Transcript from the podcast episode

Surprise surprise! Hi everyone! And surprise!

Obviously you can tell from the audio recording but not in the office today doing the usual podcast location but surprise I’m here! You can hear the anxiety pulsing through my veins as I’m recording outside in the general public where anyone can hear me. But I’ve come out of the crack of dawn at 8:45 but surprise it’s another episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. It’s good to be back, man.

The whole situation with the podcast is basically, what we’re going to be doing is having special episodes from here on out really. It’s gone from being the weekly or bi-weekly shows where we are now with episodes that are on a special occasion.

So why am I here today?

I thought you know what, it’s been a while since I last did a recording. The last episode was with Maisie Craddock, the YouTuber, where we did that interview, and it was really cool to be featured on her channel. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. But I’m here today with something a little different. It’s not so much of an interview. This is just more of a sort of a life update. Check-in with you guys, to surprise you this Monday, with a podcast episode while you’re doing whatever you’re doing.

So yeah, we’re here with a special episode. Sort of like a touch-base episode, shall I say? We’re just gonna be like talking about what’s been going on talking about what’s been going on both in my life and what’s going on with the podcast and the book. And I’ve got some cool updates to come.

So what’s been going on with me? Well, I’ve become a dad!

It’s been a mental few months. While all this quietness is happening on the podcast front. We’ve got a new child in the mix, say. So I’ve become a dad since the last podcast and it’s it’s a big change in your life, man. It’s big. It’s a hefty change. Becoming a dad is mental. You know that there. There are videos out there. If you go to Andrewwaterhouse.com You can go to my blog, you’ll be able to see my reaction to being told that I was going to be a dad and the surprise on my face was like, wait, what?!

But yeah, she’s here now Rosie is here. And it’s been she’s coming up to six months old now which is mental. I don’t know when that will last podcast I recorded was but it was definitely before she was born. So yeah, it’s a big uphill learning curve. The first couple of months are brutal on the on both of us really. It’s a lot of learning a lot of responsibility, a lot of buying things. But to be honest, over the course of the six months, Rosie has been absolutely fantastic baby to have. She’s really brought the families together both sides. Being the first grandchild on both sides, so she gets absolutely spoiled with kisses and hugs and gifts and you name it, but she’s been around Angel.

So, yeah, basically that’s been a massive change sneakily six months old now. And we’re getting into that with sort of routine. And we have been for a short while to be honest, where I’m more settled in my job. And I’ve got more of the routine sort of hunkered down with who does what chores and who’s the best at putting her to sleep and sort of exchanging that information as well. So we can both be really good at all things. And it’s been quite cool, to be honest, being a parent, because it’s the small things where you’re like, oh my God she rolled herself over today! And that’s massive news as a parent, massive news. Every tiny little thing you’re absolutely flabbergasted by so this week, for instance, she’s started to do this wriggle sort of dance, where she, she’ll wriggle while she’s on her back, almost like she’s dancing. Yeah, so every little thing that she does, you’re just like, stunned and amazed by and then you sort of forget, it’s apparent that they’re actually a human being. They’re going to be doing human being things and, you know, eventually, she’s going to start talking, start crawling, start walking, having a job, going to school, getting grades for things, maybe scoring a goal in a football team or something like that. It’s just like another world. You just think holy shit, all these little things that this person’s doing is something that I made. Yeah, but it’s been great.

Possible future podcast: Thoughts on sending my child to be a camp counsellor one day

I think we’re gonna probably do, there’s probably a whole other podcast discussion on sort of what it’s like to consider about your child going to summer camp. Do I want Rosie to go to summer camp? Do I want her to go to scouts and cubs in the UK, which is sort of the most similar experience to camp America as you get in the UK. But do I want her to go and volunteer and go and do all of those things? It’s definitely worth a podcast discussion about. But anyway, being great news on that front, a lot of changes you can expect.

I’ve become a homeowner: Renovations and floods!

So, at the same time, as Rosie has come about, there’s been an update on the house. So you’ll, you’ll learn that this period has been so much change in my life. So we purchased the house and didn’t mean for it to happen this way. But we purchased a renovation project, a semi-detached three bedroom house. And we got there, I think the month or the couple of weeks after Rosie was born. So for the past six months or so, we’ve been having to renovate the house alongside Rosie being around, we still haven’t moved in yet six months down the line. But hopefully within the month, next month or two we’ll be in settled.

It’s been a massive job with her on that front as well. So we talking kitchen renovations to rewiring to gas leaks to two water leaks that flooded the house. responsibilities, man, I prefer the days of going to summer camp and just not having bills to pay and all those things. That’s been a massive change as well. So having that having our own house, we’ve always been renting and to finally be able to buy a house do it up, make it the way we wanted as well. It’s gonna be a massive change in our lives.

I was going to record this episode as a video podcast, but I thought you know what, rein it in, get that adrenaline down, calm down. I get so excited when I’m doing these podcasts. Get off your high horse and not do a video podcast out in public when you can barely talk in public.

So with the new house, we’re going to be having an office that’s one of the rooms that I was like if we get in this house, this room is going to be my office. I work from home a lot. So you might have seen in previous podcasts or YouTube clips that I’ve done. I’ve got a had an office at the previous place. And I’ve got a Camp America shrine with my Camp America shirts, put up in a display box. So every time I walk into my office, I see those camp shirts, and I remember all of those memories of how good it really was with a couple of photos of the boys alongside so I wanted a similar place in my new house. The new house is so much bigger and more appropriate for what we’re going to be doing. Both in terms of bringing up a family, but also working from home having that space and it as a large semi-detached home. So I guess we got to make that office a really cool place. And it all also probably ends up with me having some sort of studio space.

New Studio Podcasting Space

So we’re going to have like a good recording setup. And I think in the next future special episodes, I’m going to make them video based. So I know, Spotify and other podcast platforms are pushing for the video, podcasting space. So watch out for that soon as well. So we’ve got the studio, we’ve got a house, we’ve got a child, is there anything else that’s been cracking on in the back of my mind keeping me occupied?

