Podcast Episode Archives - There's No Place Like Summer Camp

In case you haven’t seen already, I went on two summer camps in 2014 and 2015. I returned to the same camp in 2015 because of how awesome of an experience I had out there. So here I am to provide ten top tips for having the best summer camp experience for yourselves.

Still reading? How about you check out my Diary of American Summer Camp book here? It’s available from Amazon and all good bookstores.  Be sure to leave your comments below on any tips you have to make the most of your American Summer Camp experience!

Coronavirus has no bounds and the likes of Camp America are affected. In this doomsday like scenario, we talk about everything Camp America and Camp Leaders are saying with regard to this virus.

#CampAmerica #CampLeaders #TheresNoPlaceLikeSummerCamp

**SPECIAL EPISODE** A two hour interview with a best friend I made at summer camp. This is very NSFW and is the single best episode to date! Grab the popcorn! #campamerica #interview #podcast

The pros of returning to summer camp get a lot of airtime. Higher pay, existing friendships, knowing what you’re doing — all genuinely true and worth talking about. But in the spirit of honesty that runs through this podcast, here’s the flip side. The things nobody tells you about going back.

## It Isn’t the Same

This is the big one and it hits harder than you expect. The first summer has a specific quality that comes entirely from everything being new. You’re discovering the place, the people, the culture, the rhythms — all for the first time. That quality of discovery cannot be replicated. When you return, you already know. And knowing, it turns out, changes the experience in ways that are subtle but real.

The anticipation leading up to the second summer is different too. You know what to expect, which is mostly good but also means the genuine surprises are fewer. You arrive as someone who already knows the songs, already knows the routines, already knows who they are in this environment. That confidence is a pro in many ways — but it does cost you something.

You will have made your closest friends from the first summer. And not all of them will be returning. Some will have moved on to other things — university, jobs, other adventures. The group you formed is unlikely to reassemble in the same configuration.

This is a bigger deal than it sounds. Part of what made the first summer so good was the specific combination of people. Camps bring in new staff every year, which is fine, but arriving to find that three of your closest people from last year aren’t there creates an absence that takes a while to fill.

In the first summer you were given grace for not knowing things. You were new. Mistakes were forgiven quickly because everyone could see you were learning. In the second summer, you’re a returning staff member. The camp’s expectations of you are higher, and rightly so — you’re more experienced, you’re being paid more, and you have more responsibility.

Most of the time this is fine and is part of growing into the role. Occasionally it means that the things that were charming in year one — not knowing how a particular tradition worked, needing to be shown the ropes, being the wide-eyed British person experiencing everything for the first time — are no longer as endearing. The pressure to be competent is real.

The experience is still great. Andrew went back and it was worth it — that’s the reason Book 2 exists. But it’s worth being honest that second summers are often described as slightly different rather than just as good but more so. The magic of the first time is unrepeatable.

Go back if you can. But go back knowing it’s a different experience, not a recreation of the first one. That framing makes it much easier to appreciate what the second summer actually is rather than being disappointed it isn’t what the first one was.

The second summer story in full: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

Returning to your summer camp, to live it all over again. What a time to be alive! In this episode, I discuss the best pros of returning to Camp America.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse and in today’s episode, we are looking at the perks of returning to summer camp. So come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Greetings everyone and welcome to another episode of, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. In this episode, this is going to be tailored towards those that are looking at returning to summer camp, or perhaps have returned themselves. And in our first episode of this two-parter, it’s the perks of returning to your summer camp. So this is going to be looking at those that are going to be returning to their own summer camp. Rather than returning for another year of doing Camp America and actually going to a different camp, that’s an entirely different subject.

This video, or podcast, shall I say, is for those who are looking at returning to the camp that they know and love, and hold very dear to their hearts. So let’s start with the first pro of going back to your summer camp.

So your first pro of returning to a summer camp is obviously going to be the pay, the pay is a lot higher for those that have experienced summer camp and are returning for a second year, particularly for those that are going to be going back to the camp that they know and love. Because Camp America doesn’t actually set the rates that you get paid. It’s the camps that see the potential within you. And when you’ve gone and worked for one summer, they already know the levels that they can expect to get from you. So when they offer you the chance to return for a second summer, which of course is entirely in their hands as well, they don’t have to take you on for a second summer, if you think they think you might be a bit shit kind of thing.

