So back in Illinois, summer meant a couple weeks at camp with bonfires and canoeing, but nothing too intense cause the weather was mild. Now I’m in Austin with my own kids, and last year we tried a local spot but it was all indoors to avoid the 100+ heat. Ended up hearing about Kidventure from a coworker – they do day camps with sports and challenges that tire the kids out without roasting them. Worked okay for us, but I’m wondering if that’s typical down here or if folks in other states do it differently. What’s your take?
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In Florida, there’s a mix of outdoor and indoor camps. Yes, plenty of organized activities in the AC, but also plenty of camps happening outside. The outside camps range from canoeing, campfires, sailing, sandcastles on the beach to horseback riding.
My kids still do outdoor camps. Girl Scout camp is an annual tradition. They drink for water and sit in the shade when they need to.
In my neck of the Deep South it was divided by class. Us kids on the lower end of the poverty line didn’t go to summer camp… we worked in the garden, scouted for hunting season and in my case chopped firewood. The more well off kids went to summer camps.
I grew up going to sleepaway camp in Florida. It was mostly outside. It was very hot but being inside all day is boring.
Also, the cabins didn’t really have working AC so it was actually cooler outside sometimes.
We are used to the heat in Texas.
Based on what I remember as a kid, that is not typical. I don’t know what Kidventure or whatever it’s called is, but I would wager it’s something wealthier parents put their kids in so they don’t have to actually deal with the outdoors or risk of getting lost/injured there.
In FL we had outdoor camps full of the same outdoor activities. Yes it was hot but also expected and Floridians know how to deal with it for the most part. I am sure those camps still exist.
There are sleep-away camps with bonfires and canoeing all over the South. I went when I was a child, and my kids went from age 6 up until high school.
Grew up in SW and they were common. I have known family/work colleagues in S with kids and it is less popular because people have their kids heavily scheduled nowadays. I have a lot of friends/family W and they are the same. It is common for kids to have weeks blocked off for activities they are signed up for like sports, tutoring, music lessons, etc.. Kids nowadays don’t get to be kids. It is either being rushed around to do activities their parents signed them up for or being glued to an ipad. As a kid I hated visiting family. Nothing to do, all my toys were left at home. If they lived rural? Fuck that there is nothing out there! My nephews ask us to ask their parents if they can visit and when we tell them their parents are on their way to pick them up they groan and ask for more time, even when they sleep over for days. I would argue it is because we let them be kids. They watch some tv, play board games, run around outside. Sports, music, and all that other stuff is great but people have these kids rushing from one to the next dawn to dusk every day, its overkill. I have an old golf cart they race around the property. Maybe I am biased with my small sample size so others can chime in with their experiences.
We camped mostly by bodies of water. Kinda like you, canoed and fished on big rivers so naturally as kids, we stayed mostly in the water during the day. Also camped along mountain creeks in national forests. Same deal, spent most of the day in the water.
I went a couple of years and we were in the Arkansas Ozark Mountains and it was okay. We swam with cottonmouth snakes, learned to get undressed while treading water and got attacked by mosquitoes nonstop. I lived in a big city and was completely out of my element.
Are you asking if kids go to day camp or overnight camp? Kids do both.
Avoid religious camps.
There are day camps and overnight camps in all parts of the country
Grew up in South Carolina. Used to go to day camps at the local YMCA, some outdoor activities, some indoor. Not a sleepover camp, though.
I was also in Scouts, so I’d do a week at Boy Scout camp, sleeping in tents, no air conditioning, etc. Had a lot of fun at those. When I was old enough to be on staff, I’d work all summer at Scout Camp.
I worked at a summer camp in SC many years ago. It is still the best job of my life. We had kids and counselors from all over the world. We did things like skiing, sailing, swimming, basketball and so many other things. The camp would work with the parents when the kids would fly in alone to pick them up at the airport and get them situated.
When I was growing up (west Texas in the 80s) there weren’t really any ‘camps’ like that. That was a thing I read about or saw in movies. There was a place a little out of town that suggested it existed, but I never met anyone who had actually been there.
There were a lot of outdoor activities, though, especially early in the summer. They tended to be in June, possibly the first week of July.
Usually the really brutal heat picks up the second or third week in July and lasts through August. Almost everything moved indoors at that point, at least during the heat of the day. Things like softball games were usually in the evening around sunset, and day camps did things in the mornings, then watched movies or did crafts in the afternoon.
Not sure how long you’ve lived here, and you may have noticed this by now, but I’m going to point it out anyway. The temperature peaks in late afternoon in Texas, at least, and I think elsewhere in the south. I honestly had no idea that wasn’t true everywhere until I met someone from New England who was completely caught off-guard by it.
Even in the Midwest we have indoor and outdoor camps. Scout camp was outdoors. Music camp was indoors (you’re welcome, neighbors)
I grew up in the south. We camped outside for everything. We did archery, fishing, swimming, etc. Everything was planned so that we were indoors during the hottest part of the day.
We did a week tent camping when we went to Disney. Being hot and sunburnt was part of our childhood.
Growing up I knew plenty of kids who went to summer camps, usually for a week or two like you describe, not the whole-summer thing I sometimes see in northern media.
I didn’t, but my mom didn’t work so there wasn’t really any pressure for us to be sent anywhere
Sure it gets hot, but here in Georgia it’s not usually a safety issue, just a comfort issue. Kids get over it pretty fast.
