My fiance and I enjoy the nudist lifestyle in the warmer months, when we don’t have a roommate or are alone for a few days, and on naturalist beaches whenever we have the chance. Naturalism is definitely immodest, but I’ve always thought of modesty as something belonging more to the early part of the last century than to our own time. I have never worried about modesty in anything (I think of this as a different quality than being humble).
Based on the answers to this question, we are not all that common here on Fluther (at least, the previous generation of Fluther), and I bet not that common in the general population, either.
Nude beaches are all different. The good ones, like Playalinda by Cape Canaveral, are awesome with a minimum of creepers and vigilant police presence to quickly discourage any creepiness. It is very relaxing to chill naked in the sun, and the wind and water feel glorious. But I won’t go the the shadier beaches like the one at Sandy Hook, NJ – I really wanted to but then read a ton of negative Yelp reviews from ladies who said the beach was filled with nasty old men.
I don’t think that being a naturalist has much to do with self-esteem – it takes a bit of nerve to go out in public, and it speaks to a certain level of unselfconsciousness, but having these qualities doesn’t mean you feel good about yourself as a person. As far as ability to communicate with others, I agree with @burntbonez – everyone’s very friendly and it’s easy to strike up a conversation. We traded shells we found, mostly.
David Sedaris has a great essay about visiting a naturalist colony, something I look forward to trying, called “Naked” in his book by the same title. Here is the old link to his reading of it. I can’t get it to work on my iPhone but maybe it will on a computer.