So they’re gonna, if they really want you, which is 90% of the time, they’re gonna offer you a lot higher wage. And in my case, speaking of wages, I’ll use this as an example my first summer I had to pay, I was paid $750 for two months of work. So when you actually break it down, it’s not actually that good money. But as I’ve said in previous podcast episodes, it’s not actually about the money when you go and work with somewhere like Camp America, Camp Leaders and Bunac. The reason that you go is to have the time of your life and, you know, try and grow kids and like have a beneficial impact in the world and go and experience a new culture and travel to a whole new continent. The pay thing, of course, is going to take a little bit of a back burner. But I think it’s a good idea to know what kind of money you should be expecting.

So my first summer, as I’ve said, I got $750 when you split that between the two months, that’s $375 per month, which isn’t that much really when you’re having to travel after and go to Walmart if you want any, any little bits and bobs. And also if you’re going to be doing any travels after camp as well as during camp as well because you do get a couple of days off. So you need to be pretty careful with your money. And you’re going to be wanting to take quite a substantial amount with you just to spend in the second summer however, I believe it was $2400, so you can see straight away, how much of a difference it was, it was almost three times the amount, which totally blew me away. And it was actually enough to be comparable to a proper salary so to speak, rather than it just being real volunteering, kind of numbers and stats there.

So, in the second summer, I got a shit ton more money. And I remember before actually signing up for the second summer, I made a little list of like, okay, what can I expect if I was them? What would I get just to try and plan my finances kind of thing? And when they told me that amount, I was like fucking you’ve offered me like, twice the amount that I thought I would get.

This is sort of going on a bit of a tangent here is because in your first summer, the camp pays for your flight. So that’s actually included in your calculator. They’re paying for the flights and giving you $750. Of course, this is going to be different depending on the type of job you’re doing, how much experience you have, and how desperately they need you also how good your portfolio looks on the Camp America website as well. There are a lot of factors that go into determining someone’s pay. That could probably be another episode.

In the first summer, they’re actually paying for your flights, as well as the wage in the second summer, however, you kind of skip through a lot of the steps in the Camp America process. And I’m sure it’d be the same with all the others as well. No longer do camp pay for your flights, but you actually have to source them yourself. So that takes a fair chunk out of that $2400 because you’re having to pay for the flights yourself. But when you balance it all out, you are getting a lot more money by returning for a second summer.

So moving on to the second point of what makes a return to summer camp so good, is that you get to see your friends that you love and miss so dearly. Because I know for one, I made some friends, particularly in New Zealand and that side of the world. And I was absolutely heartbroken to say goodbyes in the travels. We did after camp and then being like, oh, this is actually could be the last time I ever see you. And it was absolutely gut-wrenching.

When they’re just like going back to the art. Well, I was going back to my normal life and kind of leaving them behind. And you’ll say, Oh, okay. So when we stayed in contact with social media and that sort of thing, I think I don’t think you can really get away from that these days. But seeing them again, when you return to camp, you’re like, oh my god, like you’ve got the troops back together.

In our case, it was full of guys. So I vividly remember all getting into a bit of a huddle in our first week and just chanting lads! lads! lads! lads! like proper over-the-top celebrations, because we were finally reunited after a year of being apart. The last one of the great things about returning is that you’re going to see, you’re going to see them again, if you all like what’s the word promise to return kind of thing. So that’s a massive benefit because you’re just going to be hanging out with your best mates and having like the time of your life as again, but you get to do it all over again for a full whack of summer with your best mates. And you can also like plan what you’re going to be doing travelling afterwards and that sort of thing. So that’s a massive Pro to returning back to your summer camp.

The third pro to returning to your summer camp is how you can arrange the travels with them after camp two. So you make all your best friends from the first summer you come over, and you get to see them all again. And you’re going to be really excited to go on these adventures with them that you could only dream of all year round since you last saw them.

So last one real big benefit of returning to the summer camp, is you get the familiar familiarity of your best friends from last year mixed in with the anticipation of all year round thinking, Oh, what are we going to do this year? Where are we going to go? And that sort of thing.

