How To Survive in the Wild Buck Naked: How To Stay Alive (and Warm) in the Woods When You’re Completely Nude (The Naked Rebel)

How To Survive in the Wild Buck Naked: How To Stay Alive (and Warm) in the Woods When You’re Completely Nude (The Naked Rebel)

I never thought my proudest survival skill would be learning how to squat behind a log without getting a rash on my bare backside, but here we are. Hi, I am Kristin, 38 years old, living just far enough outside of Seattle that I have to drive ten minutes to find a good latte but close enough that I still complain about the price of parking. I have been to more nudist beaches, camps, hot springs, and one terrifying clothing-optional pottery retreat than I can count, and let me tell you something right now: being naked is one thing. Being naked in the wild Pacific Northwest with mosquitoes the size of grapes and pine needles in places that will never see the light of day is a completely different beast. This whole book came about after one little trip that was supposed to be a simple weekend of camping and ended up as an all-out episode of Naked and Afraid except no camera crew, no prize money, and Tanya screaming at me that I had ruined her life because I forgot to bring the matches. I have been through a lot of awkward moments in my nudist travels—airport security when they want to pat you down while you are already pretty much down to nothing, and the time a goat ate my sarong while I was chatting up a guy in Croatia—but nothing compares to running around a dark Washington forest at two in the morning while trying to pretend I am a free-spirited natural woman instead of a frozen idiot with goosebumps on my goosebumps. Here is the thing nobody tells you before you try it: being nude in nature is not just a physical state, it is a psychological experiment. Without clothes, you learn very quickly what you are made of, and let me tell you that in my case it is mostly panic, mosquito bites, and the occasional deep thought about how much I miss pants. You also learn that your friends can go feral faster than a raccoon in a garbage can. Tanya, bless her heart, is my best friend but also the person most likely to make me yell at the top of my lungs while we are both unclothed. She insists she looks better naked than me because, according to her, her butt could deflect a cougar attack. I did not believe this until we heard something moving in the brush that night and she literally pointed her bare butt at it like a defensive weapon. Susan, on the other hand, thinks any moment in life is better if you add a dare, which is how we ended up out there in the woods with no clothes in the first place. She swore she was going to go nude too but within ten minutes she had put on a sweatshirt and left me and Tanya looking like a pair of confused ferrets caught in the wrong neighborhood. Anyway, by the end of that weekend, I had learned a lot. Things like how to keep warm with nothing but a tarp and rage, how to start a fire when your only available tinder is the hair on your own legs, and most importantly how to walk with confidence through the forest while fully naked and hoping no other campers are filming for YouTube. This book is basically my field guide to surviving the wild when you have nothing between you and the trees but your own questionable choices. So take a deep breath, let the breeze hit your bits, and let me walk you through the things I wish someone had told me before I stripped down and decided to live my best wild nude life.