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The Hedonist’s Guide to Summer in New York

Nineteen options for having more fun than you probably should.


Soak in the sun at a nude beach.  

1. Head to the nude beach with the best-looking people.
A review from one anonymous lurker.
“Gunnison Beach in New Jersey has plenty of attractive people … the ladies especially there are just amazing. They’re not high maintenance, not the kind of people who need to have some perfect tan to look good for everyone back home. Some do wear fancy hats, though. The National Park Service officers keep a tight grip to make sure no one is making sexual advances on anyone. It’s supposed to be a wholesome location. But I’m 39 — I still notice when someone looks attractive.”

2. Attend clothing-optional adult sleepaway camp.
Camp for Park Slope Parents
The Glen Wilde Bungalow Colony is a collection of 18 houses on 11 acres of water, woods, barbecues, and fire pits. The closest thing to structure are the board games in the closets and the huge collection of classic VHS movies. (For now, only six of the houses are rentable. Open through September; $175 per night; 44 Church Rd., Mountaindale, N.Y.; theglenwilde.com.)


The Glen Wilde Bungalow Colony.  

Camp for Leather Daddies
The Woods Campground is an LGBT camp on a 100-acre ground. The season is divided into themed weekend events — Leather Weekend, Redneck Weekend, Frat Party Weekend — and clothing is optional. (Open through October. 3500 Forest St., Lehighton, Pa.; $110 for a two-night stay; thewoodscampground.com.)


Camp No Counselors.  

Camp for the Murray Hill Crowd
Camp no counselors involves coed cabins that bunk about 20 revelers. Activities include dodgeball, archery, friendship-bracelet-making, and, just like the camp of your youth, plenty of sex and booze. (Sessions available September 8–11. 532 NY-74, Paradox, N.Y.; $550; campnocounselors.com.)

3. Rent this insane Hamptons house.


For a quick $325k, this Jordan Belfort–worthy estate on roughly six and a half acres in Water Mill, New York, can be all yours through Labor Day. Inside, there are ten bedrooms and fuchsia velvet furniture galore. Outside, there’s a freestanding fireplace beside the big heated pool, plus a pool house where the thong-clad pool boy can stay. hamptonsrealestate.com

4. Charter a boat for 48 of your closest friends.
The Capt’s Lady holds 49 people, along with a crew that does all the messy work of fishing — baiting, unhooking, and filleting your catch, which, up through September, will most likely be fluke or sea bass. (Call Captain Tony at 917-560-8224; $43 a person for a seven-hour weekday charter, departing from Sheepshead Bay.)

5. Throw a kegger at a Yankees game.
The Staten Island Yankees, that is. A thousand bucks gets you a luxury suite at the waterfront stadium (20 tickets, so $50 a person), which you can fill with a hot-dog buffet and a personal visit from Scooter the Holy Cow. You have to pay extra for a keg, but the ferry ride is included. Or, do it up at Coney Island, where a suite at a Cyclones game costs $700 for 12.


6. Make out in the dark, air-conditioned corners of museums.
People who love to make out in public know that dark spaces of air-conditioned museums are perfect for a spontaneous tryst. At the American Museum of Natural History, find your way to the Hall of South American Peoples. Dip into the two-row screening room of the documentary To Survive: Indians of Amazonia — Richard Kiley’s dry narration will transport you to days of back-row makeouts in Anthropology 101. More-adventurous pairs can kiss under the elephants in the dimly lit Akeley Hall of African Mammals. Choose the right bench, and a quartet of pointy-horned gemsbok make for a captive audience. Across Central Park, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Asian Art wing: The Astor Chinese Garden Court is the perfect hideaway.


7. Play with fire.
At a new class at the Floasis, a performing-arts center in Bushwick (1342 DeKalb Ave., Ste. A), you can learn to swallow flaming torches and twirl lit-up sticks, fans, and whips.

8. Stay inside on a beautiful day and get a $480 body treatment.
Instead of lying out in Central Park, you can look at it through the window of your Asian-inspired suite at the Mandarin Oriental hotel spa. There, a decadent new two-hour-long experience has been created in honor of the Year of the Fire Monkey. A small tingsha cymbal rings to signal the beginning of the treatment, and aesthetician Edyta ceremonially washes your feet and the insides of your toes in a lacquered footbath of tangerine-scented water, then pats them with rose oil. This is followed by a full-body scrub with chrysanthemum, which you rinse off in a pomelo-infused rain shower before returning to your pagoda bed for a classic ylang-ylang-scented massage, made even more stupefying by the culminating chime of the cymbal.

9. Or get a totally irresponsible tan.
“I put this homemade oil over sunscreen. I use three black-tea bags, a quarter-cup of lanolin, four tablespoons of coconut oil — which makes your skin a reflective surface—and four tablespoons of avocado oil. I boil one cup of water — once it’s bubbling, I remove it from the heat and add in the tea bags. Then I let it steep for 20 minutes. After that, I add the lanolin, coconut oil, and avocado oil to a blender and blend until it’s creamy. Then I add the cooled black tea to the blender and pulse everything until it’s combined. Once it’s finished, I put the whole thing into either a spray bottle or a squeeze bottle and apply it all over my body. The stuff can stain, so I always wear a black swimsuit when I’m using it. I usually stay outside for an hour with it — 30 minutes on the front, 30 minutes on the back.” —Erica Stolman, Fashionlush blogger and home-tanning expert

10. Shower en plein air.
The glorious sense of liberation that comes with showering in the great outdoors while a gentle breeze hits your netherparts and the Freedom Tower watches from above is available to all. At Jimmy, the rooftop bar of the James hotel in Soho, find two outdoor showers by the pool, accessible to non-hotel guests during summer-weekend pool parties, beginning at 3 p.m.