Okay, so the fourth Pro to returning to your summer camp is that you’re going to see the kids again, obviously, you’re going to see the same familiar faces that you already come to recognize around camp these are going to be some of your favourite campers from a time gone by what say last year. It’s not actually time to come by, but you’re going to be really excited to see them. They’re going to be really excited to see you it’s going to be a whole year of school and growing up and puberty and in your life as well.

They’re going to be really excited to see you one of the things that at least Camp America try to enforce I don’t think enforce is the right word, but guide you on is the social media side of things. And campers and staff there tend to be like a grey sort of area around adding campers on social media.

So when it does come to returning for your second summer, you don’t really know what the two have been getting up to, especially as kids these days I don’t think are allowed on social media like Facebook. I think that the minimum age is 13. So if you’ve been working with the younger children, for instance, you’re not going to see what they’ve been up to but you’re going to definitely see how they’ve changed and grown. Plus, they’re going to be excited to see how you’re doing as well, because, obviously, you’re the face that they know and run from the previous summer. And you’re just gonna, like, oh, I can’t wait to see you again, and all this sort of stuff, and they’re gonna see how you’ve changed.

They’re gonna want to know every single nook and cranny about your life and any sort of relationship things that you’ve got going on.

So it’s come to that point in the podcast where I’d like to do a quick plug for the book. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, hope you’ve really enjoyed the podcasts up until this point. But There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is available for pre order now(!) of the paperback version, as well as ebooks.

Buy the diary I kept while at Camp America – Available on Amazon!

So if you do have a Kindle, or you do have a phone or tablet or something like that, feel free to go and check out There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.com, where you can pre-order the book before it goes live across multiple shopping avenues. So Amazon and hopefully, other retailers as well are becoming later on in the year. So if you do fancy pre ordering reading, it’s available, in both paperback and ebook versions.

So I’ve touched upon this previously in other examples of why you’d want to return to your summer camp that you know and love so dearly. And that is just simply relive it all over again, you’re going to be literally making memories of a lifetime all over again, you thought it was once in a lifetime, but you’re lucky enough to be able to do it twice. Personally, I’ve mentioned this in other podcast episodes, but I’m sure there’ll be new listeners who just hop in and Midway. But I’ll mention it again. I did Camp America for two summers, so it wasn’t exactly extortionate. Perhaps there’s probably better-educated people out there to do a podcast like this, but I’m just talking from my own experience and that sort of thing. So I did it for two summers. But personally, I was like, Wow, I can’t believe I’ve done it for two summers, like, I knew it was gonna be the time of my life. And I literally looked forward to it so much, because the first year was that good. So just to be able to relive all those memories, again, with the people that you know, and love as well, it makes it a lot easier, I guess. So yeah, that’s another benefit of returning to the summer camp that you know, and love so dearly.

Another benefit of returning to your summer camp. And this is going to be a little bit of a strange one. But it’s actually a lot easier application process to get through Camp America for a second summer of the same camp that you’re going to than it is to apply in the first place or apply for a different camp. Let me explain.

So when you actually apply for the first time, you’re going to be going through a lot of visa applications, passport checks, interviews, face-to-face interviews with the camp. There can be like application days as well. So there’s like Camp America recruitment days, you don’t need to do any of that when you return for a second summer, you’ve already got your profile created, they’ve already got all your passport details, you just pretty much need to go through there and confirm everything.

Then once you check a box to say that you want to return to the same summer camp, the person that’s on the other end of the website or the robot, whatever, will ping an email over to the summer camp that you’ve just come from. And they’ll basically say, are you happy for Andrew Waterhouse to return for another summer? They will say yes, he’s the best.

So it’s a lot easier application process the second summer around, you’re literally just double checking everything that’s already in there maybe updating a couple of fields where things change your experience, you don’t really have to go into as much detail either. So like on my first application to Camp America, I did a video because a lot of places say it’s worthwhile uploading a video to stand out. I’ll probably leave this for a second or third podcast later down the line. But yeah, let’s just say I didn’t have to do it on the second year-round.

