Nudist answer to Airbnb launches offering accommodation for naturists

This new Airbnb-style site enables travellers to search a database of over 200 naturist-friendly properties

Travellers can use the new site to find naturist-friendly holiday rentals (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A new Airbnb-style booking site has launched to help naturist travellers find private holiday rentals where they can let it all hang out.

NaturistBnB was started earlier this year by Finnish couple Petri and Minna Karjalainen and lists over 200 properties worldwide, with new holiday rentals added every day. Listings include a North London sofabed, a Valencia B&B with a clothes-free zone (you have to be dressed for breakfast) and a guesthouse in a gated nudist community in Indiana. Dozens of stays have been booked through the website, with the first trips taking place in June.

The Karjalainens launched NaturistBnB after encountering problems locating naturist-friendly accommodation options on their own travels.

They can usually find somewhere to stay, Petri Karjalainen told The Independent, but tend to end up in the “most obvious places, where everybody else goes”. Missing the freedom they experience when “travelling textile” – ie, fully clothed – the couple realised there was a gap in the market.

The initial response to the launch of the website has been “amazing”, said Karjalainen. They’ve received hundreds of emails from well-wishers and are getting around 10,000 hits a day.

What the site offers, explained Karjalainen, is “freedom and safety. You will be staying somewhere you can be sure you can wear as much or little clothing as you wish without offending anyone”. Travellers wanting to skinny dip, sunbathe in their birthday suits or “take everything off after a long day to feel the breeze” can do that at dedicated naturist resorts, of course, but busy resorts may not be to everyone’s tastes. “That is why we want to bring more options to people to enjoy their lifestyle with like-minded people in new locations.”

The site offers benefits to naturist hosts too, who can strip off in the presence of guests with perfect equanimity. The Karjalainens began hosting with Airbnb after having booked through the site themselves, and have enjoyed the experience.

The only downside, they found, was having to stay fully clothed at home. The couple tried marking their Airbnb listing “clothing optional” but noticed that bookings fell dramatically as a result. “Apparently textile people are not interested in booking with a nudist host,” said Karjalainen.

The launch of NaturistBnb has been welcomed by Andrew Welch of British Naturism, a members’ organisation supporting naturists and naturist venues in the UK.

“Naturally companies are springing up to offer these services,” he said. “There’s still a perception in this country that naturists are on the fringes and it’s all a bit strange and weird, but it’s less of a scary dinner party subject abroad.”

British Naturism has a paid membership of 9,000, but Welch claims that the number of Brits who are happy stripping off in public is far larger, whether visiting a nudist beach on holiday abroad or stripping off for a spot of wild swimming at home in the UK.

“The barriers are down. People are not so hung up as they used to be.”