11. Be Marie Kondo’s worst nightmare.
Located along Route 90 — a scenic byway in the Finger Lakes — is the 50-Mile Garage Sale. This 1980s-founded tradition takes place during the last weekend in July and features all manner of antiques, collectibles, and other junk as far as the eye can see.


12. Pour hot wax on a human candelabrum.
On June 16, artist Abby Hertz teams up with the circus-meets-cabaret party venue House of Yes for an evening of excess. It begins at 7 p.m. with a ten-course dinner presented on naked bodies by servants on collar and leash. At 9:45 p.m., four witches walk onstage to enact a sex-magic ritual meant to open the room’s erotic energy before a gender-bending rock-and-roll performance by Missyou. Then comes the interactive candelabra (guests drip hot wax onto nude performers) and Hertz’s pussy-painting act (exactly what it sounds like). 2 Wyckoff Ave., Bushwick; $75 for the main event.

13. And try seven other really wild parties.
June 18: Dark Venus Fetish Ball
Upscale kink party; fetish-, fantasy-, or formalwear required; on-site “S&M salon” providing BDSM instruction. Diamond Horseshoe, 235 W. 46th St.; tickets from $30.

June 24: Horse Meat Disco at Output
Kick-start your Pride weekend with a rager courtesy of the London DJ crew-roving queer dance party. 74 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg; $45.

July 15-17: Gratitude Migration
Burning Man-meets-Jersey Shore weekend-long beach party; camping, DJs, fire performances, art boats. 2 Beachway Ave., Keansburg, N.J.; tickets from $275.

July 15-17: Unter x the Bunker 36-Hour Party
Expect techno-heads swigging Club-Mate at this 36-hour rave from after-hours crew Unter and electro label the Bunker. Secret location; ticket information TBD.

July 22-24: Pines Party 2016: Xanadu
All-weekend Fire Island party; BYO spandex and roller skates. Fishermans Path, Fire Island Pines (locations vary); tickets from $75.

August 20: Illuminati Ball
Occult masquerade inspired by the Baroness and Baron de Rothschild’s legendary 1972 Surrealist Ball. Secret location outside the city (more info and transportation provided after purchase of $450 ticket at theilluminatiball.com).

August 27: Brooklyn Bike Rave
Seven-mile waterfront ride culminating in a bash under the Manhattan Bridge archway. Location TBD; $50.


14. Have a quiet Atlantic City weekend with Scott Disick.
Google “clubs with pools NYC” and you’ll find New York Sports Club and Equinox branches. But just a couple of hours south, “club with pool” means one thing: the Pool at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City. At night it becomes “the Pool After Dark,” where bikini-clad waitresses serve cocktails to revelers who can dance until dawn or tuck away in private cabanas and hot tubs. Past “Epic Saturdays” at the Pool boasted appearances from Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian and Brody Jenner — this summer’s equally stellar lineup includes Amber Rose, Scott Disick, and Ice-T and Coco.

15. Call an Uber for Your Suitcase
“Once I packed so much luggage for five days in the Hamptons I sent it in its own Uber and messengered my hatboxes.” —Stacey Bendet, CEO and creative director of Alice + Olivia

16. Go skinny-dipping in the Bronx River.
“Every summer I go skinny-dipping in the Bronx River where it meets Gun Hill Road. There’s a stairway to the river right at Magenta and Bronx Boulevard. You walk down the stairs and through all these archways, but once you go around the corner, it’s like a jungle in the middle of the Bronx. It’s always kind of cool and refreshing, and this is farther upriver, so it’s got a little less of the city in it.” —Baron Ambrosia, chef, filmmaker

17. Have sex in an alleyway.
“I found two alley-like streets in New York that I really like: one between Canal and Walker, and another, Extra Place, between Second and Bowery. Remember, the only thing wrong with public sex is getting caught.” ­­—Justin Shock, co-owner of feminist bookshop Troll Hole

18. Do paddleboard yoga in Prada.
“I’ve done yoga on my stand-up paddleboard out on a lake in Fishers Island — headstands, back bends, splits — in an evening gown.” ­­—Amy Fine Collins, journalist

19. Take a Nude Self-Portrait on a Roof
“Do it on the rooftop on your favorite building. I’ve snuck up onto Bushwick rooftops for this. It makes you feel so sexy, wild, and free. Then post it on Instagram.” ­­—Andrea Mary Marshall, artist

Reporting by Belle Cushing, Arianna Davis, Molly Elizalde, Jason Feifer, Bennett Marcus, Rob Patronite, Robin Raisfeld, Hilary Reid, Katy Schneider, Abby Schreiber, Lauren Schwartzberg, Alexis Swerdloff, and Mary Jane Weedman.


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