When you do return for another summer, pretty much all you’re doing is checking that your details are all correct. Making sure your passports up to date. Yes, you still have to go for a visa interview in London. I don’t think there’s anywhere else It’s in the UK that you can actually go. And pretty choice, it has to be London. But yeah, you have to go to their embassy and ask for a visa. And then literally, your profile, once it’s complete is sent over to camp and they go, oh, yeah, he sounds, we’ll, we’ll pay him X amount. So it’s a lot easier application process to do that. Whereas if you apply for another camp because what you can do is you can apply for the first time, obviously, do your normal summer.

But if you want to go and apply to a new camp after that, so you want to do a second summer, but not particularly the camp that you are at, you want to, you want to maybe look at other camps, and experience something new. And I trust me, I was in that boat for a long time. I was like, I really want to do it again… But I want to take these guys and all of us go and apply for a camp somewhere else, but it never really worked out that way. And it was a bit too much hassle and too many hoops to jump through. It’s not something that Camp America really support. But if you do want to do something like that, you’re gonna have to I think you can just tick a box saying no, you’re open to new camps. And then your profile is pretty much put up on the website like an Argos catalogue.

I hope a lot of you know what an Argos catalogue is because I know there’s going to be maybe an international reach to this podcast because they can be reached anywhere, any device, in your car, on the TV, on the phone, on an iPod. Got a bit distracted there. But the Argos catalogue is basically a whole massive book of products. And all you are is a simple entry in there, they can flick through the pages and go oh, we like the look of him.

I forgot what I was saying again.

So yeah, as I was saying, your profile will you’ve put into this catalogue, and they can just flick through it at a whim and try and see how you would match up to their camps. To try and get a whole group of people to get to the same camp, that’s gonna be really tricky to do. And you’re gonna have to pull some strings to try and get that to work. It is a lot easier just to go ahead and apply for a second summer, if you want to do a second summer with the camp that you know, so well, and see your mates over there.

The final list of pros of why you want to go back to your same summer camp is a little bit of a collection of pros, because this one comes under the header of familiarity. You’re going to know everything about how camp works. Yeah, you might only be there one year. Yeah, you might know not know everything, but in particular, for your role and how you fit into that camp, you know, where you fit into that jigsaw, you know how the schedule works, you know, where things are around camp, you know, what to expect, you know, the sorts of faces that you’re going to be seeing. There are loads of things that you kind of take for granted when you try and apply to a new summer camp.

As I was saying in my previous Pro, if you were to try and apply somewhere else, you’re literally starting all over again. And there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be any better.

Different doesn’t always mean better. Should I say you’re getting just as much of a great summer by working at the same place that you know and love as it is to go and work at another summer camp? Just because it’s another place to explore. There’s a certain rhythm that you’re going to know of how the camp works, what people you need to, please and what campers they are and how everything ticks at camp because not every summer camp is the same.

Particularly for those that may be religious or have some sort of special attribute about them. So the familiarity X, the heading of familiarity is going to really like help you just to settle in that little bit quicker and hit the ground running. When you return for that second summer. You’re going to know what the food is like at camp, which is a pretty big thing because obviously, I mentioned earlier about the wages and that sort of thing. What didn’t really mention was how your food is paid for your accommodation is paid for that sort of thing. So apologies for that. Just trying to cover my tracks from earlier when I said about the pay. The pay does cover it’s Like it’s expensive, like pocket money, so to speak for your first summer. Anyway, moving on to the food scenario at camp as well is going to be another thing where you’re going to know what types of food to expect what things you should get at Walmart, and how to have a blast for the second summer.

Also, by returning for the familiarity part of the camp, you’re actually going to be turned towards the first-time staff, perhaps campers too, but more, particularly the staff side of things I like to focus on. They’re going to be asking you like, oh, what tips do you have? Where should I go with my time? And who should I hook up with? They’re not gonna well, they will ask that, but I don’t think the familiarity thing is gonna get you that many bonus points. So anyway, I think that’s really pretty much wrapped up most of the pros of returning to the same summer camp.

