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Globetrotters & Naturists from Switzerland |
(Brigitte Kamm)
Born in 1962 in the Swiss mountains, I grew up in the countryside of lowland Aargovian Bünz-valley. Upon completion of a commercial apprenticeship, I worked in my first office-job, before putting some effort into language studies, as school basics were rather useless. To a twenty-year old, a three months stage in Cambridge offered much more interesting aspects than «just» the language. To also learn better French, I was finding myself a job on Lake Geneva, where I liked it a lot.
In 1986, I moved on to Central Switzerland, a region I had loved from childhood. Thanks to friends who invited me for a holiday to southern France, I got my first encounter with naturism.
For reasons that are a mystery to me now, I got the idea for a longish trip, maybe even a world-trip, whilst I was living in Zug. As I wasn’t confident getting started on my own, I got together with a travel-partner, yet he was just as much a greenhorn as I was. Three months into the trip, I had gained enough self-confidence and continued for another eight months backpacking on my own.
Thanks to open-hearted people, I was allowed insight into many a different culture, be it in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia or wherever – be they rather traditional or modern countries. For a change, I also visited destinations barely requesting any subtle «traveller skills», instead, offering plain relaxation. A world traveller should not get short on such «holidays within the holiday», even though package-tourists regularly smile about this. They don’t have a clue how much you’ve got to «digest» if you engage in the cultures, instead of holidaying along the lines of «where is the next Mac?» or «I want my German sausage»!
Therefore, I was sometimes also tourist and beach holiday maker on the shores of Thailand, the Maldives, Boracay and Bali. In Indonesia, on the other hand, I also visited the islands of Java and Sumatra, both of which were more demanding again. Most of the time, I was on the road by bus. By Greyhound-bus, the hundreds of kilometres to be travelled in Australia from one place to the next, passed in ease too. How many new things you get to see, hear, smell and taste on all the continents, was incredibly exciting for a newcomer like me at that time – and even if you know a lot of it already, it remains thrilling to this day.
As very exotic, I also perceived New Caledonia, where I had a stop-over. Luckily, I had planned more time for the following destination: New Zealand. Here I met up with another globetrotter, a young woman I had become acquainted with in Australia. Together, we would stand by the roadside with our thumbs up. At that time, it was a wonderful way to meet locals. Also the friendship with that travel-partner has lasted and intensified during many get-togethers or holidays – sometimes also at naturist resorts.
Returning to Switzerland from this first trip end of 1988, I ended up working in the same company in the district of Zug. This time, I got a job as a secretary. With Joe, my new boss, I got a friend for life. Only that he couldn’t even stay for three years. At this point in time, the love of my life was finding me. At first, the wish for a new trip flared up. Yet, after I met Heinz, himself on the look-out for a new travel partner, lots of things accumulated in new ideas…
After our first trip together, the goals for our future were set, as you may read in the “column” about Brigitte & Heinz”. Since 1999, we live (or travel respectively) our dream, instead of dreaming for the rest of our lives of a trip.
Ordinary hobbies can’t be listed with this style of life, as everything is about the region, we stay at any given time. Travelling as slowly as possible, allows us time and leisure every now and then. So I enjoy it, if Heinz prepares the meals, if we can go for walks and explore places. At rare occasions, I paint something or read a book. More often than I prefer, we sit on the computer, digitalizing and documenting our experiences, so we can re-live them later in detail, or so that YOU may get an idea of our travels and hopefully, like it too.
also dubbed Roving Spirits and Wandering Bares
As 28 and 30 years olds, we met on August 3rd, 1990 by means of an ad in Switzerland’s Globetrotter Magazine. As it turned out that we’re congenial, did only live 10 kilometres apart, had both already been on a world trip for more than a year and both had the desire to travel more of the world indeed, it happened quickly that we revealed and explored also each other!
Before we dared to go on a longish world trip, we wanted to find out, whether we have enough common grounds, to share such a venture. Therefore, we did our first test-holiday already at the end of October: five days Paris. Freshly enamoured in the city of love, we were obviously more diverted by contaminating each other with more of the travel virus than to consider potential, undesirable side effects of traveling together.
No worries, after all, test-holidays are certainly more fun than working. Therefore, we decamped again a week later. This time for a two weeks trip by car, visiting the Engadine, South Tyrol and Austria. As this journey together on our own, blessed us with distinctively more joy than frustration, we decided to take the chance. Soon, we booked a railway ticket that was to be the beginning of a longer world trip starting in spring.
This first big adventure together started in April 1991. We had intended to go backpacking for one year, but only returned after a good 2 ½ years! After an overland-journey through Austria, Eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China, we’ve reached Hong-Kong four months later. Subsequently, we’ve spent another four months in South East Asia. Then, we ventured around the Red Continent for 10 months, where we’ve bought a car. Thereafter, we let ourselves thrill for 3 months by 10 South-Pacific islands: we flew to Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands & Hawaii.
Next, we’ve reached New Zealand, where we bought an old car once more, and explored the country’s two main islands with it in half a year. After another four months in South East Asia, we returned to Switzerland in autumn 1993, enriched with myriads of experiences.
The longer we travelled, the more we concluded that we wanted to see ever more of the world; this 30-months journey shouldn’t be our last. Along our way, we’ve met an English couple, who alternately had been travelling and working for one year, during the past 20 years. Several times, they wanted to settle, but they never managed to work more than just for a few months, before succumbing to the travel virus again. Both were absolutely convinced about their lifestyle, but deemed wistfully that with advancing age, it gets harder to find good jobs for the gap years. As we were aware of that as well, we started considering how we should procced with our further travels.
