summer camp choices for average kids

10th grade might be too old for all summer sleep away camp, but these days there are camps for teenagers in lots of different areas. Most of them don’t require going away for the whole summer. Sports, music, drama, nature, coding, gaming, magic (my daughter’s college hosts one of these), art, film making, circus, cooking, academics, martial arts, language, … there are plenty of options in the U.S and internationally.

In two of the cities that we recently lived in, there was a monthly publication for families that would have a special summer camp issue each year. Our Parks and Rec Dept. also has a summer activities publication. Lots of colleges also host camps.

Try googling “summer camps for teenagers” and “summer camps hosted by colleges”. I found many very interesting camps in those search results. I also found out that there are “summer camp consultants” who will help you (for a fee) find camps for your kid!

Mine did the volunteer camp for muscular dystrophy kids at that age. It was a 5 night sleepover camp and local enough to drive to. I think that is a win win for rising 11th grader. AFAIK all states have them. These camps ALWAYS need boys, and bigger strong boys are such a great match for older male campers who need some physical help.

You might consider Stone Mountain Adventures - it is a smaller camp and targeted at 12 - 16 year olds.

My daughter really enjoyed it.

Are you looking for academic prep camps? Special interest camps? It’s not clear to me. For instance, there are music camps with high school age attendees with band, orchestra or choral options. I’ve heard of high school kids going to science and computer sorts of programs also. These may not be “sleep in the woods”, they might be on a university campus. Any additional info might help people give suggestions.

Wake Forest has great academic camps