If you have any questions, anything that you would like to ask anything you think may be missing from this episode. Feel free to hit me up. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.com forward slash contact and you’ll be able to get in touch. I’m also available on Twitter too, at Andrew W. oh nine. In next week’s episode, we’re going to be looking at the cons of returning to summer camp. This is going to be an absolute parallel shift from where we are today, being more positive from coming home from Camp America and being like, wow, I need to do that again. What are the some of the cons of actually returning to the same summer camp? So it’ll be an interesting episode. I hope you hear for it. Please subscribe and rate on all your podcast platforms of choice. And I’ll see you in next week’s episode.

Camp America recently celebrated their 50th anniversary and I was interviewed! In this episode, I talk about it and go into extra detail on everything they asked.

Summer camps give out the impression that volunteering with them is all sunshine and rainbows. But in the real world, this is never the case. In this juicy episode, we discuss the things that you will grow to hate while volunteering at your summer camp.

Camp America is an institution that has so many advocates and die-hard fans in the UK. So how comes we don’t have a Camp Britain? Well, there’s plenty of reasons. And we discuss them all in this episode!

I volunteered at a Jewish summer camp, and not being religious, I learned a lot in the foreign culture. It can be an aspect of summer camp that puts people off from applying. But in this episode, I hope to put your worries to one side, with an honest insight of the things you’ll learn at Jewish summer camp.

Choosing which summer camp you’ll volunteer for is one of the biggest choices you’ll make in the Camp America application process. So what factors should you be considering? In this episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, we divulge all…

Hello everyone, and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, we’re having a look at how to choose which camp you should work for when applying for Camp America. So come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Welcome one and all to another episode of, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I think we’re on the 21st episode now. And I have to say that some of the content has been stellar, absolutely stellar.

In today’s episode, though, we are trying to make it a little bit more serious, especially for those that are new to summer camp, and maybe perhaps don’t really know the sort of full process and how to choose a camp. And you know, which is a massive decision for anyone that’s trying to go to summer camp, is what camp to go to. Do you want to be working out for a whole summer? Or, you know, revolve your whole life around because that’s what I’m doing at the moment with, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp podcast and the book. So hopefully, this is a bit more educational than some of the others. But yeah, let’s crack on.

So first thing of how to choose a summer camp to work for is going to be really revolved around your Camp America profile. So when I mentioned Camp America, I’ve said it before in other podcast episodes, but I’ll say again, here, because this is kind of more serious one. When I’ll do mentioned, Camp America, I do mean all of the camp agencies that are out there, so there is Camp Leaders, there’s BUNAC and a couple of others as well that are probably missing off, it’s off the top of my head. But when I say Camp America, I do mean them all. Because you do really want to give them a bit of research and see which ones are for you. Personally, I went with Camp America. So whenever I mentioned that going forward, that’s what I mean.

So when choosing which summer camp you want to work for, a lot of this is going to be revolving around your Camp America profile. When you create and start your application process, part of the process is to actually fill in a profile. So when summer camps are looking for people, they’ll be able to find the best-suited people that they are looking for. So this revolves around quite a few things, particularly.

One of the first things, for instance, is what dates can you make, because plenty of people have commitments already, before applying to summer camp, whether that be university or work or other family commitments, some holidays. So one of the first things that you’ll start to fill out in a Camp America profile will be the dates that you can actually make, which is obviously going to have a bit of an impact on which summer camps are going to be able to hire you. So be sure to fill in your profile as accurately as you can, giving yourself plenty of time to be able to go through the application process of getting your passports, your visas, and all of your interviews completed.

But one of the next things that you need to do with your profile is actually fill in what kind of camps you’re open to, as part of the application process, we actually fill in your Camp America profile to actually say, what camps would you ideally like to work for. And obviously, this isn’t going to be a perhaps 100% guarantee that you’re going to be able to work at these camps. But we’ll be able to narrow you down and be a bit more specialized around which kind of camps you are open to work at.

So for instance, when I created my profile, one of the things that I said I’d be up for, was a traditional summer camp where people come and pay extortionate amounts of money to come and have a really good time. That’d be probably pretty ideal for me. I think I put that as my number one. Because I had experience within the scouts and cubs for many years volunteering as a young leader. So I said, yeah, that will be the ideal camp for me. But an underprivileged camp, I’ll just work just as well perhaps even better. So I think I put that at second place. I’ll be really good at working with kids no matter what kind of background they’re from, because of that experience of being a young leader, scouts and cubs and, you know, being a bit relatable to the kids as well, because when you’re like say aged 20-21 ish, which doesn’t actually seem that long ago, but I am now 27 fucksakes Jesus Christ, where’s the time gone? Anyway, on a bit of a tangent.

