rental, itself. This trip was the result of a brainstorm where I would make my way across the country spending each night at a nudist “resort” — I use the term loosely — as doing so would not only provide future blog fodder, but it’s difficult to find a more secure parking space than within the confines of an encampment of naked people.
As Google Maps advised that I was within a few miles of my destination at about 5:23 pm, I kept an eye on my phone as I dropped from three bars… to two bars… to an intermittent signal typical of that in remote locations where you typically find naturist retreats. With barely one bar, I pushed through the call to hear the phone ring and ring and ring. Had my gravel-voiced host given up on me in favor of the starving felines?
I called again.
Still no answer.
Then, magically enough, the gate rolled open to reveal the clandestine village lying beyond. An old guy in a golf cart was headed for the gate like a pilot boat to guide my rented van into harbor. We drove about 50 yards to the steps of a converted trailer with a small sign over the door that read, “Grin and bare It — You’re on camera!” The golf cart guy gave a gesture that suggested I should go inside.
Turns out that Leslie, or Roz, or whatever the name, was indeed a woman. I surrendered my driver’s license so she could complete the obligatory background check, took down the specifics about my vehicle, and then proceeded to inform me that this was a family naturist park, and for God’s sake, don’t forget to sit on a towel. Then she pointed out the window to identify the little cottage across that street that would be my home so very far away from home that night.
I thought it would be best to walk across to check out my new digs before relocating the van. On my way, there was a naked man sitting in an octagonal screened contraption, too absorbed with canvas and paint to even glance up from his work. An opera aria was blaring from speakers over his head, just loudly enough to feel invasive, causing me to recall a special interest group I once read about in a naturist publication that called themselves… Opera Buffs. Perhaps I had just stumbled across the founder.
My stay was pleasant enough. An evening stroll took me past myriad camping rigs, many of which must cost the equivalent of two or three times my annual salary. One couple greeted me as they noticed me admiring the handiwork of the decking around their camper.
“You’re not from around here!”
I told them my story.
They were both professional types — a businessman and a school administrator, out for a weekend of naked peace and quiet. We compared a few travel notes, places visited and such, and they invited me to a gathering later that evening where I would have likely met others like them. I’d been driving all day and decided to take a pass.
Early the next morning I was on the road again headed west. I could tell this story again and again and again. The eccentricities and pun-ridden signage would change from one naked place to the next, but beyond that, people without clothes are remarkably the same. That’s not to say, however, there weren’t a few memorable episodes along the way.
For instance…
A visit to the mineral baths in the mountains south of Colorado Springs that were particularly popular with young urban professionals from Denver who sported some of the most exotic tattoos I’ve seen in my life. (Which is saying a lot for a guy who sees a lot of naked people!) It was a communal sort of place where even the accommodations involved sharing a house with total strangers. The only roommate I can recall is the twenty-something girl who sat naked at the old piano in the parlor, playing a simple redux of the theme to Downton Abbey.
Or the woman I met at a threadbare (no pun intended) nudist park on the north end of Phoenix. She was living with her husband in their RV just a stone’s throw from the communal pool complex. Turns out they had sold their home with the intention of parking their camper near her aging father, only to find that the only campsite to be found for a vehicle the size of theirs was in a nudist park. She went for three weeks scarcely setting foot outdoors, until she worked up the courage to take her clothes off. Now, three months later, she had become a walking advertisement for the benefits of social nudity. “I simply can’t imagine moving someplace where I’d have to wear clothes every day!”
By the time I made it to the west coast, I decided to splurge on a stay at naturist B&B where the hosts — now retired — make a bit of extra cash renting out their extra bedrooms, at a premium price I might add, to those who prefer to sleep and eat naked. Their home was tucked away in an everyday neighborhood in the northern reaches of LA. I found myself wondering if their neighbors had any idea how many naked transients parked near their homes from one day to the next.
There was also the sprawling resort near Sacramento with two pools dedicated solely to water volleyball, (Oh, how nudists love volleyball!) in addition to two more pools for swimming and lounging. Or the little mountain retreat perched on the side of Mount Hood where the locals invited me to the Friday night covered dish dinner where I got the full lowdown about the best places to doff my clothes on those rare sunny days in and around Portland, Oregon.
All told, Americans love to joke about the nudist colony down the road, often completely unaware that there actually is one. Similarly, were they to summon up the courage to place a call to the cat lady with the coarse voice for a ticket to pass through the gates of one of these mysterious hamlets, they may well come face to face, if not breast to breast, with their minister, or a former teacher, or their nurse practitioner, or an acquaintance from the high-school sports-boosters organization. Nudists are notoriously cautious about sharing their naked tendencies with the public at large for lots of reasons, which ironically enough, perpetuates the covert nature of it all. This leads me to one final vignette.
It had been another long day of driving, this time down through the meandering river canyons that stretch between Spokane, Washington and Boise, Idaho. When I went to book a night at this particular place outside of Boise, some guy named Chuck merely instructed me to write a check for $50 and drop it in the mail and I would be all set for a small cottage for one night. The driving directions were obtuse at best, with references to old fire stations and gnarly trees delineating the necessary choice at the fork in the road.
I rolled up to the gate just as darkness set in, noting that there was no indication that I had arrived at the desired location other than the directive to lay on the horn three times in a row, which was congruent with the sparse communication I had received in that brief email from Chuck.
Once again, I followed the protocol, delighted this time that it didn’t require a cell phone as this time, I had no service at all. When the gate finally rolled open, a heavy-set dude in camo gear rolled up on an ATV. We exchanged a few words, and he instructed me to follow him up a windy dirt road. I’m sure my reticence was evident as I sized up the road ahead of me, then glanced back to the unwieldy panel van, now loaded with antiques. Somehow, I wedged my truck into a wide spot on the hill, locked down the brakes, and prayed that getting out would look more viable in fresh daylight the next morning.
Like the others before, Chuck ushered me through the check-in procedure with the laborious background check. I silently wondered if he was checking to see if I owned a firearm, thinking I might get evicted if I did not. At least I had saved a bottle of wine to enjoy by the pool, as even by this time of day, the heat was stifling.
I found my cabin just up the hill from a genuine, vintage outhouse, stashed my valuables, dropped my clothes, and went off in search of that pool — the one that was apparently in the middle of a huge renovation project, surrounded by open timbers of what would become a beautiful new deck. You’d think that might have shown up someplace in the confirmation correspondence, but then again, I don’t think Chuck was particularly dialed into the nuances of the hospitality industry.
I thought about calling this essay The Naked Truth About America. Simply put, there’s no better way to get a sense of the expanse and multiplicity of one’s homeland than to drive it from one end to the other. As it happens, until the last couple of years (Thank you, COVID) I’d driven many more miles back and forth across Europe than I have beyond the 100 miles surrounding my own home. And to be sure, sometimes the naked truth is unnerving. As one of those liberal-educator types who lives in the cocoon of a coastal corridor, it’s been difficult to wrap my head around the ideologies and lifestyles of those who live in the great expanse between New York and San Francisco.
In responding to this Globetrotters prompt about road trips, it occurs to me that this journey alone could fill the pages of an entire book. Most prescient, perhaps, is that if I had simply adhered to my Marriott loyalty program, booking cookie-cutter hotels along the interstate, I would have never experienced the naked realities of the American landscape, let alone the people who live there. As every naturist knows, underneath one’s veiled existence, we are all pretty much the same. Except when you look a bit more closely and you find that we are, at the same time, remarkably different.
And that’s the naked truth.
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