I'm looking for information on kids holiday camps in the southern New England/Maryland region. Any experience? Hints? Do's and don'ts?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks in advance.
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What's a "kids holiday camp?" Is that like "Summer Camp?" -
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I'm pretty sure that's what he's looking for.
Presumably a "sleepaway" camp where the kids live for several weeks, as opposed to a day camp, since the commute from Munich would be a bitch.
I'm curious about the geographic restrictions. Is Kurt trying to avoid New Yorkers (smiley thing)?
Kurt, how old are the kids? Do you care if it is single sex or co-ed? Are there any particular activities that you would say are essential? For example, do you need a lake and/or access to water?Comment
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er..
yes.
Sorry.
"Summer camp" as in a place where children can go for a few weeks during their summer vacation.Comment
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My sister has sent her kids to Byzantine Catholic summer camp--that's the only one I know anything about personally, but it's in Pennsylvania.Comment
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Geography
We'll be staying in New England half the time, but will be visiting a friend of my wife's in Maryland the other two weeks.
Children are very young (4 and 6), so a week would probably be enough anyway, but I know they have camps specialising in these ages.Comment
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In any event, the searchable database on this site for accredited camps in New England looks promising.Comment
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Where are you visiting in New England? Just being nosy (and an ex-Connecticutie).Comment
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Thanks
coffy
We're still looking, and it will also depend whether the summer camp idea will go through, but it has to be in driving distance from Boston.Comment
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Ah, I hadn't realised that you were going with them, or that they were so young.
Take a look at the database, you can search by age and just about anything else.
Though I would be surprised if any US camp allowed 4 year olds to "sleep away". An alternative would be looking into "day camps" near where you are staying; your wife's friend would likely know of some, or you could look at the town's website or that of the local YMCA. There are also lots of parenting-oriented websites that are good for this kind of inquiry, as they provide a 21st century version of "word of mouth", especially for those far away.Comment
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They could do an internship at my company's main office in Boston. It pays well and I'm sure they would catch on quickly to using the photocopier and answering the telephone. And fetching coffee for the boss wouldn't be too taxing either. No swimming, unfortunately, but they are only a couple of streets away from the harbor.
Seriously, no advice to give, but I wanted to wish you a pleasant visit. Best of luck with your camp search too.Comment
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Apparently, the traditional Summer Camp, as portrayed in films like Meatballs and Hot Wet American Summer, where kids stay in cabins, swim in a lake and learn about archery, sailing, native american crafts, poisonous plants, the opposite sex, teamwork and having a good time in general, are hard to find these days.
The market has shifted toward specialty camps where kids do music or computers or sports or something else that their uptight parents think will help them get into Yale.
When I was a kid, I spent a week every summer at a nominally Presbyterian camp called Krislund about an hour from my home. It was awesome. Lots of singing, kickball, hikes, swimming, meeting girls, and most importantly, swapping urban legends with kids from other parts of Pennsylvania. In those pre-internet days, this was one of the few chances we had to spread mythology.
Unfortunately, a few years back, some of the more conservative churches in the Synod thought the place wasn't religious enough. The vibe was hippy-Christian and they wanted it to be uptight-Christian, so they fired the founder/director and messed it all up.
I also went to Scout camp with my troop. That wasn't so awesome. Every year, some sort of puking sickness would pass through the camp population. I got it, but I didn't go home because I wanted to stay and work on my merit badges.Comment
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Sleep-away summer camps are completely foreign to me. It seems like an Eastern/Midwestern American thing. There were YMCA day camps, but nothing like you see in movies where you're gone for a month. I don't think there was the same level of fascination with Native Americans and "playing Indian" with elites in the West in the early 20th century that there was back East, which seems to be the impetus for starting alot of the oldest camps. Perhaps the availability of wild areas at the time had something to do with it as well.
The This American Life episode on camp is really entertaining.Comment
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"My sister has sent her kids to Byzantine Catholic summer camp"
That's a bit extreme, surely. I'd have thought Schismatic Catholic camp would be enough. I hear 14th century Avignon is very nice this time of year.Comment
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At move-in when I started college, a lot of the other freshmen seemed to know each other already from camp. It seems to be a Jewish thing, or at least it was back then.Comment
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Nah, the Jews already know each other from their secret meetings in their underground lairs.Comment
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I didn't know many kids who went to a camp that lasted more than a week. Those sorts of 4, 6 or 8 week camps (mostly in New England, I think) were just too expensive for the kids
I know. Plus, I grew up in a fairly rural area with mountains, woods, etc, so their wasn't much novelty to going even deeper into the sticks all summer.
However, a friend of mine from the neighborhood attended, and then later worked at, a camp in Vermont that was sort of posh, I guess. Kids would stay there for several weeks at a time and do sailing, horseriding and/or theater plus a few other things like archery. Gwyneth Paltrow went there as a girl. (She was snotty brat, apparently.)
Of course, when you're a kid, a week away from home seems like a really long time. Funny how that works.
I think the original purpose of camps were to get kids out of their small apartments in the city and into "fresh air" during the sweltering, garbage-stink days of summer. That would also explain why its a fairly standard experience for Jewish kids who, at least in the old days, mostly lived in the city.
That might also explain why it's not so common on the west coast.Comment
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Nah, I think the kids in the West join cults instead.
I went to a sleep away summer camp in Louisiana once when I was about 8. I didn't have such a great experience due to four following reasons:
1. Lauren. She was a friend whose parents drove us to the campsite. She got homesick and started bawling about an hour after they left, and she cried every day until they came back to pick us up. After seeing all the attention the counselors were giving her and feeling left out, I was tempted to follow her lead. I just couldn't make myself cry--not convincingly anyway. I loved being away from the parental units. I remember not being able to relate to the way she was feeling at all. I just wished she would stop blubbering and play with me.
2. Frogs. Thousands of tiny baby frogs invaded the place. We couldn't use the swimming pool because of them. It was like some lame attempt at a remake of one of those creature invasion horror movies like The Birds. Attack of the Baby Frogs. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
3. Mosquitoes. Not as cute as baby frogs, but a lot easier to kill.
4. Timothy. This hapless young man told me that he liked me, and the night of the bonfire he sat next to me and held my hand. After camp, he wrote to me a few times, but I split with him when Lauren's dad began to tease me about my 'boyfriend'. I broke the poor kid's heart. It was a harbinger of things to come.
Poor Timothy. I feel bad about that.Comment
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