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Nude Recreation Week

Next celebratedMonday, July 5, 2027

American naturists treat the week after Independence Day as the high point of their summer, with open houses at clubs across the country and a mass skinny dip on the Saturday.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 2, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEWeek after Independence Day

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYFun

SUBCATEGORYUnique

ORIGIN

Institutional Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

The Naturist Society

FIRST OBSERVED

1992

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A beach protest that grew into a week.

Lee Baxandall and Eugene Callen, founder of the free beach group Beachfront U.S.A., met in Los Angeles in May 1976 and created an annual July event called National Nude Weekend. The Naturist Society, which Baxandall founded in 1980, had become its organizer, and in 1992 it expanded the weekend into the seven-day Nude Recreation Week.

Read The Naturist Society's own historyvia The Naturist Society

INTRO

The beach protest that had to call itself a celebration

The National Park Service would not permit a demonstration on the Cape Cod beach, so the organisers announced a celebration instead. Thousands of people undressed at Truro in August 1975, and the police cited no one. Nude Recreation Week descends directly from that afternoon.

The best known event is now a mass swim rather than a standoff. The American Association for Nude Recreation counts 13,648 people skinny dipping simultaneously across North America in 2009, as the finale to that year's week.

The organisation that promotes the week today did not create it, and its predecessor once wanted little to do with the people who did. Two neighbouring days get mistaken for it as well: International Skinny Dip Day, the second Saturday of July, and National Nude Day on July 14.

ORIGINS

Nude Recreation Week history

INTRODUCTION

In 1974 naturists in Los Angeles tried to open Venice Beach to social nudity. Within days the streets running down to the sand filled with onlookers and traffic slowed to a stop. The city council blamed the nudists and passed an ordinance banning nudity on its beaches, effective immediately.

Eugene Callen would not let it go. He built a group called Beachfront U.S.A. to reopen closed beaches and win new ones, and in 1975 the effort helped carry a case to the California Court of Appeals. The appeal failed, and Los Angeles beaches have been clothing required ever since.

CHAPTER 01

A phone call between two coasts

On the other coast, Lee Baxandall was fighting the same battle. The superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore had moved to ban nudity on the clothing optional beaches at Truro. The committee that formed to fight it made Baxandall its spokesman, because he was its only self employed member and so had job security.

Callen heard about the Truro celebration and telephoned Baxandall to congratulate him. The two men agreed to meet.

CHAPTER 02

One meeting in Los Angeles

They met in May 1976. Their first decision was a single date, August 7, which they named National Nude Beach Day. Their second was larger: an annual July event, open to any interested group, called National Nude Weekend.

Callen saw almost none of it. He died in 1978, and the organising fell to Baxandall.

CHAPTER 03

A society, and a wire service

Word first travelled through independent youth publications. By the 1980s those papers were less common, and news of the weekend had to be issued through mainstream news agencies like the AP and UPI. The tone changed with the channel, and the press ran it as titillating reading for a more conservative readership.

Baxandall founded The Naturist Society in 1980. By its establishment it was already the annual event's organiser and primary promoter.

CHAPTER 04

The argument, and the week

Organised nudism was slower to embrace it. AANR's own history records that club owners feared the free beach movement might put their camps out of business, and would not acknowledge the free beachers at their conventions. When Baxandall circulated a 1985 flyer casting naturism as an answer to both puritanism and pornography, the American Sunbathing Association's executive director, Arne Erickson, rejected it as too intellectual and not sufficiently promotional.

The expansion came anyway. Five days were added in 1992, turning the weekend into the seven day Nude Recreation Week that runs today.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A ban proposed at Truro

Park officials argued the clothing optional beaches were drawing too large a crowd, and moved to prohibit nudity there.

A committee stages the beach event

The Free the Free Beach Committee, formed to fight the ban, held its Truro gathering on August 23.

Two founders meet in Los Angeles

Lee Baxandall and Beachfront U.S.A. agreed on National Nude Beach Day for August 7 and an annual July National Nude Weekend.

The weekend becomes a week

The Naturist Society expanded the two day weekend into a seven day Nude Recreation Week.

A radio station for the week

The American Radio Relay League listed special event station NU5DE, run by the Naturist Amateur Radio Club of Austin, on the air July 6 to 11.

The Saturday gets a name

AANR designated the second Saturday of July as International Skinny Dip Day.