Changing jobs too

Yes, change of jobs, throw that into the mix. So I’ve got a bit frustrated at the last job with lack of opportunity and feeling like I’m like pulling the whole team. And without me the sort of Team collapsed and things like that. So long story short, I was looking very sparingly at job positions. Operations Manager is my current title. And I was just looking for similar soft positions, found one applied for one and got the job. And it was so out of the blue, because normally, I’m so used to applying for jobs. And I’m sure a lot of you can sort of empathize with this if you’re applying for tons of jobs. And people say oh, you’re not experienced enough or, you’re not quite suited for this role. And you end up applying for hundreds and hundreds of jobs. But I’m at a place in my life now where I’m fucking 30 years old, still talking about summer camp, you know. But at 30, you sort of have that experience behind you now.

So I’ve got a couple of years of experience doing operations manager positions. And basically what I do is stuff to do with web design. So I won’t bore you with details. So web design agency, Operations Manager is my background. And yeah, basically, I’ve been, I applied for like one or two jobs and got a job. And I was like, Oh, shit, I didn’t really it wasn’t really seriously considering a move, but I got the job and soon moved on… the pay is 25% extra helped. So it’s kind of like an offer too good to refuse. But here we are. And it’s a really good position. Really good growth. And it means that I can provide for my family, while we’re in this transitional period of buying a house and raising a child.

Experience is paying off!

But all fun and games and, you know, experience brings. So speaking of websites and stuff, there are significant changes to this website too. There’s been an overhaul to how we appear in Google now. So every podcast even this one, as I talk is going to be transcribed into a blog post. So people who are searching for things like ‘Can I go to Camp America when I’ve got tattoos’ that will be translated by my bot into a blog post. (Yes you can by the way, read more here) And away we go. We get some more views and people so I’ve seen real growth in the podcast. If you don’t follow me already on Twitter, @androow09.

You might have seen I was really proud of the stats on Spotify. Recently, I had a like an end of year podcasters insights, email come in from Spotify. But how the podcast was doing and it was like 400% growth in 2022 which is like shit like these are serious numbers. So I do appreciate all of your guys support.

51% off There’s No Place Like Summer Camp at Amazon for Prime Day

One of the things that I wanted to bring up in this episode is a really good special offer for you guys this week. Monday, this coming week, because we’ve got Prime Day on Amazon. I think it’s the 12th and 13th of July 2023, of course. So Prime Day is coming up and I thought, let’s hop on this, let’s provide content for you guys at a cheaper rate. So I’ve knocked off  51%. I think it’s just the e-book. But if you want to go check that out, go on to Amazon or go here. And you can get the Kindle version of the book for I think it’s £3.99.

I’m quite excited to hear what people think of the book. And if you have given it a read, or if you buy it or, you know, take advantage of the 51% off. Please do leave a review! It really does help.

Camp America have their own podcast – my seat is still warm!

One of the things I wanted to talk about in today’s episode is I’ve seen Camp America are doing their own fucking they’re doing their own fucking podcast what’s going on now? What’s going on? I go away for like a few months. And they hop it. They hop straight on. And, yeah, they started to do their own podcast. So it’s kind of interesting. I popped them a tweet on Twitter. So Camp America, if you’re listening, go check your tweets. I did tweet. Yeah. Because I saw the launch tweet that basically said, Oh, we’ve got a podcast now. I was like, what?!

I’m currently here walking around at 9am with my there’s no place like summer camp t-shirt on so if you haven’t got that already. Go check that out. I do have a merch store that’s available.

Content, Book, Podcast traction

It’s been what is 2023 now so it’s been nine years since I last went to camp. But it’s only been like, one year since the book was released. And for all that content of podcast episodes and website and merchandise stores, good to finally see a bit of traction coming along. So I hope you enjoy the updates to my life, the podcasts, the website, you’ve got the merch store as well. You’ve also got the 51% off the book for this week. It’s only this week, by the way.

My Prime Day Wishlist: A Fridge vending machine

I’ve been looking forward to this Prime Day for a while. And what I’m going to be picking up in this Prime Day is actually a Kindle Paperwhite base, the kid’s version, apparently is supposed to be more value for money. So I’m going to be grabbing a Kindle that’s got a backlit screen and Natasha is going to love that. Because my current setup for reading books at night involves a neck light that goes around the back of my neck with two little pronged, like light bulbs coming out of each side of my neck. Even though it says it focuses the light onto the book, it’s nothing quite like a backlit screen, sort of similar to how you get on a phone. So that’s what I’m going to be picking up during the Prime Day sales. I’m also looking at a gym, a home gym, maybe getting a rowing machine, maybe a running machine.

There are some other bits for the house, I want to get like a vending they get they’ve got these like, you know, when you go to a vending machine, and they’ve got the cans of Coke or whatever in the machine and you see them push the coke to the front after you push the numbers in and give you money. However, they’ve got something similar for a fridge. So I’ve been getting all this nice technology and appliances and new things for the house. We’ve got carpets coming in in the next couple of weeks, we’ve got a carpenter coming around to fix these words that I’ve never heard of like architraves. And yeah, it’s one of those things that I want to pick up in Prime Day sales, is they’ve got these vending machines, sort of like cam pushers for your fridge. So I’ve got a massive-ass like floor-to-ceiling fridge now. And I want to put in this vending machine pusher for cans of Coke. So I’m like sort of dedicating a whole row of fridge to coke.

How to see updates from me and rumours of second book

I’d say just keep an eye on my socials. Keep an eye on the website as well. And hearing you share the pod is really good for me to hear you guys love it. It’s only been like one year since the book was released. I do often get get asked when’s the second one coming, because I went to summer camp twice. That has been started, but the first book took so many years to create and edit and polish. I think you’d really see it if you especially if you buy the paperback version when you have in your hand. It’s a thick, chunky boy. And it’s not like I’ve used big fonts. These are small ass fonts. Small class fonts with a big chunky book. That’s how I like them.

The second book is, has been sort of started on it’s very early days, but it does take years to publish a book. It can’t be something I just rush out because then it just doesn’t make sense. My first few versions of the book were bad and it took time to get them right.

I DO have a second book – The Fly Who Flew Too High!

