Author Topic: Club Visits  (Read 17774 times)

peter

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Club Visits
« on: February 25, 2014, 09:40:24 AM »
Hi
I recently attended a club open day and evening meal in New Zealand ( it is summer here, or so i'm told). I have been to a few clubs on open days and always been welcome. Walking around a sun club ground is interesting and while friendly and welcoming it certainly has a "caged" or factory farmed feel. You can only walk so far in any direction before turning around to walk back. What experiences do others have of naturism in confined spaces.

jbeegoode

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2014, 06:58:46 PM »
Enclosed does feel enclosed, but the security of a designated area gives a certain sense of freedom. I began on free beaches and secluded streams where and when nudity was a norm. Otherwise it was in homes or backyards with pools, etc.

When my wife became pregnant, hiking in the wilds became more difficult and dangerous to a new born and toddler aged child, so we tried the protected resorts.

We had been to St. Martin’s Orient Beach for a honeymoon. It was a large area but still we would extend the perimeters. We stayed at another hotel within walking distance. We were nude in the room and when we walked to the nude beach, so it evolved on more than one occasion that a rubber raft was used to cover nude bodies while on that walk. She was able to wander the grounds and even the lobby in just a small g-string. We had to further the freedom on a nude sailing cruise to a nearby deserted island with a group.

The Shangri-La in Phoenix was the first place visited for a baby’s concerns. There were no hassles to be found. The place was filled with grandparents ready to dote on the baby. We could get a babysitter and go to nightly events at the club, etc. Still, we pushed out, traveling off property up a wash, under a bridge and on. It was pleasant and comfortable. We stayed the whole week nude, one time. The bare baby once crapped on the owners bare leg, however.  :D

When the child was older, we were divorced and he was old enough to get out freerange in non-landed groups and then he was older still, so that I could leave him for a few days.

I have never been to a resort where I didn’t test the possibilities of off the reservation exploration, eventually. I arrive carnuding and that’s how I stay. I am freerange and secret/stealth as need arises. It often feels like just another link in a nude lifestyle.

We enjoy De Anza in California because it is surrounded by miles of wild territory without worries and freedom, but we can return to comforts and their fun events, pool, jacuzzi, etc. It is like a nude world there without a fence.

The older place in that area burnt down, but at that walled place, we trekked up a hill into the woods and rode naked with friends through San Diego to Blacks Beach, for an outing.

There is a nice high end club here in Tucson, but we see no need for it. Maybe once a year, they have an event. The people are overtly conservative, creating a social value, drinking excessively and political atmosphere that is uncomfortable and we just don’t fit in. All we have in common is liking to be nude and discussing various resorts. At forty bucks a visit, we can get much further with the money. We do join with a band and play for their annual Hippie Days themed event.

We do spend many Sunday afternoon’s with friends at a sweat in town. It is a sort of club of volunteers and donations, that host 12 to 30 at a time. The overall list is a hundred to two hundred at this time. There is the therapy of a sweat, a pool and sunning going on. There is an eclectic spiritual overlay and community of all ages there. Many have known each other for decades. People play music and do yoga, etc. Nudity is not the purpose, or the bond, but an incidental in spite of the fact that most arrive, strip and head to the sweat immediately, leaving clothing in a cubby for the duration. We have quipped, that if there was a Heaven for hippies, that it would be like that place. We don’t fall into any of the two extreme identities, but fit in better with the more tolerant and less obnoxious, especially when it is a time to take care of the spirit, body and meditate with others.   

Somehow, any confined space losses its sense of confinement, once I slide into a pool of water. Then the area becomes infinite and safe. A backyard pool, a pond in the in mountains, or an ocean.
Jbee
Barefoot all over, all over.

yorknudeguy

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2015, 12:03:41 PM »
Clearly jbeegoode has had mixed experiences in his (?) visits to clothes free venues. Tellingly the nudist Clubs visited were the most negative - even the better ones. That sense of being walled in and the attitudes of the inmates that emanate from that barrier to the world result in some strange cultures and the usual bureaucratic structures that bedevil such places.
The contrast to the freedom of discreet lakes and open country or even the informal culture of "the sweat" confirms my own experience here in the UK and Europe that steers me away from clubs.
One interesting experience to share was of a visit to Costa Natyra in Southern Spain: a lovely small resort but akin to living in a gilded cage - my best times were spent, having escaped, crossed the busy coast road and headed up into the hills.......
Yes "free-range" indeed! 

eyesup

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2015, 05:01:36 PM »
I've not been to a club of any kind.  I might eventually, but I haven't as yet.

