Best Beaches. Facebook Twitter Email. CNN — Although still taboo in many places, casting aside your clothes at the shore has become a customary practice around the world in recent times. From rocky coastlines to talcum powder fine sands, and big city bays to secluded shores, there are now hundreds of beaches where it's perfectly legal or at least de facto legal to sunbathe, swim and otherwise frolic beside the sea in nothing more than your birthday suit. While clothing-optional beach destinations may seem like a modern invention, it's actually quite an old idea, a product of the otherwise prudish Victorian era. During the s, American poet Walt Whitman extolled the virtues of the "Adamic air bath" -- his nude walkabouts and swims along Timber Creek in New Jersey, writing of "The free exhilarating ecstasy of nakedness in Nature.

These hot spots are great if you want a carefree and clothing-optional getaway. But before you hit a nudist beach, know that strict etiquette reigns supreme. In fact, most clothes-free destinations have more rules than a boarding school. Reading somewhere that a beach is clothing-optional does not mean that the beach is actually clothing-optional. Do your due diligence and ensure that the area is truly safe for your naked patronage. To get you started, the American Association for Nude Recreation supplies a short list of nude beaches in the U.

Or it involves going all-in on a naturalist resort, throwing you into a whole different lifestyle when you just want to go snorkeling without trunks on. But sometimes, a nude beach experience can be a little slice of fully nude paradise. As we've already shared our favorite nude beaches in the US and then, again, in the Bay Area and outlined the rules of nudist resorts , here's our list of the 20 most sizzling seaside spots around the globe to soak up the sun, au nature l. Be sure to be extra thorough with the sunscreen.

There are areas on the California coast that are void of nude beaches all of Los Angeles County for example , but each region of the state has some. Below is a list of the official and unofficial nude beaches in California sorted from south to north. Note that you should obey all city, county, state, and federal laws whether posted or not.