Oh, I haven’t done a podcast about my other released book! So it’s kind of not related to summer camp at all. That might be why I might not have mentioned it. So I’ve actually released the second book. So when Rosie was born, I released a book dedicated to her, called The Fly Who Flew Too High. It’s £6.99 for a paperback version, which is like the standard price for a kid’s book. It’s a picture book of a fly, who wakes up one morning in a very loud garden and gets fed up of all of his neighbours, making noise and waking him up. So he decides to fly away, and he flies up into the sky, and then he goes higher and higher, and he keeps going. And then he busts through the atmosphere, and starts flying around space and the solar system, and he goes and visits different planets. It’s a fun, original story that had always been on my mind for a couple of years. If you want to go check that out, if you’ve got kids of your own, check below. It’s got really good reviews!

The Fly Who Flew Too High – available on Amazon.

Approaching Middle-Age

It’s crazy, I’m at the age now where all of the work is starting to pay off doing these podcasts and making the effort of recording every week and optimizing the website. Having the books out there, it creates the audience and then I get support from you guys. And it’s I don’t know, it’s really nice to see that. The belief that I sort of had to have in myself to release all this content is starting to pay off. And I think tears.

If you ever go to my blog, You see I ramble quite a lot about working hard, or mental health struggles, or, as a lot of things like just ramblings of a madman a little bit on that. And to see that, projects that I’ve always had a passion for starting to sort of pay off, as I’m like at my mid-life at the minute. 30 years old, you know, people live to say 80. So I’ve got like 10 years left. And so I don’t know, I’m on the way down, literally. That’s if you are lucky! Wow, that’s a bit morbid for 9am on a Sunday morning.

Tips for improving your mental health

Anyway, so it’s nice, you know, it feels like I feel like there’s a lot of pressure in society at the minute where you’re having to compare yourself to others and I don’t know. Yeah, it’s when you’re comparing yourself to others, it doesn’t get you anywhere, you have to just compare yourself to who you were before. And no one can compete with you and what you are doing. That was a really big lesson that I learned through reading books and educating myself and looking at the habits that have and really honing in on positive habits. And one of the positive habits as all of you know, is read books. No one says oh if you want to get yourself out of a mental health struggle, go watch some TV or go play video games. No one says that… they always say read books.

So it’s nice to see that you guys support me with that. So I’d like to thank you for purchasing right thank you for tweeting me the messages that I get and Facebook messages as well. I don’t even have a Facebook presence. I never push the Facebook following because I don’t like Facebook at all. Facebook was one of the really bad habits that I found was draining my mental health. The only Facebook presence for this site is a Facebook page, only to do some paid advertising, which doesn’t really work. No one wants to ads. So I much prefer to do podcasts and content and interviews and blog posts and that sort of thing.

The Avengers of stress and adulting: Baby, House, Job

I don’t know when our next year, like I say, a lot going on in my life at the minute, not meaning to brag or anything. It’s just, you know, sometimes these things just come at once. Here I am having a newborn, a new house, which is also a renovation in brackets, and also a new job. So it’s like the trifecta of stress. It’s like almost it’s almost the Avengers of stress, you know, you just bring in the fucking Super Villains together. And that’s what I’ve got going on at the minute.

But I can see the way out. there are some times during all of this, where I was just like, What am we doing? Why are we doing all this at the same time and it didn’t really meant it was never meant to happen this way. But sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Eight MagPies Means for a Wish!

Whoa, I’ve got seven magpies in front of me. I’m not one for superstitions, but the magpies man every time every time. 1..2…34567…8! No way. Oh my god, you’re getting this breaking news there. I’ve got eight magpies in front of me. So I’ve got one for superstitions but the magpies thing I don’t know why it’s stuck with me and this is gonna be a fun ending so I’m going to find out what eight magpies means. I bet some people maybe the Gen Z of you who have no idea what I’m talking about okay so I’m having a look let me just try this out Magpie meaning numbers.

So you’ve got the one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, or four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told… ah eight is for a wish. Okay, so what am I going to wish for? What would you wish for? Wish for summer camp? I don’t know. It’s good to hang out with you guys.

Camp Wildfire – the UK summer camp for adults

Speaking of wishing for summer camp. It dawned on me I’m sure I’ve mentioned it in previous episodes. For the Camp Wildfire, who was on Dragon’s Den? A couple of years ago now, but basically it was on the UK Dragon’s Den, someone came up with the idea of doing adults summer camp. experiences for people. And I don’t think they got funding in the end. Spoiler alert. But it’s always played on my mind, like, Ah, how nostalgic and how cool would it be? But it’s just full of adults. But summer camp for adults in the UK. There’s a part of me that wants to give it a try. So I went onto YouTube earlier and had a look at people that were there and the reviews and, man, there’s something about it that I’d love to give it a try. But at the same time, it’s not going to be the summer camp that I remember.

Why I didn’t return for a third summer at Camp America

And that’s part of the second book really, is why it was only to a summer camp, man. It’s a drug. And here I am, nine years later, since going to summer camp myself in here I am in a bus stop in Manchester, talking about summer camp.

But yeah, I’ve got eight magpies here, my wish. My wish… I’ll tell you what I wish for. I know it’s bad luck to tell but its more about bonding with you guys.

I’m going to wish for maybe Rosie to be healthy and happy. Something like that. Rosie to be healthy. I think the happy part would count as a second wish.

In closing: I’m in a good space.

A lot clearer headspace as well.  I say to get yourself into some healthy habits if you aren’t in the right place. Look at what’s not clicking for you at the minute. Meditation is one that’s really honed me in personally. I’m now more grounded and present. And comparing myself to myself and not to others. You should want to be happy for your friends when they are successful. You shouldn’t sat there with envy because they’re doing something that you’re not, or they’ve got something that you don’t have. That was a biggie for me, I used to be on Facebook all the time and I used to see people who were way younger than me were buying a house and I was here struggling having moved miles and miles away from Potters Bar.

But I never considered how they got it, or the backstory that granddad and grandma died and then inheritance went to them, or they won the lottery, or the dad is always in America working his ass off and never sees the kids. You don’t know that. But on Facebook I just saw the glitz of showing off the keys. That took me a while to figure out. So if you are struggling, I’d say compare yourself to yourself. And maybe read Atomic Habits by James Clear, that’s a good book… And also read There’s no place like summer camp – its 51% off!

Alright, guys. I’ll see you in the next episode. I don’t know when it will be. But I’m still around. I’m still alive. I’m still writing. I’m still talking. I need to end the episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening to. It’s totally free. If you want to check out more about there’s no place like summer camp. Go to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com

All right, I’m gonna love you and leave you finally, its been a good chat. Peace!