What is the policy, in general, of these places with the customers going off site to explore?

Duane

Karla

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2015, 11:33:38 AM »
We went on the NEWT (Naked European Walking Tour) two years ago. We all hired a single cottage in the Austrian Alps and went out walking every day naked as a group along set paths. We walked by many other hill walkers who were clothed. People don't mind if the whole group is naked. They are more concerned if it's a single person. Apparently even just having a dog with you helps. This seems like a good compromise between completely free-range and factory farmed naturism.

Georgew1959

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2015, 06:05:21 AM »
I haven't visited any of the "sun clubs" or whatever, but I've stayed in a couple of nudist venues  in the UK when I've been travelling on business. Both had limited grounds to walk in but most of the facilities were indoors. That was certainly a lot better than staying in a regular hotel, but was a far cry from the feeling of freedom I get when I'm out naked in wild places, or even just in the countryside.

I like the sound of the NEWT Karla ..... That sounds much closer to free-range than being caged!

Cheers, George

balead

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2015, 07:48:00 PM »
I was a member of Spielplatz for a 2 or 3 years in the 80's. I enjoyed the sense of safety and belonging but perhaps ironically not the confinement.

Quote from: peter
You can only walk so far in any direction before turning around to walk back.

Exactly!

I realised that I needed to know that I could be accepted naked in naked company and once that was achieved I didn't need it any more, especially as it was 20 mile bike ride to get there and I knew of two places where I could sunbathe naked about a mile from home. My only restriction there was how far I dare walk rather than being walled in.

Quote from: eyesup
What is the policy, in general, of these places with the customers going off site to explore?

Don't know about in general, but it would be at least frowned upon at Spielplatz as it's in an urban environment!
Dave

nib

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2015, 09:16:08 PM »
...

What is the policy, in general, of these places with the customers going off site to explore?

Duane

Generally hostile!

In the UK at least many clubs try to hide, and far from being able to walk out of the gates there may even be places inside where you are discouraged from going if it's possible to be glimpsed from outside.

Also at the big organised events on commercial sites, there has been serious reaction to naturists being seen outside by locals close to the event.

Cheers,
nib
Cheers,
nib

jbeegoode

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2015, 09:59:38 PM »
I've not been to a club of any kind.  I might eventually, but I haven't as yet.

What is the policy, in general, of these places with the customers going off site to explore?

Duane
This side, most are owned by someone who needs to be protective of the investment. I believe that this has much to do with ANRR's attitude toward freerange activities. A good relationship is cultivated amongst the locals and they are concerned about some new fool getting seen and making waves in the textile community. The further out in the country, the less concern. For instance, at De Anza it is wide open and they are more concerned about people wandering off without water, to rattlesnakes or injuries, or getting lost.

Glen Eden has been around since the much earlier more hostile times and still harbors a sense of being intimidated by the outsiders. There are now subdivisions encroaching on the space. We felt like secret naturist leaving the property, not only because we were in the public domain nude, but also because we felt we needed to be kinda sneaky going freerange, so as not to upset the nudist who lived there (it's a cooperatively owned membership). 
Jbee
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Davie

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2015, 09:11:28 AM »
With the exception of one club were the Chair, Treasurer and Secretary interrogated my wife and I as she remained dressed as she was not feeling to well we have always have a great welcome at clubs we've visited. Even the one were my wife managed to lock herself in the loo and they had to dismantle the door. (Good ice-breaker!) We've had warm welcomes too in New Zealand too

Davie  8)

jbeegoode

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2015, 05:44:02 PM »
I haven't had much more than good welcomes, myself. I've felt the stress and shuffle from people when checking in at a busy time. Mira Vista's welcome has been more business, get the money and cold, or should I say serious and professional-like.

