Hiking - Part 95

Appenzell, Switzerland

An illustration from the Lonely Planet guidebook Don't Hike Naked in Switzerland.

Naked hiking in Switzerland had become popular, especially in the eastern canton of Appenzell.

Many of the naked hikers are tourists from Germany who followed the German naturist FKK movement.

Things came to a head in 2009 when a man wandered on a trail in Appenzell that went past a Christian elderly care home, wearing only boots and a backpack.

He was taken to court and fined, but the case was overturned on appeal because there was actually no law against naked hiking.

So in April, 2009, the canton of Appenzell, in a traditional open air assembly, voted to ban naked hiking.

However, there is still no law against naked hiking in the rest of Switzerland.

Smile!

We end with part of a video by Max Foch in which he deliberately breaks what he considers to be silly laws all over Europe.  In this last segment, he breaks the law against hiking naked in Switzerland.  Unfortunately, the video is pixelated.  But actually, the joke is on Max, because he was hiking in the Graubünden canton, not Appenzell, and naked hiking is perfectly legal in Graubünden.