Posted Aug 27, 2008, 5:59 AM
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Dérive-r
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Vancouver, BC
Posts: 4,446
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Wreck Beach One of Top 10 Nude Beaches in the World
Apparently in a list commissioned by USA Today, Wreck Beach is one of the top 10 places to "leave the swimsuit at home":
Link to USA Today feature...
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/desti...-beaches_N.htm
Article from the Ottawa Citizen
Quote:
Our home and naked land
Canada among the 10 most popular destinations for nudists
Misty Harris , The Ottawa Citizen
The True North may be even more "free" than our national anthem implies, if a new list of the world's best clothing-optional beaches is any indication.
According to the countdown, commissioned by USA Today and compiled by the American Association for Nude Recreation, Canada is one of the Top 10 greatest places to "leave the swimsuit at home."
Vancouver's Wreck Beach, this country's first and largest legal clothing-optional beach, won Canada a spot on the list alongside such famed locales as France's Cap d'Agde, also known as "the naked city;" the Caribbean's postcard-pretty Orient Bay in the Virgin Islands; Florida's Haulover Beach, which attracts a million visitors -- clothed and unclothed -- to Miami every year; and Little Beach, a Hawaiian hotspot where sun worshippers prefer birthday suits to grass skirts.
Carolyn Hawkins, spokeswoman for the Nude Recreation association, says Canada is simply a great place to be naked.
"When you're talking to someone, you see who they truly are inside -- from the heart -- and not some front that they're putting on," she says, adding that there are association-sanctioned nudist clubs in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. "It's a very stress-free atmosphere; when you shed your clothes, you shed your stress."
Judy Williams likens Canada's foremost nude playground, Wreck Beach, to "a beacon in the night of naturism."
"It brings people from all over the world because it has the rare combination of physical beauty, a sense of place and a sense of history," says Ms. Williams, chairwoman of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society.
"Where else can you ski in the morning on the mountains surrounding Vancouver and be on (the beach) in the afternoon enjoying the sun as nature intended -- in other words, au naturel -- while eating the finest food on the West Coast and being accompanied by musicians ... who come together to jam in perfect harmony? It doesn't come any finer."
A survey released this week suggests bare derrieres are also good for tourism's bottom line.
According to the YPB&R/ Yankelovich 2007 National Leisure Travel Monitor, access to nude recreation such as Wreck Beach is more appealing to adult vacationers (12 per cent) than proximity to golf (10 per cent), mountain biking (10 per cent) or tennis facilities (six per cent).
Out of 1,882 men and women polled, 16 per cent of those born since 1979 consider a nude recreation experience "desirable" or "very desirable." Interest drops a bit to 14 per cent among Gen-Xers born between 1965 and 1978, followed by 12 per cent of adults born before 1946, and 10 per cent of baby boomers.
"People are learning more about (naturism). They don't have the old visuals that they used to," says Steve Vickers, a 26-year-old college student who was raised in a nudist resort.
"They aren't thinking that we're hippies, out there dancing around with flowers and stuff."
He believes many adults his age view their virgin foray into naked recreation as a kind of campfire yarn in the making, with built-in bragging rights on a par with having gone skydiving.
"They want to have that story to tell," says Mr. Vickers.
No Canadians were questioned in the Leisure Travel survey, which is considered accurate within 2.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. But a 1999 Federation of Canadian Naturists survey found that 2.7 million Canadians were open to visiting clothing-optional beaches or nudist resorts, while 3.5 million enjoyed skinny-dipping.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
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