Naked hiker took up the unusual hobby to make her exes jealous – but now has 20k online fans

WARNING: CONTAINS NUDITY – Unlucky in love Megan now takes regular rambles in the buff.

A woman who took up naked hiking after a string of failed relationships – posting snaps to Instagram to make her exes “jealous” – has now fallen in love with the unusual outdoor hobby.

City girl Megan Marie, 35, now takes regular jaunts out into the wilderness, trekking through national parks completely in the buff with her trusty canine sidekick Wembley.

Initially, in 2016, she began to document her expeditions online – uploading snaps of herself nude while out in the wild – in a bid to make her former lovers envious.

Megan with Wembley, her faithful schnauzer (Collect/PA Real Life)

But now, she has built up over 20,000 followers, and what started as a jokey hobby has developed into something more purposeful, as she uses her platform to discuss topics as varied as hiking safety and mental health.

Explaining her decision to start stripping off in the great outdoors, Megan, who is from Kansas City, Missouri, USA, said: “I was going through a bit of a rough patch and had had a few disappointing relationships that didn’t really go anywhere.

“I suppose I was searching for something – freedom or independence – and I wanted to do something that would be cool enough to make my exes jealous.”

Megan began posting nude hiking photos as a way to make her former lovers jealous (Collect/PA Real Life)

Megan, a manager at a veterinary clinic, began hiking – at first fully clothed – when she found herself single again in 2015, after her relationship of a few months broke down and she made a vow to become more self-sufficient.

This, coupled with a New Year’s resolution for 2015 she had made with her sister Erin, 34, to go camping together more, pushed her to embark on a two-week 2,500-mile road-trip from Colorado to San Francisco – something she would previously have found too daunting.

Setting off in late May, the pair slept in a tent every night, and ate only dehydrated food packs.

Megan uses her platform to discuss topics from hiking safety to mental health (Collect/PA Real Life)

“I was really nervous before going, thinking about all the things that might go wrong,” Megan explained.

“But we had such a blast, and afterwards I felt a rush of pride and excitement at having completed something that before had been so nerve-racking.”

From there, several more trips with Erin to various national parks around the country followed, and Megan recorded their adventures by posting shots of the scenic landscapes to her Instagram page.

Megan began going on camping trips in 2015 as a New Year's resolution (Collect/PA Real Life)

Then, after a friend jokingly suggested that she should take a photo of herself in the buff, Megan rose to the challenge, posting her first nude picture from her two-week trip to California in July 2016, taken by her sister Erin of her facing out onto a beach at Big Sur, California.

“I was pretty nervous about doing that,” she recalled. “It isn’t something I’ve ever done before and I really worried about what people would think.”

To her delight, though, the picture was liked hundreds of times.

The first nude picture that Megan posted on Instagram in July 2016 (Collect/PA Real Life)

Encouraged by the positive response and requests for more from her followers, she soon uploaded other cheeky snaps and it became a regular, weekly thing during the summer months.

As her follower count began to increase, she decided to use the attention she was getting for good, and began posting about important issues, including mental health.

“The trips have helped me tremendously with my own mental health, having suffered myself from depression,” she said.

Megan's pictures are taken either by her sister Erin or using a tripod mount (Collect/PA Real Life)

She continued: “I tried for ages to build up some sort of a following on Instagram with wildlife and landscape pictures, then as soon as I start posting pictures of my butt it just takes off.

“Of course, I know that it’s an account full of bottom photos, but I feel that now I have such a following I should use that in a positive way to talk to people about important things.”

Now two and a half years on and more than 50 bare-bottomed photos later, Megan has become an assiduous documenter of her rambles in the wilds, which she makes with her dog Wembley, a schnauzer.

Megan goes for two-week camping trips around America (Collect/PA Real Life)

To capture each picture, she will find her way to a quiet area with no one around, take her clothes off and pose as the camera – held either by Erin or on a tripod mount – captures her.

“I really enjoy the excitement of being out in the open air without any clothes on and the adrenaline of seeing what I can get away with,” continued Megan, who says she tries to avoid being seen by other hikers by stripping off for no more than 15 minutes at a time.

“But it’s not at all in a sexual or erotic way, as I know some people must assume.”

Megan tries to avoid other hikers as much as possible and so only strips off in isolated areas (Collect/PA Real Life)

She added: “I know a lot of people struggle to separate nudity and sex, but for me it has never really been about that.”

Not everyone is as comfortable with Megan’s disrobing, however.

Describing her parents’ reaction, she said: “When I told them they seemed quite disappointed in me, but thought, ‘Well, that’s just Megan,’ and since then we haven’t talked about it once,” she explained.

Megan's Instagram account now has over 20,000 followers (Collect/PA Real Life)

Still, undeterred, Megan has vowed to continue posting for the foreseeable future, both for her own enjoyment and as a way of maintaining contact with the thousands of people who follow her naked jaunts.

“I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t a part of me that enjoyed the attention of it all,” she said.

“But it makes me feel equally good to think that I have a platform from which I can communicate with people. It just so happens to be the case that that is through pictures of my naked butt.”

Coming from a strict Catholic family, Megan says her parents do not approve of her naked antics (Collect/PA Real Life)

As for Megan’s love life, she is currently in the early stages of a new relationship with a man she met on a dating app.

“Within a month of our first date, I managed to convince him to come with me on a hiking trip in Utah, where he took a picture of me doing a nude handstand,” she said.

“He’s really accepting of my hikes and loves the fact that I put my a** out there – both literally and figuratively!”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A grand jury indictment was unsealed Friday charging a former Los Angeles police officer in the May 2015 shooting death of an unarmed homeless man in Venice, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said.

Clifford Proctor pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Brendan Glenn, 29, was killed during a struggle with officers outside a bar where he had fought with a bouncer, and his name became a rallying cry against police shootings in Los Angeles. Both Glenn and Proctor are Black.

The office of current LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement that the indictment comes after the previous district attorney, George Gascón, reexamined four use-of-force cases involving law enforcement officers, including Proctor's case.

Hochman, who ousted Gascón in November's election, will review the case and decide whether to proceed with the prosecution, the statement said.

Proctor’s lawyer, Anthony “Tony” Garcia, questioned the timing of the charges and noted that prosecutors declined to charge his client in 2018, according to the Times.

In 2018, LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to press charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove Proctor acted unlawfully when he used deadly force.

Glenn was on his stomach and trying to push himself up when Proctor shot him in the back, according to police. He wasn’t trying to take a gun from Proctor or his partner when he was shot, and Proctor’s partner told investigators that he didn’t know why the officer opened fire, police have said.

Proctor resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2017. The city paid $4 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that was brought by Glenn’s relatives.

Proctor, 60, remains in jail. His next court date is Nov. 3.

FILE - Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman speaks outside of the courthouse in Los Angeles, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)