We return for a special episode! Going forward it’s special one-off episodes and we’re starting with Maisie Craddock. She’s got a fantastic YouTube channel full of Camp America and summer camp content. In this podcast episode, we talk all things summer camp, what it meant to her and the tips she took away from her experience. If you want to see when she interviewed me, go on to YouTube and search for Maisie Craddock. I hope you enjoy this episode and I’ll see you occasionally for more special one-off episodes in the future. If you want to be on the podcast, get in touch! I’m on Twitter androow09 or you can reach me by going to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/contact.

Her channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MaisieCraddock/videos

Maisie Interviews Me – EXTRA video Recorded For her channel: Transcript from this podcast:

Andrew Waterhouse
Hello everyone and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m Andrew Waterhouse, and in today’s episode, we’ve got a special interview lined up for you today. This is Maisie Craddock from YouTube. Nice to have you on. Come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans

Maisie Craddock
Hello, everyone.

Andrew Waterhouse
All right. Welcome back, everyone. It’s good to have you here. I’ve got a special episode for you today with Maisie Craddock. Maisie is someone that I found on YouTube while doing some research on summer camp YouTubers, she’s got a fantastic channel, and I would highly recommend watching her videos all about the tips and tricks and things that she’s learned the travels as well as what she’s gone through being at Camp America. So welcome, Maisie. Thanks for being our special guest on today’s podcast.

Maisie Craddock
Hello. I mean, thank you so much for having me. I’m really glad that we’ve been able to sort of collaborate because I feel like we’re on very similar pages about advising people about summer camps. So I’m very happy to be on and talking to you.

Andrew Waterhouse
It’s a very special privilege. I’ve gone months without doing a podcast episode. But I think from here on out, special interviews, such as this one, are going to make up the majority of the content. Very excited to have you here today. So I was just going to start the ball rolling with some questions just about yourself. So do you want to tell us about yourself? Where were you from? How old are you? Why should you do camp? How many years?

Maisie Craddock
Yeah, and so I’m Maisie and I live in the northwest of the UK. I’m 24 years old. But I went to camp when I was 19. So that was in 2018. And I went to a camp in Pennsylvania and a camp called Chestnut Lake Camp. And I don’t know what else about me. I currently work now in TV. And I obviously have my YouTube channel. So that’s all sort of my interests. And also at camp. My role was sort of related to that, which I’m sure we’ll get into as we go along.

Andrew Waterhouse
So you went to camp at 19? That’s a relatively young age to do camp, I think, yeah, how come you did it at that age?.

Maisie Craddock
I finished at college. And I just wasn’t ready to go to uni or anything. So I took a gap year. And I’ve always ever since I’ve been young just been obsessed with America, I think it was just growing up watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon and all that. And I just have this American dream in my head. So as soon as sort of, I was old enough to do it, because you can be 18 and older. I was just that I want to go and do it. And doing it in my gap here was sort of a perfect time to do it. I do think that I was quite young because obviously the drinking age in America is 21. So that sort of came into play later on in the troubles, where some of my friends who were 21 could go out and I couldn’t. But I am quite a mature person, I would say so like I didn’t feel really young or anything like that. And I think that you sort of forget about everyone’s age just at camp. So I just went when I was ready to be honest.

Andrew Waterhouse
Perfect. So how come you thought of the idea of doing Camp America? Was there anyone you know? Or was it always an attraction with the TV movie Disney thing?

Maisie Craddock
I’d say that that was a big part of it. You know, I’ve loved films like Camp Rock and Parent Trap and stuff like that. So I’ve always heard about it. I did have a neighbour that did Camp America, maybe about three or four years before I went. So you know, I’d heard about that. And I just yeah, I’ve always just known about it. And I think I just wanted an experience of travelling and then as soon as you know the gap year hit that was just instantly the thing that I knew I wanted to do it wasn’t go to Thailand or go to Australia or anything like that. It was I want to do camp America. So I think it’s been going around for like 60 years or something camp America so I’ve just known about it. And that’s just Yeah, I just wanted to jump straight into be honest.

Andrew Waterhouse
Yeah, well Okay, so before we just get into the camp, I was just gonna ask you about the recruitment fair. How did you find that?

Maisie Craddock
So I, cuz I was so keen and knew that I wanted to do it. And I actually like applied online as everybody else does in like, nope, um, maybe it was September time of the like the year I, it was September 2017. And I went camping like or not August or May 2018. So September I applied and then had like your interview with somebody who then basically just says, you know, you’re okay even like they say that you’re, you’re suitable for camp basically. But you don’t obviously get them recruited by a camp until that point. And then I actually did go to a recruitment fair, because I just wanted to like, open my options up as much as possible. Obviously, my camp profile was live. So camps could sort of hire me via the app via the online application. But I also went to Leeds for the recruitment fair. You’ve just as we’ll get into, when you’re doing Camp America, you’ve just got to get yourself out of your comfort zone and just throw yourself in. At that recruitment, fair, I just went in, they told us prior, like, don’t stand on your phone, make sure that you’re sort of chatting to people around you because the camps have their eyes on you. Then I just approached the different camps, the ones that I had sort of researched online and thought that they sounded great. Initially, I was thinking of maybe doing more drama roles and stuff. But as I approached them, they all said, Oh, no, we’ve already hired that. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, what, what should I go for now? So I sort of winged it on the spot and was like, Well, I have got media experience. I’ve just made media a level. And then there was one camp that was looking for, like a web team, part of being part of the web team. And I just completely blanked it, and said, you know, and it is true, like, that is what I’m into. But I said, Yeah, I’ve done all this photography, and all this, I’ve only done a little bit. But she was like, yes, you sound great, you can be part of the web team. And I got hired on the spot, then by my camp, which, as I discovered, you know when I went to camp, it was one of the best roles I could have done. But at the time, I would say that you sort of have to just pick yourself up. And if you want to get hired there, then you have to just make sure that you’re like me, you know, saying that you’re the best person on earth, basically. But a lot of people didn’t get hired at the recruitment fair. So if you don’t get hired, I wouldn’t be so disheartened by it. Because, you know, there are other opportunities like you had Andrew, where you applied later on. And then you get applied, you get hired online.

