06/07/2007, Vancouver, BC – Wreck Beach has won a spot on a new list of the world's best clothing-optional beaches. And according to the countdown, commissioned by USA Today and compiled by the American Association for Nude Recreation, Canada is one of the Top-10 greatest places to "leave the swimsuit at home."

Wreck Beach, the country's first and largest legal clothing-optional beach, is listed alongside such famed locales as France's Cap d'Agde, also known as "the naked city", the Caribbean's postcard-pretty Orient Bay in the Virgin Islands; Florida's Haulover Beach, which attracts a million visitors -- both clothed and unclothed -- to Miami every year; and Little Beach, a Hawaiian hot spot where sun worshippers prefer birthday suits to grass skirts.

Judy Williams likens Canada's foremost nude playground, Wreck Beach, to "a beacon in the night of naturism." "It brings people from all over the world because it has the rare combination of physical beauty, a sense of place and a sense of history," says Williams, chair of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society.

"Where else can you ski in the morning on the mountains surrounding Vancouver and be on [the beach] in the afternoon enjoying the sun as nature intended -- in other words, au naturel -- while eating the finest food on the West Coast and being accompanied by musicians . . . who come together to jam in perfect harmony? It doesn't come any finer." Carolyn Hawkins, spokeswoman for the AANR, says Canada is a great place to be naked.

"When you're talking to someone, you see who they truly are inside -- from the heart -- and not some front that they're putting on," she says, adding that there are AANR-sanctioned nudist clubs in Alberta, B.C., Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

"It's a very stress-free atmosphere; when you shed your clothes, you shed your stress." A survey released this week suggests bare derrieres are also good for tourism's bottom line. According to the YPB&R/Yankelovich 2007 National Leisure Travel Monitor, access to nude recreation such as Wreck Beach is more appealing to adult vacationers (12 per cent) than proximity to golf (10 per cent), mountain biking (10 per cent) or tennis facilities (six per cent).

Out of 1,882 men and women polled, 16 per cent of those born since 1979 consider a nude recreation experience "desirable" or "very desirable." Interest drops slightly to 14 per cent among Gen X'ers born between 1965 and 1978, followed by 12 per cent of adults born before 1946, and 10 per cent of baby boomers.

A 1999 Federation of Canadian Naturists survey found that 2.7 million Canucks were open to visiting clothing-optional beaches or nudist resorts, while 3.5 million enjoyed skinny-dipping.