What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before My First Nudist Beach

I sat in my car for eleven minutes with the engine off. I know it was eleven because I kept glancing at the clock on the dashboard, then back at the path through the dunes, then back at the clock. The windscreen was warm. My towel was folded on the passenger seat, and I had already decided three times to go home.

What finally got me out of the car wasn't courage. It was embarrassment at the idea that someone might notice a grown man sitting alone in a hot car for no reason.

I've been naked in public plenty of times since. And I still think the eleven minutes in the car is the real story of a first nude beach — not the nudity itself. So if you're somewhere near the beginning of this, here's what I wish someone had told me.

The car park is the hardest part

Nothing on the beach is as difficult as the walk to it. The dunes, the gate, the moment the path opens out and you can see people ahead of you — that's the peak. Your heart does something stupid. Your hands feel like they belong to someone else.

And then you're on the sand, you put your towel down, and the whole thing collapses into ordinary.

I want to be honest about that ordinariness, because it's the thing nobody believes until they feel it. Within about ten minutes, nobody is naked anymore. People are just people reading, people eating an apple, people arguing mildly about where to put the umbrella. Nudity stops being the subject. It becomes the background condition, like air temperature.

Nobody is looking, and that's not a line

I expected to be assessed. Weighed, ranked, glanced at and dismissed. I had spent years assuming that other people's eyes worked the way mine did when I looked in a mirror — searching for the flaw first.

That's not what happens. Most people on a naturist beach are doing exactly what people do on any beach: staring at the sea, half-asleep, rummaging in a bag for sunscreen. The occasional glance is the kind you'd give a passing dog. Brief, friendly, no inventory taken.

What I actually felt, once the adrenaline wore off, was a strange and specific relief. I hadn't realised how much of my daily attention went into managing how I looked. Holding my stomach a certain way. Checking whether my shirt rode up. On that beach, with nothing to adjust, all that effort just… stopped. I lay there and felt the sun on parts of my back that had never met sunlight, and I thought: oh, this is what's underneath all that.

The etiquette nobody explains to beginners

Naturist spaces run on a few unwritten rules. They're not complicated, but nobody tells you them beforehand, and getting them wrong is the fastest way to feel like an outsider.

The towel rule

Always sit on something. Your own towel, a sarong, a mat. It's basic hygiene and it's basic respect, and it's the one thing that will get you a quiet, pointed look. Bring two if you can — one for sitting, one for drying off.

Ask before you photograph

This isn't negotiable. A beach being clothing-optional does not make it a photo set. Some people are there without their families knowing, some are there with their kids, some simply don't want a camera pointed anywhere near them. If you want a photo, ask. If the answer is no, say thank you and put the phone away. And keep the phone away in general — a phone held at chest height reads as a camera to everyone around you.

Don't narrate other people's bodies

Not out loud, not to your friend, not as a joke. Compliments can be kind, but a nude beach is one of the few places where a person can exist without their body being a topic of conversation. Let them have it.

Take your rubbish, and a little more

Small thing. It matters.

The things that surprised me

• Bodies are so much more various than the internet suggests. Every shape, every age, scars, surgery, asymmetries. After an hour, the idea that there's a correct body starts to look faintly ridiculous.
• Conversations are normal. I've had a twenty-minute talk about sourdough with a man in his seventies who was wearing a hat and nothing else. That's the whole scene.
• The first five minutes are awful and the sixth is fine. It really is that quick. The dread is front-loaded.
• Nobody claps. Nobody comments. You don't get a welcome speech. You just get a small nod, sometimes, or nothing at all, which is its own kind of welcome.

Practical things worth knowing before you go

Check the legal position, properly, for the specific place. Nude beaches in some countries are official and signposted; in others they're tolerated by custom but technically unlawful; in others the rules changed last year and the internet hasn't caught up. Look at recent local information, not a blog post from 2011. If it's an unofficial spot, keep a sarong or swimsuit within reach. Nobody will think less of you for covering up when a family with young children walks past.

Take more water than you think. Take sunscreen you can reach your own back with. Go early if you're nervous — mornings are quieter and people are less settled in, so arriving feels less like interrupting.

And if you're going alone, which I did, know that this is completely normal. There were several of us. You will probably end up talking to someone about the tide.

What I'd say to the person in the car

You don't have to feel confident. You don't have to like your body yet. That's not the entrance fee. The entrance fee is walking down a path while feeling awkward, which is a thing you have done many times in your life for far worse reasons.

I went back to that beach four times that summer. On the last visit I didn't hesitate at the car at all — I just grabbed my towel and walked. It's a small thing to be proud of. It's also not small at all, because what I actually lost somewhere between the first visit and the fourth was the habit of watching myself from outside.

That's what naturism gave me, more than sunlight or a nice afternoon. An hour in which I was simply a person, not a body being assessed. Once you've had that, it's hard to go all the way back.

If you're still in the car, sitting with the engine off and the towel folded next to you — I get it. Take your eleven minutes. Then open the door.