The Summer Camp Effect: Why Adults Are Still So Obsessed With Camp

Card-carrying "Camp People" tend to monologue about their summer camps with a near biblical zeal: There’s frequent talk of color wars, dining halls, bunk beds, snail mail. Archery is mysteriously alive and well as a pastime. Tie-dye abounds. And frankly, if you were new to the concept, you could be entirely forgiven for envisioning the place as a mythical alt dimension — rather than, say, a stretch of cabin-studded acreage in rural New Hampshire. But what, exactly, is the allure that camp holds for American adults, long beyond their camp-attending years? 

At most U.S. over-night camps, standard camper age groups range from 7 to 14 — after which come CIT (Counselor In Training) programs, followed by full-on counselor roles. But for tried-and-true camp fanatics, the camp experience stretches far beyond counselor-hood. There are regular reunions, ceaseless group texts, weddings amongst fellow Camp People (often staged at camp, itself!), group pilgrimages back to camp, and the eternal desire to wax poetic (romantic, nostalgic) about all things camp whenever the opportunity arises. “Growing up, we had fourteen girls in our camp age group and I'm still best friends with eight of them” says Sydney Friedman, who attended camp in upstate New York for well over a decade. “15 years later, we have a group chat. We were roommates after college, and bridesmaids in each other’s weddings. In fact, two of us are even married or engaged to boys from our respective boy’s camp.”

Friedman isn't alone in this — for plenty of folks in the camp circuit, this is incontestably normal. “One of the reasons I became a teacher was because of my obsession with camp,” says fourth grade teacher Jane Rosenfeld. "[The job] embodies a lot of what I loved about being a counselor. And having summers off is a huge perk — because, even at age 28, I still work at my camp every summer.”

Rosenfeld’s experience is not exactly out of the ordinary, either. Within hours of posting a call for camp-forward testimonials on Instagram, I’d received nearly 100 (yes, literally) resoundingly enthusiastic DMs from folks hoping for a platform on which to preach about their own life-altering camp experiences. The throughline among these responses was not, however, the fond recounting of summer sailing and lakeside first-kisses. Instead, it was a matter of friendship. One message after the other lauded the iron-clad nature of still-thriving circles of friends. “My ‘camp friends’ growing up are now just my ‘friends’ in adulthood,” says Manhattan-based Maddie Coats. “And I feel very lucky that they’re a part of my everyday life. Some live close by. Some visit frequently. We’re always planning our next thing together.”

Of course, most of us — camp attendees or not — also cherish weighty, lifelong friendships. But few among us reify the origins of those relationships in quite the same way Camp People do. “I think most people look back at college fondly or enjoy telling stories from that time in their lives — but there’s something different about the way we talk about camp,” says Boston-based digital marketer, Kayla Prior. “At both camp and college, you have the pleasure of living less than five minutes away from all of your best friends. There’s eternally something to do. You’re away from your family, learning to exist on your own. But unlike with college, you’re briefly free from all the hardships and stressors of real life. You live in this bubble.” 

There’s a case to be made for any liminal space that allows you to cultivate friendships without the regular pressures of personhood (school, sports, extracurriculars, social hierarchies, et al). But it’s a question of personal reinvention, too. “When you go to a camp as a child, you get the opportunity to reinvent yourself. You get to try new things, you get to embody any personality you want,” says Shawn Borzelleri, senior vice president of camps at the YMCA. As she sees it, kids are more capable of operating as their “true selves” in this context. “At home, kids are often categorized at school: There are folks who like sports, folks who like art, folks who like theater. But at camp, you start fresh. Your reputation no longer precedes you. You just get to be yourself, and connect with other people.”

Another theory speaks to “camp time” — the quantity of uninterrupted hours campers spend together. “When you first arrive, you’re spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week with kids that you've never met,” Borzelleri explains. “You really get to see each other that way. You’re not just learning how to grow and adapt in a new environment, but you’re also experiencing a whole range of emotions. You’re celebrating successes, feeling homesick, coping with various frustrations, trying new things — and learning to lean on one another while you do it.” 

Over consecutive summers spent at camp, you cram all the highs and the lows — the failed swim tests and the dances — into the same month-long window. You start off as strangers and weeks later, you’re trading denim skirts, braiding hair, sharing family trauma (or, you know, whatever version of said trauma feels communicable at age eight). “We grew up together in every way. We were protected, and we were raw,” says Boston-based Emma Pulido of the camp friends she still corresponds with daily. “We had this strong culture in common: our own lingo, our own customs, our own stories. It was a whole world.”

For Pulido, like so many other camp obsessives, summer camp was not just a refuge from real life, but rather, an alternate life of its own. And for her, this is what continues to hold forth for camp kids as they outgrow their camp-attending years. “Summer camp, like many other community experiences, provides a private version of shared history that can be really meaningful in our relationships,” says Julia Jarrold, LCSW, therapist and clinical content manager at holistic mental health center Real. “At different points in our lives, our friendships can change and the ways in which we engage with our friends can change, too. For example, it’s probably unlikely that you’re still sharing a bunk bed with a close camp friend, but that doesn’t devalue the fact that you once did, and you have a history in common that other folks won’t understand.” 

Not for lack of trying, though. Starting April 13, Kim Crawford wines is launching a nationwide campaign to promote an adult summer camp: Camp Kim. The whole project, designed to replicate the joy and freedom inherent to summer camp, is intended to help adults ease back into the gentle, tender, reckless summer camp state of mind. A reclaiming, if you will: paint splattering sessions, live music, a manifestation station, temporary tattoos, card games designed to help facilitate friendship, and, well, wine. It’s proof that, even as we age, we still crave these safe, joy-ridden spaces — and they’re the grounds on which we still hope to foster interests and cultivate relationships.

Of course, long-standing friendship of any variety can be a wildly potent force. The raw, unmitigated, innocent pleasure of growing up alongside companions will always have a certain enchantment to it. But there is something extraordinary about camp's capacity to uphold that very specific brand of childhood sentimentality. It's that perfect cocktail of unbridled joy, discomfort, and all-in emotional rang (plus archery).

“At first, camp is this thing that punctuates your real life,” says high school English teacher Russell Bollag-Miller — who famously has his former camp’s logo tattooed on his ankle. “Then, it starts to feel like real life is just this thing breaking up time in between camp sessions. Like this experience and these friendships are more real than just about anything else.”