After owning a clothing-optional travel company for more than 25 years, I am still not sure I can answer the question with sufficient clarity, but here’s my attempt. It has been my experience that people who are able to leave their clothing behind in a social setting are also more able to check their egos at the door and be themselves, as they really are, rather than who they think others would like them to be.

Of course, what happens to my vacation-mates sans clothing also happens to me. I find myself withholding less of who I am as I hide less of my body. I begin to accept myself, imperfections and all. I can assure you, for a woman who tried for years to match the unrealistic standards of beauty in our society, this can be very liberating. Clothes-free vacationing leads to body acceptance. I can recall so many vacations that Tom and I took together before we discovered clothes-free vacationing. We would long to genuinely know some of our fellow vacationers, but never seemed to have the opportunity to push past the boundary of “Where are you from? What do you do? How about those Cowboys?”