Andrew Waterhouse
Yeah, absolutely. So was Chestnut Lake, were they the first table you approached? Had you gone in with like, a certain camp that he wanted to go to? And what type of camp was Chestnut like?

Maisie Craddock
So I had about five camps. That was hot. I can’t remember how many were there, maybe about 20 to 30 camps at the recruitment fair. And I had about five, written down that were my favourites. So Chestnut Lake wasn’t the first one that I approached, I actually approached one called Trails and which was next door to Chestnut Lake. But they didn’t have anything suitable for me. So then chestnut lake was the second sort of camp that I approached. So I was quite lucky in that sense. In terms of the camp that it was like, it was a pretty sort of standard camp, I would say. I know they have special needs camps. They have Jewish camps. They have underprivileged camps. I would say that mine was more on the privileged end of a camp, I found out that parents sending their children to camp for just their session was about nine grand. So it was quite an expensive camp. I would say a lot of the kids were from more wealthy families. You know, my camp had sort of it, you didn’t just stay at camp, you also had day trips or trips away with the kids as well. So that sort of represented sort of the money side of things. A lot of the kids were Jewish. But it wasn’t a Jewish camp. Like we didn’t do any sort of like you know, religious rituals or anything like that. It was all just sort of standing next to the pledge the allegiance to the flag every day other than that it was.

Andrew Waterhouse
So I was just gonna ask about being a photographer that’s kind of like a different sort of role that a lot of people would go to camp would have. How did you find being a photographer and being? What did you find a bit external to the day-to-day running of camp? Were there any kids, you had to like, sort of train or show how to use a camera? Or were you like more taking photos of the activities as kids would come? Come through? Camp?

Maisie Craddock
Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, Before, I had no idea sort of what being part of the web team would involve. But it ended up being probably one of the best jobs in my opinion, at camp because I was still part of I shared a bunk with the kids. And I was still part of sort of my own division. So at nighttime and stuff, I would like still look after them. And when we were doing activities in the evening, I would be with them and my fellow counsellors that are in that division. But in my actual job, I was slightly isolated from not isolated, I was just away from the kids that I was like, assigned to, which was nice, because I then would get a schedule each day, and it would tell me, so in the morning, you need to go and take pictures of the seven-year-old boys that are playing football, then after that, you need to go to take pictures of the older girls that are on an outdoor adventure. I would just go and spend an hour with each, like different ages of kids, and take pictures of them of what activities they were doing. Then at the end of the day, I would upload all those pictures onto the Chestnut Lake website for their parents to be able to see what they’re up to. So I loved it because it meant then that I would spend an hour with not only different kids, but also the counsellors that were looking after those kids, and also the specialists that were at that area as well. So it meant that sort of everyone knew me at camp, I was always sort of going around. And I would return back, you know, it wasn’t just, I’ve been with you one day, I’ll never come back to that group. Again, like I was obviously there for a long period of time. So it was really great. It was really sort of rewarding in the sense of like parents loving to see what their kids are up to. The kids being like, oh, take this picture of us, it was really fun. Also, on a personal level. It really improved my own skills, like photography and stuff like that. So it was a good role.

Andrew Waterhouse
Okay. I imagine a lot of other kids’ poses become favourites. Did you have any favourite kids that or side the other side, where they were just a pain?

Maisie Craddock
Yes. And it also depends on what age the kids are as well because we had kids from like, being about six. So they were tiny, all the way up to like teenagers, like 16-17 year-olds. And yeah, you would have it depends on their personalities. But it was always really important for me to get a picture at least one picture of every child. And there were some that were not interested at all in getting the pictures taken. They just wanted to be doing the activity. And I’d be like, that annoying person that’s like, Please smile for the photo, too. Sometimes I had to adapt to that. And if they felt really uncomfortable, I’d just get action shots of them doing what they were doing. But then yeah, you have the other kids that want to be in every photo. And it came to the point where I’m like, You need to not be in this photo now. Because you’re in every photo where you just sort of get used to it. And I think just warming to the kids as well. And just being like, Oh, come on smiling or just making them laugh. Always just sort of made it a bit easier.

Andrew Waterhouse
Great. So I was gonna just sort of touch on the culture of your camp. So you say it’s a traditional sort of camp with no religion, no special needs anything like that. But how did you find those first few days settling in? Was there a culture that you had to adjust to? How did you settle in and like, find friends? Because I imagine you went by yourself. You didn’t know anyone prior to going to camp?

Maisie Craddock
No. Yeah, I went by myself. I actually met one girl on Twitter when we both got recruited. And we’re both going to the same camp. So we actually like out of convenience travelled together. But we were like we got on and everything but we didn’t end up being like really close friends throughout camp. So and I also didn’t and it’s really important not to like just stay attached to one person. And that’s the thing that’s where I come from Eric always says like, don’t go with a friend. So yeah, the first few days, were a bit scary, but you’ve just got to throw yourself in there like I’m a really sociable person anyway. So straight away, I was just meeting people and met some people at the airport, which made things a little bit easier that will go into my camp. And then we all sort of shared the plane journey and the bus journey together. So straightaway sort of had people that you’ve sort of gone from the UK with, which made it a bit easier. But as soon as you got to camp, it was just like, where are my like, especially if I was in Pennsylvania, which was in the middle of nowhere. And you’ve then got all these Americans, which, obviously, speak the same language and everything, but they are different. They are like, just, I don’t know how to describe them. But they’re very dramatic, very over the top. They’re very, very friendly and polite, I would say most of them. And it was, it was fine. I think, luckily, obviously, you have your sort of staff week. And so that sort of settles you in before you’re overwhelmed with all the kids. But yeah, I think it was, it was a great experience. You’ve just got to throw yourself in there and just, you know, chat to everybody. And I think naturally, you just gravitate towards the people that are very similar to you, and you just make new friends. And it was absolutely fine.

Andrew Waterhouse
To just touch on that topic. Were there any other Brits that? Oh, you said there was one other prep was there a little collection of British people that sort of came to your camp at the same time? Because that’s how, at least in my camp, there were initial staff weeks, the Brits would all be their own group. The Israelis would be their group, the Americans would be their group. Did you find it was a little Clicky? In that respect?