Texas is hotter though
Most of the camps I know of are Jesus camps. Great way to get your kid diddled.
I loved Kidventure as a kid!
Growing up I lived in Nebraska but went to camp in Colorado. So many of our campers were kids from Texas. We went to Eagle Lake, though it was a religious camp. There are other camps in Colorado that aren’t religious, but I do know they all have issues with air quality due to wildfires last year.
I grew up in the South and went to summer camp in Western North Carolina. Camp is camp. Same outdoor activities. We did get a lot of kids from Louisiana and Texas – probably because of the milder weather.
In Georgia and North Carolina the camps I attended invariably were religious. We were always outdoors
In the Austin area, a lot of camps got pushed out as land became more valuable for development.
Notably, Camp Craft Rd in Westlake was named for one such camp. I used to go as a day camper, but there were overnight camps. We learned survival swimming, made crafts (shellacked wood, leather belts, friendship keyrings), shot .22s, did calisthenics and sports, and rode horses – very old school.
Spicewood Day Camp has a similar feel on a small road. Sunshine Camps brings the camp experience to low-income young Austinites.
Otherwise, people head to larger bodies of water or the Hill Country – there are many such overnight camps out at Lake Travis, or alongside rivers such as Camp Mystic. (Camp Camp is in the same area, and is a special camp for people with disabilities – there were no casualties there during the recent floods.) Camp Double Creek is in Round Rock.
It seems like just about any kids activity offers a “camp experience,” either a half or whole (but not overnight) day. I think this developed both to give kids something to do, and as childcare during the summer, but it is not at all like true summer camp.
I know it’s not your call how the camps are run, but get the kids outdoors. The heat has been hot for thousands of years and the kids were still outdoors, let them make proper memories for a lifetime; outdoors
Growing up in the early 90s, we had the option to go to church camp for a week. I went twice, but once I got old enough to have a summer job, I quit going.
It’s arguably better in the South, the weather is much better for it imo.
In 90’s-00’s Texas, Boy Scout camps taught us how to be brush country rangers. The only air conditioning we got at any of the camps was at the chow hall, since it made sense to keep the food refrigerated; there were no heaters for fall-spring, we built fires.
Austin here!!! There are so many hill country summer camps around Austin and others more east of Austin. For a great day camp nearby check out camp double creek. For sleep away camps…. Camp longhorn, camp champions, camp Stewart, camp Olympia, La junta, rio vista and many more!!!
I stayed with my Grandmommy in the summer while my parents were working. I played outside, rode my bike, had adventures etc. nobody I knew went to camp
Most of the South isn’t as brutally hot as Texas. And in my region, Upstate South Carolina, many kids go to camps in highland areas in North Carolina etc. The Scout camp I went to in northeast Georgia is at 2000 ft elevation, with summer highs in the mid 80s. So not too bad.
I’m not in the south, but the camp I went to when I was a kid had archery and shooting (22LR rifles), in addition to sports, swimming, arts & crafts, bonfires, etc. I took my nephews to the same camp this past summer and they’ve replaced shooting 22s with sling shots, but still have archery and everything else.
I see a lot of Texas camps in Colorado these days. Throughout the southern Rockies there are camps for any kind of Texans you can think of.
How is this even a question? Did you somehow miss all those poor little girls that drowned in the flood while at camp in Texas?
I had youth church camp every summer in Southern Texas. Some years we’d tent camp, other years we’d go to camp sites with those cabins that had bug screen walls and no ac. The heat was miserable but part of the experience. Definitely a lot of water games were played
If you’re asking if there’s sleep away camps outside then not to make this too dark but a Texas sleep away camp literally made national news a few months ago…
Totally not who you’re looking for, just made me think of my own 100+ summers in Northern California spent under the blazing sun, practically dying of heat stroke, being forced to be active with one water fountain for like 40 kids… a building would’ve been nice. Ngl the midwest sounds nice..
I went to two different summer camps, one was Space Camp in Alabama (primarily indoors), and the other was 2 weeks in a platform tent in north Georgia. The dining hall had ceiling fans but that was about it. If it was over 90 degrees outside they would give us snowcones 🙂
It’s pretty much the same in Kentucky.
You had summer camps that were usually one or two weeks. Some run by Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, some run by the 4-H. The state government operated a few “Conservation Camps” for kids to go to summer camp as well.
These campsites tended to be out in the wilderness, or at least along the major lakes of the state.
These were the places you went to go camping, canoeing, bonfires, ziplining, target shooting & archery. . .stuff like that.
. . .and you also had a lot of “day camps” that were indoor, and generally in cities, where you just took your kids there in the morning and picked them up in the afternoon/evening. These were for things more like art, computer programming, music, etc.
I grew up in Georgia. We had day camps or Bible schools that were indoors for younger kids, but also a lot of going up into the Appalachian foothills, camping, shooting, canoeing, hiking, etc. This would usually be in June or July
I went to month-long religious summer camp in Mississippi. We did a ton of outdoor stuff, along with some indoor education. The bigger buildings had AC but the cabins just had swamp coolers
I used to go to Rock Eagle 4H camp every summer. My kids aren’t into that, but they have gone to various indoor and outdoor summer day camps.