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Tonga's desert islands Back to South Pacific front page Tonga's desert islands If you want to go nude on Tonga... you can't. Officially. But if you take a trip to one of the many uninhabited islands around the main island, Tongatapu, there's no one to offend and no one to stop you. Apart from startling a few hermit crabs, if you stay well away from anyone else and keep your eyes open you can enjoy the sun as nature intended. It's impossible to recommend anywhere because it entirely depends on who happens to be in the area at the time. But for what it's worth, here is where and how I managed to enjoy the beauty of the South Pacific in my favourite costume. A friend and I stayed on the island of Atata, about half an hour by boat from the main island Tongatapu. His girlfriend had cancelled just before we set off, due to work problems, so we had a free hand deciding what to do and where to go. He's a non-naturist but has no issue with other people enjoying it, and the pictures here were just regular holiday snaps, I was hardly dressed at all when away from the public eye. The island isn't very big. You can walk round it in about two hours at very low tide if you're extremely careful on the reef and rocks. It's shaped a bit like a door key, with a round end that's all rocky and a long thin finger of land with beach wrapping all the way round it. Our room was at the tip of the key. We found that by rowing round to the rocky end of the island, there are a few bays where you can drag your canoe on to the rocks and sit in the sun undisturbed, or swim naked over the stunning reef. As far as I could tell, the rocky bays are virtually inaccessible by land, and you can see boats coming from far enough away to get dressed in time. Do not risk stripping off on the long sandy beach that wraps around the other end of the island. I did, and only just managed to get dressed in time to avoid a group of local fishermen walking along the beach! We did go skinny-dipping at night on the main beach with some of the other tourists - I wasn't even particularly keen but I could hardly claim I wasn't up to it. We got out about 50 yards when a night guard heard us and came along the beach with a powerful torch! I managed to race out of the water just before he got there, but he found the women's clothes piled on the beach and stood over them for 10 minutes hopefully shining his torch all over the place. Even in the tropics, that's a long time to stand completely still in the sea without freezing. Anyway, if it's like that at night I can only imagine what would happen during the day. I wouldn't suggest going nude anywhere on the main island of Tongatapu, but I didn't explore it very thoroughly. I do usually take off my costume when I've swum out about 20 metres and hook it over my arm - it's almost impossible to see that you're naked at that distance. Unless of course you're stupid enough to bend down to dive under the water. I did it once, and emerged to see a group of tourists pointing in disbelief. The best site for naturism was the little uninhabited island of Toketoke, just of the north west tip of the main island Tongatapu. We arranged with a local boat owner to have a couple of hours there by ourselves and I spent almost every minute in naked bliss, walking round the island and lying on the beautiful warm sand. There are plenty of other uninhabited islands around the place. Like I said at the beginning, if there's no one there to see you, it doesn't matter what you wear. It does take some courage to dump your trunks on the sand and walk off round an island with absolutely nothing to cover you, but if you can relax and stop thinking about textiles for long enough it becomes utterly carefree. I once heard a woman on TV being asked whether she hid her naturism to avoid awkward questions. "No. I'm proud to be a naturist," she replied simply. I felt I'd achieved something by enjoying a bit of Tonga in the nude.
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