Jim & Donna		  
     
About the Owners

We're Jim Bailey and Donna Daniels, with over 45 years combined experience in the travel industry. In 1984, a full service travel company was established in a Houston suburb. We began offering clothing optional travel opportunities from the beginning, and with so much demand for this niche, we opened a separate division, Castaways Travel, in 1991. As a division of our parent company, Fox Travel, Castaways Travel is affiliated with the largest travel management firm in the world and is an American Express Travel Services Provider.

We are both Certified Travel Counselors (CTC), Master Cruise Counselors (MCC), Accredited Aussie Specialists, Certified Caribbean Destination Specialists, Jamaican Specialists and are members of IATA, ARC, American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), Caribbean Tourism Organization
(both past presidents), Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and The Travel Institute. Jim has been an active officer in ASTA, statewide and nationally. The company is a member of TANR, Trade Association for Nude Recreation, where Donna currently serves as its President. We're both members of The Naturist Society and the American Association for Nude Recreation.

We've visited every continent except Antarctica. With our 2009 trip to Africa we crossed the threshold of 100 countries and island nations we've visited... including 35 Caribbean destinations. Jim holds a private pilots license. In addition to vacations included here, we enjoy water and snow skiing, running, white water rafting and we're both certified SCUBA divers (that's how we first met). Our diving experience includes the USA, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, the Galapagos Islands, all over the Caribbean as well as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia where we spent our honeymoon a few years ago.


Castaways Travel Famous Firsts

OK... maybe it's INFAMOUS firsts!

Over the years Castaways Travel has been the leading innovators in creating new nude travel opportunities.

For instance...

Castaways Travel may best be known for putting together the first NUDE AIRLINE flight, Naked-Air. This flight was created in conjunction with the May 2003 grand opening of Hidden Beach Resort Au Naturel Club and our nude takeover of the adjacent El Dorado Resort and Spa.

When the Miami to Cancun nude flight was announced to the press the story took off like wild fire. The CastawaysTravel.com and Naked-Air.com websites were inundated with over 20 million hits. James, Donna, and other staff took part in over 75 TV, radio or print interviews and the flight was the subject of an untold number of print news stories. TV interviews or features about the flight were carried on NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, Letterman, Tonight Show, MSNBC, O'Reilly, Travel Channel and probably many others we don't even know about. When the story hit the wires, almost every major print news publication in the country picked it up. We're aware of print features in the Houston Chronicle, New York Times, Forebes, Readers Digest, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, USA Today and many others. In the years since the flight, it seems everytime airline security becomes an issue, sooner or later some in the media pick up on Naked-Air as a humorous solution to airline security searches. Hey... works for us. The Naked-Air.com website remains open as a tribute to that historic event. See more on our role in the creation of Hidden Beach Resort below.



In 1996 we worked with, and convinced the owner of a small boutique hotel in Puerto Morelos, Mexico to create a resort offering a clothing optional experience. The resort was named The Caribbean Reef Club (CRC), featured 30 rooms, but nudity was restricted to the pool area and a separate beach and spa area. While small, the resort was quite popular and successful but could not overcome two major hurricanes in two years and the illness of the key managing partner. CRC closed in 2004.

2002 was the year that Castaways Travel put together the first ever nude week and resort takeover in Curacao. Jim and Donna discovered the Sunset Waters Resort and Spa on a previous scouting trip and convinced the management
to let us open it up for a nude week. Some Curacao resorts had limited clothing optional facilities, but no resort had ever been taken over for complete nude use… at least until we arrived. Resort management was somewhat nervous at first… but they warmed up quickly. They found out what we already know; nude folks are a LOT of fun. Since the inaugural takeover, three others have taken place

Looking for a larger location for a Nude Week along the Yucatan coast, Castaways Travel worked with the management of the Eldorado Resort & Spa (now Eldorado Seaside Suites) to take over the 280 room resort. Bookings were going so well, in consultation with Castaways, the management of the resort set aside two buildings of the resort to create an entirely new nude resort, Hidden Beach Resort Au Naturel Club. With the strong financial backing of Karisma Resorts, this wonderful little resort continues to serve the nude market and boasts one of the highest occupancy rates along the Riviera Maya. Unlike CRC, Hidden Beach features a full nude experience that includes nude use of the entire resort including the restaurants and all facilities.See our HiddenBeach.net website for more information.


In September 2006 Journey's End Resort on the island of Ambergris Caye in Belize was the site of the First Nude Week in Belize. Castaways Travel arranged a complete buyout of the 44 room Journeys End Resort, a property Castaways owners James Bailey & Donna Daniels first visited over 20 years ago on a diving trip to San Pedro town on Ambergris Caye. The Belize resort takeover was not only a first for the country of Belize, it was another first for clients of Castaways Travel, nude travel industry pacesetters.


The 2008 and 2010 Clothing Optional Luxury European Danube and Rhone River Cruises marked new firsts for Castaways Travel... and for Europe. Even though Europeans have a more liberal attitude regarding nudity, we were the first to do a full ship, private charter, river nude cruise. Who knows? Maybe we were just the first to think of it. The Budapest - Vienna - Prague itinerary along the Danube river was very popular with our guests, even if the weather chose not to be 100% cooperative. Due to popular demand, we hosted another nude luxury river cruise down the Rhone River in the South of France (Chalon-sur-Saà ne to Avignon) in July 2010.


AANR TNS TANR INF
Jim, Donna or Castaways Travel is a member of these nudist/naturist organizations

Fox Travel, the parent company, is a member of all these organizations.




Castaways Travel
Providing Clothing-Optional Vacations and Cruises Worldwide™
Jim Bailey & Donna Daniels, Owners
(aka James & Champagne)
Certified Travel Counselors,
Master Cruise Counselors,

CASTAWAYS TRAVEL,
25701 IH-45 North, Suite #3A
The Woodlands, TX 77380
Ph: 281-362-8785,
Fax: 281-363-0916,
E-mail: info@castawaystravel.com

Reservations: 800-470-2020
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