by P. Spaas
Naked Walking in Lanzarotte
January 14, 2019 in Uncategorized
November/December 2018 we were staying in Charco del Palo on Lanzarote for 3 weeks, a complete Naturist village where you can meander about totally in your birthday suit, no problem. But, how about elsewhere on the island which has a very nice climate?
We looked at the various walking/hiking paths that exist on the island and figured that it should be possible to walk some of those Au Naturel, naked thus. It took some time to assemble ideas in between all our other activities but in the latter half of the vacation we managed to get up early enough to the first site for a trial. You have to be early to beat the crowds as it being a vacation island you do get hordes of buses and other holiday makers later in the morning on the more popular sites.
Here below the map of the walk.
This walk is nice and mostly flatish on a good volcanic gravel path. Very interesting as you can actually go into the volcano a bit via the side wall that was blown out originally.
As everywhere stick to the path, besides the fact that off the path it’s usually un-walkable due to the nature of the jagged lava, it’s also to protect the fragile nature of nature.
As there is mostly a good view of the path you can walk Au Naturel here relative risk free, managed about 65% of the route. We do tend to keep textiles in mind so get covered up with a sarong if we spot people, not out of shame but not to upset them since we’re a bit unsure about the legality of naked walking in Spain.
Our second walk we actually could have walked much more and longer but we were running out of time as we booked a dive for the afternoon. This walk did give us a very good taste of what it could be if you are early enough. Parking at the beginning of this walk, see below, can be tough if you are not early, there is very little parking space. The first part of the walk leads to a smaller vulcano that you can walk completely inside of, very impressive.
It’s a very up and downish walk so the view of the path ahead is not the greatest so it’s not always possible to see others coming the opposite direction in time to cover up.
The second part of the walk here has various options one of which will lead you up partially on the first vulcano and crossing a lava field between both volcano’s after which you can walk up via a well worn path up to the rim of the next, much larger, volcano. Here you can do a partial walk on the rim of the volcano and partial at the foot (the volcano rim is very treacherous for about 40% and un-walkable unfortunately). The path is pretty good and the views from the rim, inside the volcano and surrounding countryside, are stunning and so well worth the hike up! We unfortunately did not have enough time to go all the way around and had to walk back.
There are various tracks (not visible on Google Maps, use OpenStreet Maps for this) that even go beyond the volcano good for many hours of walking. We managed to do 75% of the about 12 km we did Au Naturel so this was an absolute great walk and so worth doing all the way, and, as a famous saying says “we’ll be back!”. Keep in mind when the sun is higher on the sky it does tend to get pretty warm here so be ready with refreshments and suntan lotion!
We hope to do this walk again and also seen some other walks that we think are possibly very doable in the buff. One of these could be the coastal walk of the National Park Timanfaya. It runs from El Golfo in the south till just about the next road north of the park. It seems somewhere between 9 and 14 km long (depends on who tells you) one way so possibly it would be good to drop the car at one end, take a taxi to the other and walk back. It does not sound very long but it’s not easy walking on lava stone and progress is slower as normal paths we found.
There were only 2 of us walking so you tend to be a bit more prudish (read respectful of the textile world) as we would be with more so we hope to return with some naturist friends in the future to do proper hikes in lava country!
If you are interested in more naked hiking stories and travel stories in general visit my better half’s blog, Little Lolly’s Small Adventures, by clicking on the logo below. Visit the archives for general travel stories and naturist adventures as well. We’re a bit behind in updating our travels, it’s been a very hectic summer holiday vacationing the active way this year!
We also have now figured out by surfing the web that there is no Spanish law against being naked in public, it’s not illegal, however, there are cities that have made it local law (like Barcelona and Cadiz). That also does not mean it’s accepted everywhere and every police officer knows the law well enough so we still think that to be safe be mindful and not upset the locals. We still live in a prudish world with a lot of rules and prejudices against the natural human form.
by P. Spaas
New Zealand, also not overly Naturist friendly
April 16, 2018 in Uncategorized
On our travels this time, actually it was January, we ventured around in New Zealand’s north island. Unfortunately we have to conclude that New Zealand is also not the most Naturist friendly island, but then again we’re spoiled with the likes of Germany and France of course.