I filled in those two saying these are my preferences and then it came on to the counts that I wasn’t really sure if I could fit in. So for instance, a Christian camp, I think that might be one of the options that you can select. I was like, Yeah, that could be my third place when I did use the scouting. This scouting troop that I used to be with, was held in a church. I’m not particularly religious myself, but I’ll be able to cope with being around Christians, I think. So I put that as my third choice.

But then it came to the more questionable ones where it didn’t really fit with my background, but I was like, Oh, actually, I’d be quite open to doing a Jewish summer camp, not totally opposed to it. I don’t think I’ll be perhaps offended or offensive about the sort of religions that don’t really have much of a culture, identity with there won’t be so much of a culture clash either. So I was like, Okay, I could be open to doing a Jewish summer camp.

And then there was, I think the disabled camp was the only one that I checked off of my list. And that’s not meaning to be rude or anything, it’s more to say, I don’t really have the professional experience to be able to go to a summer camp that’s solely dedicated to people who are disabled, and be able to provide a really, really good summer camp for them. Because that sort of exposure to camps is going to be, you know, very specialized, you’re going to have to provide special care and attention to each individual with their own needs. And that’s not my background, I’ve at least my scouting experience got that typical experience, but not so much for special needs. I know how it was more about the collective and having a collective fun, great, enjoyable, and memorable time. Whereas working with say, the disabled would kind of be a bit different in the kind of role that you’d need to fulfill. And also don’t have any qualifications or certifications in dealing with only sort of people.

So that’s gonna be the first thing is to actually narrow down what you actually want to get out of doing Camp America. So for me, one of the things was to expose myself to a new culture, whether that be a religious one, or just being in a summer camp in general, I knew that going to America and doing a program like Camp America would be really eye-opening. And as I’ve said before, in previous podcasts, I went to a Jewish summer camp. Yeah, it was really a shock, to be honest, to see how, you know, different religions run and how similar you are where you connect with people.

Also, you know, the day-to-day running of a religion and religious collective is really interesting. So you need to figure out what do you actually want to get out of doing a program like summer camp. Do you want to be able to fit in? And be what you’re used to say, with traditional or the underprivileged camps? In my case, where I put those at number one, and number two, or do you want to learn from a new culture, and that’s exactly what I got really, from doing my couple of years come from America.

So you have to really balance what you want to get out of camp, what you’re able to offer as well. And when you’re in an interview, for Camp America, there’s a, I think there were at least three stages of an interview for actually getting a role. So I think the first interview was face-to-face. And that was for me, to go into London and sit in Costa Coffee, sit down with someone and literally go through what my application was, and where I felt I could add value to the Camp America program, why I wanted to choose those camps as well. So dive a little bit deeper into your experience and your exposure perhaps opened you up to ideas of other camps as well.

I think they also asked which particular location roughly you want to end up in.

I think in my top three, I chose like California, Las Vegas and New York, I think that’s pretty much gonna be the top you know, the top choices for everyone to go to, but you have to remember that they are only preferences, they can’t guarantee that you’re going to be able to place you there. And especially when it’s not really up to the likes of Camp America and Camp Leaders to actually get you a position. It does actually fall to the camps to be able to pick you out and say yeah, this is the kind of guy we want.

And that leads me on to my final few points about how you can choose the best summer camp for you. So when you’re applying for a position, you also need to be able to think about what actual positions you are able to fill. So one of the most daunting things about actually going through with the Camp America application is how demanding, it seems that people can be sort of thing

I explained this in the way that when I went to my orientation day, one of the really like, things that took me aback was how many people had lifeguarding, qualifications or certifications in first aid or a black belt in karate. Honestly, I don’t really have anything to show for my time, I’ve just been a young leader at a scout camp for ages. And that really falls back down to the references that you have to apply.