Being nude amongst a picturesque landscape, a naturist resort in New Zealand provided the perfect environment to find a solution that suited us. Social nudity is already a taboo and once you started to break taboos, it just falls in to place, to reflect about other taboos.
It all started after Brigitte repeatedly mentioned casually that she wouldn’t mind, if she would have to die today, as she had already seen much more of the world, than many elderly people, who are only waiting in a care home for the inevitable! Back then, Heinz was still very scared of death and was more than slightly shocked about Brigitte’s statement.
In the midst of this naturist-resort’s natural surroundings, we started to bat around death and Heinz began to realize that Brigitte is absolutely right; death is as much part of life, as birth. As nature is more just and humane than human beings, and everyone must finally pay the dept of nature to close the circle, death cannot be that awful. In contrary, it might even be a human act!
We quickly agreed that without fear of death, doors open to countless unexpected opportunities. If you don’t fear death, you don’t have to be afraid to look into the future. Who is not afraid of death can exchange an ordered, regular life against a life in freedom - that’s exactly what we intended to implement as quickly as possible after our return home.
We simply decided to take advantage of our status as dinkies (double income, no kids), to work as short as absolutely necessary, then to hang up our jobs and from then on, devote our lives to just travel – lifelong! Just to discover other countries and cultures, to gourmandise and to visit naturist places, to leave all cares behind.
Our plan doesn't just mean spending all our savings, including pension plan, as long as we’re young and healthy, but also taking on our final journey as long as life is still fun. Quality of life rather than quantity of life...
We were going to give up security, career, church, children, just the same as drugs like alcohol and tobacco. Consequently, Heinz had a vasectomy and we’ve rented an appartement that we shared with flatmates. As we had seen too many crimes of missionization during our trips, we both left the church.
Admittingly, it was our aim to work only the absolute minimum-time required to acquire our capital stock. We banked on about 7 – 10 years. Nevertheless, it was almost unbelievable even to ourselves that we’ve managed to generate the roughly € 300’000 within 5 years only. More about that in our Philosophy of Life chapter, in the section “Our Travel Money”. The stock market can be a blessing.
In May 1999, when we hung up our jobs and dropped out, Brigitte was only 37, and Heinz 39 years old. Now (2024) we are over 62 or around 65 years old resp. and still on the go. Meanwhile, we have past our peak and are more convinced than ever: it was the right decision to decamp forever and ever – without any transition, our trip will soon lead to our final journey; together instead of alone, happy and loaded with uncountable good memories….
We’ve created this Homepage to share all our experiences we’ve had during almost a quarter of a century from 1999 up until today, whilst collecting food for thought between the South- and the North poles. Have lots of fun and inspiration reading and browsing through our pictures.
Our last stages can be found on our
(Heinz Sibler)
My biggest passions are traveling, learning about other cultures, naturism (nudism), eating well & in style, cooking and of course Brigitte, my cohabitant.
Basically, I live a life keeping up with the motto: I do what I like to do, not what society expects me to do! The moment I realized how many people get fooled by peer pressure to consume alcohol and tabaco, it became clear that I wanted to lead a life without alcohol, tabaco and other drugs.
I love to learn foreign languages by practising, though, learning grammar and rules is not my cup of tea; I’m not even mastering them in my mother tongue!
I was born 1959 in a major Swiss city. When I was five years old, my family moved to central Switzerland, where I was brought up in a single-family house. After high school, I made an apprenticeship as an electrician.
I was 20-years old, owning a brand-new Skoda, when I had my first encounter with naturism on the German shore of lake Constance.
After a few years of working as electrician, I did for 4 ½ years a night study (I was always a night owl). I was going to become an electrical engineer HTL, specialising in computer-based software. Two years into the degree course, I got a job in a research department of a multinational corporation. Before graduating, the manager offered me a job as electrical engineer. Nevertheless, I replied straight away that I intend to go on a longish round the world trip after my studies.
The manager’s reaction was amazing. From the company’s point of view, he declared, my intention was of course reprehensible, even more so, as there was a severe shortage of skilled engineers. From his own point of view however, my superior continued that in the aftermath, he considers it as one of his biggest mistakes that he didn’t do then, what I wanted to do now. “Truthfully,” he continued, “a world trip is the best you can do, even though we regret loosing you as employee”.
Aged 28, I started my first longer world-trip, at first with a travel partner who advertised in a Globetrotters Magazine. Although we split up after three months, I continued globetrotting for a good 16 months. I took the chance to collect my first impressions of our diverse world in China, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, three South-Pacific islands, as well as in North- and Central America. Particularly rewarding, were again and again encounters with locals and with other long-term travellers.
Upon return, I knew, this was not my last trip. Career, a detached house, wife and children didn’t appeal as a desirable lifestyle anymore!
Back in my native country, I accepted the position offered by my former company. Though, already three months later, I allowed myself two months of unpaid leave to discover Scandinavia. Even if I had a rewarding position, I was soon making plans for my next big trip that was to start in less than two years’ time.
With the help of an ad at Switzerland’s Globetrotter magazine, I’ve met Brigitte in 1990. She became my cohabitant or co-traveller respectively. As she had also been on the road globetrotting for more than a year and was yet again infected with the travel bug, we just hit it off, you know. Most other candidates basically wanted nothing more than to settle down for a family and if it’s the only way, they would at a pinch agree for a longer trip beforehand…
Brigitte and I are meanwhile a couple for more than 30 years. Of it, we had only «given away” 6 years to our former taskmasters, all the rest we had been travelling – a genuine travel-partnership rarely seen!
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