With the media focused on nude recreation more than at any other time of the year, everyone involved in nude recreation can become a walking, talking billboard for the benefits of their chosen lifestyle.

The BulletinAANR's member magazine, May 1999

The biggest misconception is that today's nudists are a bunch of swingers and party people. But any group affiliated with the AANR must maintain family standards.

Carolyn HawkinsSpokesperson, American Association for Nude Recreation

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Nude Recreation Week

OPINION

80 percent said a marked nude beach is acceptable.

In a national Roper poll reported by National Geographic, 25 percent of adults said they had skinny dipped in mixed company at least once. The same poll found 80 percent agreed it is acceptable to have a nude beach as long as it is marked by a sign.

LAW

A nationwide federal ban never arrived

An assistant secretary of the interior announced that the Cape Cod ban would be extended to federal land everywhere, and AANR's history records that the plan never went into effect. Rangers may still apply state and county law at a local superintendent's discretion.

FOOTHOLD

The movement behind it keeps shrinking

AANR's own account puts its membership at a peak of 50,000 in 1998 and under 30,000 by 2015, with affiliated clubs down from 270 to around 200. The week is one of the few moments the movement still reaches past its own membership.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Nude Recreation Week

EDITOR'S PICK

Visit a club while the gate is open

Affiliated clubs use the week to let first timers in free, with no membership commitment. It is a low commitment way to find out whether social nudity suits you.

JOIN

Join the skinny dip on the second Saturday

AANR points people to a backyard pool, a secluded spot on a river or lake, a sanctioned nude beach, or one of its own clubs. Pick the option that is legal where you are.

PUT

Put music on and clean the house bare

AANR's own suggestion for observing at home is to shed your clothes, turn on some music and get out the mop. It is an unglamorous entry point, which is rather the point.

GARDEN

Garden without clothes in a private yard

Another of AANR's published at home ideas is to garden nude behind your own fence. A fenced garden keeps the whole thing on your own property.

READ

Read how the week actually started

The documented history is stranger than the version most listings carry. It runs through a park service beach ban, a rejected flyer and a 1992 decision to add five days.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Nude Recreation Week?

1 / 7

How did news of the event reach the public by the 1980s?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance, so it is a normal working day, and a search of the Federal Register returns no US federal document of any kind carrying the name.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

14sources

6primary records

11independently dated

Primary records

The Naturist Society2018

What is The Naturist Society? An outline history

The society's own account of the Truro beach fight and the week's founding.

American Association for Nude Recreation2025-08

Nude Recreation Week event listing

AANR's archived listing giving the 2025 dates and the Saturday skinny dip.

American Association for Nude Recreation2010-06-30

Skinny-Dip Season is Upon us: 2nd Annual Guinness World Records Skinny-Dip Across North America

AANR's release giving the previous year's turnout as 13,648 simultaneous skinny dippers.

American Radio Relay League2010-07-06

Nude Awareness Celebration / Nude Recreation Week special event

The listing for station NU5DE, operated for the week from Austin, Texas.

Guinness World Records2018-06-09

Largest skinny dipping (swimming naked)

The ratified record: 2,505 women at Wicklow, Ireland, in June 2018.

Federal Register

Document search for Nude Recreation Week

Returns no federal document carrying the observance's name.

Additional coverage

American Association for Nude Recreation2022-01-05

The History of Nudism

AANR's long history of American nudism, from Venice Beach to its own membership decline.

Planet Nude2025-07-07

A brief history of Nude Recreation Week

A footnoted history drawing on the movement's own 1985 and 1999 papers.

SkinnyDipDay.org

The Skinny Dip Day organisers' timeline, from the 1976 meeting to the 2018 naming.

The Traveler2025-06-09

Shed Your Threads This July During Nude Recreation Week and Beyond

AANR's 2025 promotion, with its published suggestions for observing at home.

NBC News2011-07-02

Get naked! American nudists celebrate summer au naturel

Coverage of the 2011 week, with AANR's spokesperson on free club open days.

National Geographic2004-07-21

The Skinny on Nudism in the U.S.

Reporting on American naturism, including Roper polling on public attitudes.

New Jersey 101.52023

Your New Jersey guide to Nude Recreation Week

Local coverage placing the 2023 week on July 10 to 16.

Take It off; Take It All off: Nude Recreation Week Is Right Around the Corner

A general feature on the week and the mass skinny dip that closes it.

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