Maisie Craddock
Yeah, I would say obviously, for the first sort of arrival period, we did all arrive together. So there were some Brits, but also there were some returners as well that were coming with us because we’re all sort of on the same flight or the same coach in and obviously those returners had American friends. So they were sort of great in merging those with them. And yes, I would say, initially, I guess there are cliques that form, but the Americans were just so great, and just approaching you and just chatting to you. We didn’t really have as you say, you had Israelis, we didn’t really have many people over than Brits and Americans at the camp. And there were like, Spanish people, and they, they were sort of stuck together. But they sort of worked in the kitchen and things like that. I genuinely I do think that everybody just sort of on the first few days just sort of threw themselves in and was all quite chatty, and then I think cliques do form. I think no one knows each other initially. So you’re just sort of finding your clique. But once you’ve found your clique, then there is there are definitely cliques.

Andrew Waterhouse
Great. So I was just gonna ask about your highlights of camp. Is there anything that stood out to you from your year? Being a photographer?

Maisie Craddock
Well, I mean, obviously, the highlight was my role. I loved my role at camp. But also just the friends that I made would be a highlight in itself. But I’d say just sort of the day-to-day is a highlight, you know, I don’t know if it is actually taken that back. I got to be honest, sometimes I struggled with camp. And, you know, it was very different to like the real world. So some of my highlights were when we sort of went on day trips out of camp because that was a day where we didn’t have the kids with us. And we got to sort of explore different cities, we’re sort of close to Philadelphia and New York and stuff. So they were like highlights, and obviously the travels after a highlight. But in terms of camp, I’d say the little things like your campfires, your cookouts, singing with the kids, all the sort of little activities that you did, and just those moments in the bunk as well, where you’re like bonding with your counsellors and the kids like doing their braids and their hair and just like sweet things like that. Were like the highlights, like the little things. And also eating too much food is a thing, but I love food. So, you know,

Andrew Waterhouse
when in America I think that’s how you sell into the culture. .

Maisie Craddock
Yeah, exactly. I just fit in everything. Yeah, literally. And the food account was okay. But you’re just hungry all the time because like the days were just so long and you’re on your feet all the time, so it just ended up being eating anything. But yeah, I like it. There were a lot of highlights, but I won’t lie when I say there were some down moments as well.

Andrew Waterhouse
Absolutely. It’d be wrong of us to pretend that camps just full of sunshine and rainbows, though it’s certainly days of my cup experience where I was like, Well, you know what? I’d rather be at home.

Maisie Craddock
Yeah, exactly. I remember, I think, maybe a week in I FaceTimed, my parents and just burst into tears. And they were like, it’s fine. Like, I think it was just the culture shock of like, just completely different environment from being at home. Suddenly you’re at camp and like, our bunks were really weird as well. I know it sounds like a little thing. But we had bunk beds, and all the kids were like, on the ground. But the counsellors that shared the bunk were like, above the kids in each corner of the room, but there was no barrier on the bunk bed. So it was literally just you could roll off and fall out of the bed. I think I didn’t, but I had a friend that did and broke his nose. I think things like that as well. When you’re first settling in, you’re like, I don’t know where I am. I don’t know anyone. I’ve also got this weird bed that I can’t even be comfortable in at night. And I’m like shoving myself against the wall. So it was all just things like that. But you know, once you sort of get settled in and you start making like those friendships that you know, true friendships. And it was amazing. On the whole.

Andrew Waterhouse
It’s funny you mentioned the bunk beds because we actually had a kid I’m sure it’s in the first book where they rolled off their bunk beds, and they broke their back, I think we ended up having an air ambulance come and pick them up. And that was like a big drama of camp. So Americans, you need to sort out your rails on what’s going on.

Maisie Craddock
I know I genuinely don’t get it. And they also didn’t have ladders or PPE either. So you’d have to like literally like scramble and like put your leg on, it was so weird.

Andrew Waterhouse
Right? So we’re coming up to the end of the questions I have for you. As we’re doing that, I’ll just keep it safe for work for the time being. The last question on that topic is What would you say to someone that’s thinking of doing Camp America?

Maisie Craddock
I would say go all in, you know, if you’re thinking about it, then just do it. If you can give up three months of your summer, and you come to America, you have to pay I think about 700 pounds ish, I think that’s what it’s like. But if you obviously can afford that, then great. Go for it. And you also obviously earn money once you’re at Campus well, so it sort of balances out it’s not loads of money. It’s just as they call pocket money. But I would just say, you know, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, go for it. Because for me, it was the best thing one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, and I will never ever forget it. And yeah, I think that’s it. That’s all I would say really is just go for it.

Andrew Waterhouse
Okay, so more spicy questions. Now as we’re coming up to the end. In your the chat we’ve done on your YouTube channel, you mentioned that you were single at camp. How was that?

Maisie Craddock
And to be honest, it was I was glad that I was single camp, having got to camp and seeing people that were in relationships. Literally, the majority of the people that I was friends with that were in relationships at home, their relationships broke down. I think you know, I don’t mean that to scare anybody. But it’s also the reality of you go to camp, and you can’t really go on your phone and at my camp, we had to lock our phones away for most of the day. I was lucky with my role because I could sort of sneakily have it when I was like editing the photos and stuff. But otherwise, you couldn’t have it apart from on your time off. It’s very sort of you’re in your camp bubble. There are other sorts of distractions. There may be other temptations there. And I think I was glad that I was single because I didn’t have anybody to worry about back home. Now. I’m not single and the thought of going to camp now having no water it’s like that’s, that would really make me nervous. Just because it’s like it’s when you’ve got a loved one back at home. You’d be wanting to check in on them, you’d know that they want to check in on you. And like, especially the way that my camp was, I couldn’t like to have access to my phone, and then you’ve got the time difference as well. So I would say it’s definitely difficult, but it’s also doable. Like, if obviously, if you’re sort of secure in your relationship, then it will be fine. You’ve just got to communicate and pre-warn your partner that, you know, it might be difficult, but if you trust each other, then it will be fine. But personally, I was very glad that I was single. And I could just think and do whatever I wanted.

