Vera Playa gets its name from the town of Vera which is located in the eastern, coastal, region of Almeria in Andalusia, southern Spain. Playa is the Spanish word for beach. The stretch of coast that Vera Playa is located on is called the Costa de Almeria. The beach is fairly coarse golden sand and stretches, unbroken, for several kilometres. One kilometre of the beach is designated as officially nudist and it is in the area of this section that the fully naturist resort of Vera Playa has been built.

Over the years, since its humble origin as a camp site, development has been continuous and the resort is now Europe’s second largest and most modern naturist resort. It is comprised of twelve urbanizacions – a Spanish word that describes communities of privately owned properties that share common facilities such as swimming pools, gardens, maintenance, cleaning etc. The urbanizacions in Vera Playa are served by shops, bars and restaurants within the naturist area. This means that wherever you stay within the resort, it is okay to walk from your apartment to the pool, the garden, the beach, the bar, the restaurant or the shop without getting dressed. As well as most of the properties in the urbanizacions being available for holiday rental, Vera Playa offers one other form of holiday accommodation; a fully naturist hotel. The hotel was one of the first developments of the resort to be built and backs right onto to the beach.

How to book holiday accommodation in the Vera Playa naturist resort:

You can find plenty of web-sites offering holiday accommodations in the resort by typing the key words “Vera Playa Naturist” into the Google search query. Use some of the better sites to get an overview of the resort and its urbanizacions but search deeper to find sites that feature specific, privately owned apartments. These, can often be cheaper and it is usually possible to negotiate the rent by emailing the owner. Last year we found an apartment that we particularly liked listed on several of the larger sites with a price of 400 euros per week for the period we wanted to take our vacation. With a little more searching, we were able to find the owner’s own website who we then emailed and managed to negotiate with, a three week period for only 900 euros, saving us 100 euros per week. This method does preclude the possibility of paying online by credit card however, because private owners rarely have credit card facilities.

The weather in Vera Playa:

The weather in this part of Spain is about as good as it gets. Summer rainfall is extremely rare and sunny days are practically continuous throughout June, July and August. Even the spring weather provides plenty of days that are warm and sunny enough for sunbathing much of the time, whilst autumn often retains a good deal of the summer heat right up until November. The chance of some heavy rain increases around this time and there can be some fairly cold weather during the winter months. Even in December, January and February, however, there are often days when it warms up sufficiently for those who live in the resort to strip off and lay out for a few hours soaking in the winter sun.

Things to do around Vera Playa:

It has to said that the scenery in the immediate vicinity of Vera Playa is not particularly inspiring. Neither are the nearby towns of Vera and Garrucha the least bit picturesque or culturally significant in any way. The nearest place that is worth seeing is Mojacca, a white hilltop town with over 2000 years of history. It is located about ten kilometres west of Vera Playa. A few kilometres further in the same direction is a beautiful area of protected parkland called the Parque de Natural Cabo de Gata. Its hills, villages and many secluded coves are most definitely worth exploring. There is also an area of saltpans where thousands of migrating birds, including flamingos, stop en route to and from Africa every year. Also within easy reach of Vera Playa is the popular tourist attraction of Granada.

However, the main reason for having a holiday in Vera Playa is to sunbathe and enjoy relaxing, nude leisure in this family oriented, naturist resort. That and the very high standard of self catering accommodation is the reason we will be returning again this summer – our fifth successive year.