by Jed Lipinski
Daniel Ruf and Patrick Palme, budget-minded students from Hanover, Germany, drove across the United States this spring without paying for nearly any of their accommodations. During the trip, they stayed overnight in 20 cities with people they met through CouchSurfing, a social networking Web site whose members make their homes available to travelers free of charge.
Stephanie Muise, in her Toronto home, with her guest Ricardo Neumann from Berlin. “When I come home, I take off my shoes, feed my cats and get naked,” she said.
But after sending dozens of requests to New Yorkers, the only response they got was from Robert Redmond, a 48-year-old retired New York City parks department employee, whose online profile shows him crawling naked into a kayak on the Delaware River.
Mr. Redmond, it turned out, was a member of the site’s Clothing Optional group and has been a nudist since the age of 23, when he first skinny-dipped in Lake Michigan. For the last year, he has been hosting travelers in his three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, most of the time wearing nothing but a Swiss Army watch and a weathered pair of Tevas.
“I’ll always slip on some shorts if my guests are uncomfortable,” he said recently, as he served bagels and lox to Mr. Ruf and Mr. Palme, who were fully clothed but appeared perfectly at ease with Mr. Redmond, who was not.
“It’s Bob’s home,” said Mr. Palme, 20. “He can do whatever he wants.”
Mr. Ruf, 21, added: “We’re just happy to have a place to stay.”
As membership in CouchSurfing’s seven-year-old global community has soared to more than 2.8 million from around 4,000 in 2004, so has the number of its online groups, through which members share their interests. There are now more than 36,000, including straightforward categories like “Piano Players” and “Libertarians” and more existential ones like “What Am I Doing With My Life?”
Those looking for a nudist-friendly environment have a variety of groups from which to choose — not just Clothing Optional, but also Naked at Home, Freedom for Nudity, Nudist Lifestyle and nakedveganpotsmokingcyclists, among others. By designating their homes as nudist-friendly spaces, members of these groups provide travelers with temporary havens from the tyranny of fabric and public nudity laws. More important, perhaps, from the hosts’ viewpoint, they are taking the intimacy of couch surfing to an extreme, bringing the unguarded ethos of the nudist camp into their homes.
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Daniel Ruf and Patrick Palme, budget-minded students from Hanover, Germany, drove across the United States this spring without paying for nearly any of their accommodations. During the trip, they stayed overnight in 20 cities with people they met through CouchSurfing, a social networking Web site whose members make their homes available to travelers free of charge.
Stephanie Muise, in her Toronto home, with her guest Ricardo Neumann from Berlin. “When I come home, I take off my shoes, feed my cats and get naked,” she said. But after sending dozens of requests to New Yorkers, the only response they got was from Robert Redmond, a 48-year-old retired New York City parks department employee, whose online profile shows him crawling naked into a kayak on the Delaware River.
Mr. Redmond, it turned out, was a member of the site’s Clothing Optional group and has been a nudist since the age of 23, when he first skinny-dipped in Lake Michigan. For the last year, he has been hosting travelers in his three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, most of the time wearing nothing but a Swiss Army watch and a weathered pair of Tevas.
“I’ll always slip on some shorts if my guests are uncomfortable,” he said recently, as he served bagels and lox to Mr. Ruf and Mr. Palme, who were fully clothed but appeared perfectly at ease with Mr. Redmond, who was not.
“It’s Bob’s home,” said Mr. Palme, 20. “He can do whatever he wants.”
Mr. Ruf, 21, added: “We’re just happy to have a place to stay.”
As membership in CouchSurfing’s seven-year-old global community has soared to more than 2.8 million from around 4,000 in 2004, so has the number of its online groups, through which members share their interests. There are now more than 36,000, including straightforward categories like “Piano Players” and “Libertarians” and more existential ones like “What Am I Doing With My Life?”
Those looking for a nudist-friendly environment have a variety of groups from which to choose — not just Clothing Optional, but also Naked at Home, Freedom for Nudity, Nudist Lifestyle and nakedveganpotsmokingcyclists, among others. By designating their homes as nudist-friendly spaces, members of these groups provide travelers with temporary havens from the tyranny of fabric and public nudity laws. More important, perhaps, from the hosts’ viewpoint, they are taking the intimacy of couch surfing to an extreme, bringing the unguarded ethos of the nudist camp into their homes.
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