Andrew Waterhouse
I shouldn’t have really said this in the interview we had on your channel. But I think also the time difference, having, you know, approximately three months away from your loved one, that’s a long time, especially when you’re outside of camp, that not being able to speak to each other and not be able to, you know, go on a date night together. That’s a long time to be apart. And I think that definitely plays its part if you are going to camp when in a relationship.

Maisie Craddock
Yeah. 100%

Andrew Waterhouse
I was just going to touch on camp goggles, and the lack of privacy in camp. How did you find those two?

Maisie Craddock
So camp goggles is similar to what we’ve just mentioned. So you are in a bubble-like camp? And sort of what you see at Camp is probably not what you would see in real life. You know, I think for the majority of us, me and my friends that look back now we’re like, Why did I fancy that person or something like that? They were obviously great people. But I just think when you’re in your sort of normal life, headspace, you just wouldn’t even it wouldn’t cross your mind. But boot camp goggles were funny like I touched on in my video, like, I went to Camp thinking that I was going to find a cowboy. And as soon as I saw somebody with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, I was just like, Oh my gosh. But really like, yes, they were a great person. And nothing happened at all. But it’s just a stupid, like, I almost feel that camp was almost like going back to school. With the sense of it was very gossipy. Everybody knew things you had crushes on people like you fancied them and like it very, it felt like I was back at school with the sense of that. And what was the other or the lack of privacy? Yeah, and my, the toilet in my camp was so strange, because the doors, literally you would stand up and you would see the bottom half of your leg from like your knees down, and you would see your head. So the toilet doors were so short that literally like if people stood up, they could see you on the toilet. And straight away. I was like, Oh my gosh, like hat, like, how do I get used to this, but you just got to think I’m here for three months, I’ve just got to do it. Like, I’ve just got to go in there and just do what I need to do. And the same with the showers and just getting changed in front of people. Like I think at first you’re sort of like, you know, a bit. But you just get used to it. And you’re all in the same boat. And yeah, I think as well, you touched on it before in terms of lack of privacy as well. If you do sort of form a relationship at camp, and you want a bit of time on your own with that person. I think it can be quite difficult. You’ve got to be careful with where you choose for your private moments. And because for some reason people always seem to find out when something has happened. The latest gossip, it’s the latest gossip. It’s like, Well, what happened at the lake last night and all this, which is great. And it was it. That was you know, going back to highlights of camp. All of that is a highlight of camp because it’s just so entertaining and funny.

Andrew Waterhouse
Every day is full on I find every day is full of news full of activities. Yeah, got it.

Maisie Craddock
Yeah. But yeah, you do have to be careful because there were people that did get fired as well from my camp. Not really for things like that. I think if you did stuff like that and got caught a few times, then yes, you’d get fired. But also just being inappropriate or sort of doing wrong things like there were a few people that did like drugs and stuff that was completely, you know, that got found out and fired straight away. So you just got to you have in the sense of me saying it’s like school, you have got to be careful, like you’re in school like you don’t want to lose your job and you’ve got to sort of be sensible, as well.

Andrew Waterhouse
Absolutely. Okay, so we’re up to the final question. And this is a question that I asked everyone that’s come on the podcast Did you can have some time to think about what food or smell will bring you back to summer camp? Is there a particular food or smell that you like, that reminds you of camp? Take your time.

Maisie Craddock

There are quite a few foods to be fair. A really weird one, and no one will ever say this, is the lack of veg. The only veg we had was raw broccoli and I was like “I have to have veg!”. Every time I go to the supermarket now and do some cooking, chopping up broccoli, that brings me back to camp. It is dead funny! But another one is the classic smores, which remind me of camp. Especially the way done at camp with the Hershey bars and Graham Crackers, the smell of smoke and all of that, reminds me of camp.

Andrew Waterhouse

Wow I would never have put raw broccoli on my list of guesses for what foods people may bring up on that question. But there we have it! That is the end of this podcast and I want to thank Maisie for being a special guest. For more of her content, check out her YouTube channel above as well as our separate video recorded for her channel – also embedded above.

 

Right, so this is a big moment. Not book-release big, but still quite exciting — the There’s No Place Like Summer Camp merchandise shop is officially live. You Can Now Own a Piece of the Tent I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: Andrew, I already listen to the podcast, I’ve pre-ordered the book, and now you want me to buy a t-shirt as well? And to that I say: yes, basically, yes. The shop is live over at https://theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/shop and it has got a proper range of stuff on it. We’re talking t-shirts, hoodies, phone cases, towels — the kind of thing that lets you subtly announce to the world that you once listened to a podcast about summer camp and it had a meaningful impact on you as a person. Why Merch? Look, the honest answer is that anyone who runs a podcast, a YouTube channel, or basically any kind of creative hobby project eventually ends up with a merch shop. It’s practically a rite of passage. I held out for a while but I’ve got to say, seeing it all come together and having actual physical items with the There’s No Place Like Summer Camp branding on them feels genuinely cool. If you’re someone who went to camp — Camp America, Camp Leaders, BUNAC, whatever — then you know how much those memories stick around. The merch is a bit of a nod to that. A way to carry a little bit of the camp spirit around with you in hoodie form, which let’s be honest is exactly what you want in a British winter. The Early Bird Discount If you get in before the book launch, there’s a 10% discount using code EARLYBIRD at checkout. One word, all caps, very on-brand for a site about summer camp enthusiasm. The discount is running up until the book launch week, so don’t hang about if you want it. After that it reverts to full price, which is still perfectly reasonable, but ten percent off is ten percent off. What to Get If you’re after my personal recommendation: the hoodie. It’s the right move. You’ll wear it, it’ll be warm, and at some point someone will ask you what “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp” means and you’ll get to tell them about the podcast and the book and the whole thing, which is really just free marketing for me, but also a genuinely interesting story for you to tell. Everyone wins. Go check out the shop at https://theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/shop and report back. While you’re shopping, the books are here too: Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp on Amazon Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

Hello and welcome to “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp”. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, we’re doing a review. And the review is of the “Unplugged Summer”. So, come into our tent and I’ll spill the beans.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. Like I said at the start of this episode, this is a review of the Unplugged Summer. Which is a book by George Horner. So, I hope you enjoy this episode.

