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Airlines’ carry-on baggage fee is an opportunity for Nude Travel
Thursday, 08. April 2010, 23:39
Spirit Airline’s latest fee -- up to $45 for the privilege of putting a carry-on bag in an overhead bin -- spells opportunity for one segment of the travel marketplace: nude travel. The American Association of Nude Recreation recommends “nakations,” vacations to nudist resorts.
No need to worry about baggage fees or stuffing all your gear into a carry-on that might not even fit in an overhead compartment. “All you’ll need for the week (sunscreen, cap, sunglasses, shoes and toiletries) can fit in a small carry-on that will fit under the seat, avoiding even carry-on bag fees,” said Erich Schuttauf, executive director for the AANR. Schuttauf says that taking a “nakation” eliminates worries about lost luggage or the hassles of pushing your bags through security.
Nude recreation and nude travel are industries that now total $400 million globally, according to the AANR. Donna Daniels, owner of Castaways Travel, a clothing-optional travel company that is a division of Fox Travel, an American Express agency in Houston, said her clients range in age from their early 30s into their 70s. “Obviously, we have tons of boomers,” said Daniels. But they’re getting younger travelers too.
“Nude recreation is no longer just something that aging hippies are interested in,” said Carolyn Hawkins, public relations coordinator for AANR, whose members range in age from their mid-30s into their 90s.
Daniels and her husband, Jim Bailey, established Castaways as a division of their full-service agency in 1991. Clothing-optional vacations were a hobby for them at the time, not a business. But message boards for like-minded travelers showed them that there was a dearth of information about clothing-optional resorts.
Schuttauf, who got into nude vacations while working in a high-stress job as an attorney for a big law firm, said that shedding your clothes helps vacationers shed their ties to the workaday world. On a more standard vacation, getting into the vacation groove can take days. But on a nude vacation, the transition is much faster.
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