 There was once a place out in Maricopa County, a ma and pa metal fence place, that questioned me and eyed me suspiciously and questioned me some more. I not only was a single guy thing, but I got a heavy dose of single guy with a five year old. They were so concerned about me being some kind of molester, that they were creepy and insulting, dampening the whole experience, I almost left during the stunning interrogation. All we wanted was to have some fun, mostly in the pool. It is gone.

I once showed up at Shangrala in PHX single with child and found myself being watched, monitored by staff suspiciously. It was a far cry from the welcome I got before the divorce and would hang out there with my cute wife and baby. Once during a weeks stay, staff and members through a surprise Birthday party for me. Must have been 40 people singing to me, eating cake in their Birthday suits.
I couldn't have felt more welcome.
Jbee
Barefoot all over, all over.

Greenbare Woods

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2015, 08:39:19 PM »
I had similar experiences with the AANR clubs.  Many of them are strongly discriminator against men and particularly single men -- though they deny being discriminatory.  I also went from welcome married man to suspicious male after my wife filed for a divorce.  They can keep it.  I only go where I'm welcome. 
Human bodies are natural, comfortable, and green.
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reubenT

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2015, 08:23:44 AM »
Without realizing it,  or thinking about it,  They are acting like  'possibly guilty until proven innocent'   It should be the other way around.          Does a single man,  or man and child,  get looked at suspiciously if he's normally clothed and goes camping at a regular campground?     Doubt it,   I never heard of it.    Shouldn't be any different at a naturist campground.   If it is then the operators haven't entirely left behind the attitudes of the clothing obsessed who are suspicious of all nude activities. 
    My natural shyness makes me very uncomfortable with any form of lack of trust, or suspicion.   Hearing about it makes me think I'll have to be really sure I'm welcome before I go anywhere.   However I also know I can be a benefit to wherever I go,  my skills knowledge and products I don't mind sharing when occasion allows.     I suppose I could possibly kind of break the "ice"  if I showed up the first time with a box full of natural goodies.   Home grown tasty fresh food. 

eyesup

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2015, 07:42:22 PM »
I can see how, from a legal perspective, a business (CO club) would be somewhat apprehensive at finding themselves complicit with a pedophile. But since I've never been to a CO club, I have no experience to be able to evaluate that.

My guess is that Reuben is close to the mark. Whether they should be cautious in allowing a single adult with a child onto the property can be evaluated upon their entry with a few well worded questions, as Jbee related, without it turning into an interrogation.

After that, leave them alone, you have to accept them, or make the rule "No Single Adults Allowed", even if you have a child with you. Although I doubt the authorities would hesitate to being an action if something did happen at a CO club.

If, as Reuben says, it was a camp ground, a different set of rules would be applied.

Duane

jbeegoode

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Re: Club Visits
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2016, 07:58:46 PM »
I have often considered a trip across country nude. Besides the havens of old and dear friends, I would make naturist resorts safe harbors during the trip.

 There are places to camp in nature that must be found, but often require luck and a great deal of research to know that they are secure. The amazing public lands in the USA are a wonderful venue to explore. These however, rarely provide a nice hot shower and when nude, a certain solitude must be maintained, limiting social interaction with locals.

A nude national tour, stopping at factory farmed spots, would make a great deal of sense, naked on the long road with hostile potentials. Hopping from swimming pool to lake with full facilities with a free range naturist's interim makes good sense.

There is something to be said about just the challenge of free range travel, using ones wits, but a break here and there can be welcome.

One more thought. I haven't traveled more than a week at a time free-range and these provided destinations. If out there nude for extended time periods pushing boundaries every step of the way, does one get wary from the push, or does the acquired more secure, or relaxed sense continue, or expand even more? I know that more free range makes for more confidence and adeptness. The lack of clothing becomes the nature and soon the encumbrance of it becomes abhorrent an resentment builds. Too much resentment can be relieved by a safe haven and accepting fellow naturists in an environment where life is closer to what things could, or should be.
Jbee
Barefoot all over, all over.