We managed to stay in only one Naturist site, Katikati, between Tauranga and Auckland. This camping with some bungalows as well is very nice, relaxed with some nice amenities like Jacuzzi, Pool, Minigolf, and others. You see couples, singles, same sex couples, a mixture of all sorts so a decent copy of society.
There are a few other places seemingly (but it’s not very well advertised as when you find the websites of the venues there is most of the time nothing to indicate they are actually Naturist), but one, I’ll not mention the name, seemed very closed. Although their website indicates they accept guests as soon as you inquire about staying you need to go through an interview with them!? What is that all about!? We had no time for that, a pity as their location seemed very much in nature.
As to naturist friendly beaches, although there is some info on the internet with locations we have found that to be inaccurate at best. For instance there was supposed to be something near hot sands and hot springs (geothermal activities), forget it in real life, it’s teeming with textiles by the 100’s and lots of kids.
We did a bold thing and went on a Naturist hike through jungle to a water fall and pond, got some funny looks by some other groups of hikers and when doing the swim in the, freezing cold, pond surprised some other visitors, but all was well and no negative reactions. You simply have to be mindful when there is kids around. I know, we should not have to be but I also see it from their side. Let’s face it, we all have different values and norms and we have to respect that.
by P. Spaas
Moorea, not really naturist friendly
April 15, 2018 in Uncategorized
Just a few lines, we managed to stay for a week in Moorea, that is an island part of the French Polynesia (usually Tahiti is a more well known name but that is the island next door to it). A lot of research already indicated that it is not a naturist friendly island at all, and, it’s sad as it’s close to paradise, but you have to accept that.
We however managed to rent a whole house for the 2 of us so we had it for ourselves and a bit of garden and plunge pool with it! Although not totally shielded from the little lane in front of it we felt comfortable going au-naturel every day (that is in and around the house only) and don’t seem to have offended any of the few passers-by.
The climate is, pfewwww, hot hot hot, and very humid. You hang your towel to dry in the evening, it’s almost wetter in the morning due to condensation! But all over a great island, friendly people, but, start saving, just a trip to the supermarket already costs an arm and a leg!
by P. Spaas
Thuringa Forrest Naked Wander Woche Blog
October 6, 2017 in Uncategorized
See here our Thuringa Forrest Naked Wander Woche event we participated in this year. Unfortunately we had to miss the first 2 days due to commitments and events preventing our timely departure.
Please open the link for the full story and pictures, enjoy !
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-1.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-2.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-3.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-4.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walk-day-5-not.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-6.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walking-day-7-abandoned-castle.html
https://littlelollystravels.blogspot.com/2017/07/naturist-walk-final-day-goodbye.html
Thanks for reading, I hop you enjoyed the stories and we can recommend joining next year.
Hope you enjoy other parts of the blog as well, as I said before, not all naturist as we're living in a textile world, but lots of nice little adventures nevertheless.
Thanks to Andreas who was so active and put all the hard work into making the week into a success to be remembered. And thanks to the group who was mainly German but accepted us with our limited language skills.
by P. Spaas
Thuringa Forrest naked wander woche
October 6, 2017 in Uncategorized
New to the Naktive network and finally having holiday's when a naked walk is being organized we managed to join the Thuringa Forrest naked walking week.
We're not new to Naturism at all but something like this we had never done before so it was a big step to take but it turned out just a small step into a fantastic experience week.
As my partner already keeps a blog separately from this network I post here the links one by one to the naked walking week from this past summer, bit easier. So, if you are interested in this, feel free to click, we would love to get some more hits on the pages. You also find a whole host of other stories in the blog as well, but mostly not naturist themed as, let's face it, it's still a textile world out there !
Enjoy, and we hope that in the near future we can enjoy more of such events as we got the Naked Wandering bug now !