You have to add with your application, just to back up what you’re saying, really, so you have to think what role is going to best suit you and which camp best suits that role. So if, for instance, I’m applying to be a horse riding specialist, I could be open to going to a horse riding specialist only summer camp, maybe there’s a summer camp out in America that only does horse riding for a month for their kids. And it’s really specialized. So you could be open to a real specialist camp.

But then some people are like, oh, I want to be a horse race riding specialist. But I don’t want to just do horse riding this whole time, I want to be able to, you know, experience other sports and outdoorsy kind of things. So you have to really balance like, what do you want to add to camp? And what do you really want to take away from it, because there’s plenty of camps out there that are very narrow, and there’s plenty that are wider. And that ties in with the cultures as well. So you can make all these additions to your profile, and see which best suits you. So once your profile is all setup, you’ve passed all the interviews, and you’ve got to the stage where you’re just another entry in an Argos catalogue, ready for summer camp to pluck you out and say, yes, we need this person to come and volunteer our summer camp.

The camp directors need to be able to think, Okay, do I pick this one. And this is really something that I perhaps I’m not the best person to speak of, just because when I first got my application through from summer camp, I was like, Wow, this camp has chosen for me to come and work at their camp. And I am so excited. I’m so buzzing to go and work over there.

I’m just going to say yes, but I did do a couple of things. First, this is where it gets. And this is where it’s interesting. So when I was choosing my summer camp, I accepted the first offer that came over to me, because I was really wowed by their website. So the first thing you do is you have your application up on like a catalogue of other applications on Camp America, Camp Leaders etc.

And what you do is basically wait for people to say yes, I want you. So they say yes, and you get an email saying, this camp are looking at your profile, would you be interested in taking up an outdoor living specialist role? Which is what I did.

So straight away, as soon as I got that email that notification that a camp was interested in me, I was buzzing my tits off, and I visited their website, first of all, and it’s gonna get you to give you like a real good overview of what this summer camp is all about.

It’ll tell you what kind of summer camp it is and how you think you’re going to fit in, you’re going to be able to view some of their videos, their marketing material that they show off to their parents and campers, to entice them to come back for the next year. And you’re going to be, you’re going to really see like whether you’re able to fit into their like, way of being. So you need to weigh up what’s kind of camp, this is whether it suits your profile, whether it suits the kind of thing you want to do.

Also where in America you will be, because some people apply for Camp America specifically to be in certain states, perhaps, to be near family that are maybe over there, the distant family that you haven’t seen before. So you have to weigh up, where it is, what culture it is, and what kind of activities you can expect to come from such an experience.

So I think in general, that really sums up this podcast episode, there are plenty of things you have to think about when an application comes through for choosing which summer camp to work for. It is a real big choice and a big decision.

There’s no real one summer camp, that’s going to be better than another. You really have to like compare and contrast, like how you’re best fit for that summer camp. It’s very subjective.

There are no real better states than other states either. It’s a very subjective thing. So for instance, my summer camp was in Atlanta, it was a place that I never thought I’d visit never even crossed my mind to add to my profile. But when that came along, I was like, oh, that’s where The Walking Dead is filmed! And I was really hooked.

I was like, Yeah, sign me up, baby.

Okay, so that brings us to an end of this episode. Guys. If you do have any questions, feel free to hit me up. You can find me on theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com You’d be able to send a message through Twitter @androow09.

And speaking of the website, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is coming out as a book in 2020 out now!

I’m super excited to announce that it’s really, really like getting there now, the editor is cracking on with their work, I’ve made my final additions to the, to the book. And you know, it’s there’s something real special about doing summer camp that I really wanted to capture in a book. And it’s been a real work of love to try and get, get it to where it is at the moment. So if you’re interested in pre-ordering the book, it’s available on There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.com buying, its available on Amazon here. You can order the ebook or the paperback versions.

I’d also like to say that in next week’s episode, we are looking at things that you will learn at a Jewish summer camp because of course, as you know, from this episode, I went to a Jewish summer camp and I don’t think there’s many resources out there that really address the issue of people who are going to a summer camp that is Jewish, and they’re not Jewish themselves. So it’ll be an interesting episode to see like how some sort of agnostic white British male sees a Jewish summer camp and gives their opinion on that sort of thing. So stay tuned till next week, and I’ll see you next Tuesday.