Now, I have to start with how did I come across this book? Being a part of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, and releasing my book very soon, I always keep an eye out for new summer camp related books on Amazon. This happened to turn up and it piqued my interest because it’s an Englishman’s perspective of life at an American summer camp. Now, if that’s the subtitle, that’s going to hook me in. It is pretty much the whole point of my book. So, it piqued my interest. And I had to order myself a physical copy, whenever I do get the chance to order a book, especially those around summer camp.

I don’t want to get an eBook, I want to get the physical copy and see what it’s like, as the author intended, and all of the work that they’ve put into it. So, what I have here is a copy of his book. And if you’ve followed me on Instagram, you would have seen a couple of months ago that I received this and I let it die. I didn’t do any follow-up episodes, I didn’t comment any further on this book. And the reason for that, and I do apologise if George is following this… I didn’t post anything about this, because it’s a book that I don’t like. But we’ll get into that.

Competition

So, before we begin, I just want to remind you guys that there is a competition at the minute. If you go to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/competition, you can win yourselves a copy of my book. Now there are two books available as eBooks. And there’s one paperback available as well. Whoever wins, I might get in touch with you to see if you want it signed, which I can do, which will be pretty cool. So, if you want to enter, all you have to do is go to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com, all you have to do is click on the links. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you get yourself some entries, but you have to go to that page to enter. I think you get an entry for following me on Twitter and an entry for following us on Instagram. And you also have a chance to sign up for a newsletter as well. All you have to do is type in your email address, and you have an extra entry. So, you’ve got until the 1st of April, if you want to get in with a chance of winning a book. It’s only open to the UK only because I have to post it myself. And it’s going to cost a bit of an arm and a leg to send it anywhere else. But if you are interested in picking up There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, it does release on the fourth of April. So, it’s not that far away now. And I hope that the people that are listening to this, in the very far future. Know that the books sort of out now. If you’re listening to this beyond the fourth of April 2020. So, it’s out it’s available on Amazon. But if you’re listening to this at the time of upload, it’s not so let’s crack on with the rest of this episode.

Okay, so I’ve talked about how I found this book in the first place. I like to keep an eye on the latest published months of summer camp books. And it piqued my interest and Unplugged Summer and Englishman’s perspective on life at an American summer camp. Now, I want to start with the back of this book, because it’s going to give you a lot of perspective on what to expect from this.

Back of the book

So, it was in September 2014 when George Horner began his quest of spending the following summer in America. He’s hoping to work at an American summer camp, a place of unfamiliarity with limited access to social media, and with numerous kids to supervise. This memoir reveals the challenging journey for the Englishman in his pursuit of being welcomed on board by a summer camp director.

We were working at an America Can summer camp become his destiny? Will he be embarking on the most memorable summer? George is from Hampshire, England. His enthusiasm for sport led him to achieve a BA Honors Degree in sports development at the University of Chichester in 2013. He then focused his career progression in the health and social care sector. And in February 2019, he completed a two-year Postgraduate Diploma in adult nursing, based at the University of Southampton.

This has enabled him to become a registered nurse at the NHS. With all his achievements in his life so far, including the writing of this book, perseverance was the key.

The premise

So that’s the whole premise of this book. And you have to understand that the angle of this book that it tries to take you down is how technology is not evident, or very much in the background of volunteering at summer camp. And it’s a different angle from the other ones that I’ve read. Now, George here goes to volunteer at Camp Ace Invaders. And it’s through a programme called Wild Packs, which I hadn’t heard of before. But Wild Packs are like what Camp America is Camp Leaders and all that good stuff. That’s something I’ve only really noticed since doing this podcast, by the way, and getting balls deep into the summer camp stratosphere sort of thing is. How many different programmes there are? But I’d never heard of Wild Packs until I read this book. But it’s similar to Camp America, I think he goes for this programme because they pay slightly better than Camp America. But anyway, I’m beside the point.

Full of problems

So, at the start of this podcast, I said that I wish there was more from this book. So, I have to start with the shite points of this book. So, the first thing that gave it away to, me was there were 73 pages before he’s even at summer camp. It’s so much rambling. Like I say, if George is listening to this, it’s not personal. It’s not envying, jealousy. It’s just a guy behind a microphone trying to do a bit of a review, I like to read a lot. And I think I’m considerably older than you as well. So, don’t take it personally. But this is just my opinion. I think it’s good to have these dialogues. I can recommend things to my audience because I think some people may click with this idea. They might think, oh, you know what, that’s quite a good angle. Actually. This is just my personal opinion,.. So, take it with a grain of salt.

The 73 Pages before actually at camp

But yeah, The Unplugged Summer is all about how technology is disconnected from summer camp. And why straightaway found was this so much rambling in this book, 73 pages before you’re actually at summer camp, you hear so many times, where camps come and go during the interview stage that is so laborious and boring, you go through quite a few chapters, where you just look back and go, Why the fuck was that in? Like, why are we talking about this interview that he had with the summer camp and then fell through? It kind of gives you a bit more of the background of what it’s like to go and apply for summer camp. But I don’t think it needs to be in there when you’re talking to say four or five or six different summer camps. And then you finally land that position.

There’s a whole chapter in there as well about how monotonous the stages are for camp. And at one point, he kicks off with the director, because there are so many stages that he’s just getting frustrated. I just found it quite funny in a way because that shouldn’t be in the book. I can understand the frustration of someone that’s young going into camp, and maybe it’s their first job and getting frustrated with the number of stages there are because there certainly are loads of stages to go into summer camp. But I didn’t understand why he kicks off – maybe he has some sort of bad day. And that’s the problem with this book throughout is that there’s no context and there’s no development of the page. There’s a lot of telling to the reader rather than showing them. And that’s a skill that I’ve had to try and pick up in the six years now that I’ve been working on, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, but I’ll get onto that a little bit more in a second.

There’s a whole chapter in this book that’s based on him passing a driving test. Now, I don’t know what the hell that has to do with being in an Unplugged Summer camp. But I guess it gives you a bit of background to this guy and the run-up into summer camp. For me, it started way, way too soon. Because I wanted to get to the meat, I wanted to get to the time that he’s actually at summer camp and seeing that effect of no technology while they are at camp.

Lack of structure

The writing, I didn’t get like, the structure of this book, I didn’t understand. And that’s a real, real core problem of Unplugged Summer. It’s not in a structure where it’s day by day, it’s not in a structure where it’s chronological. And it’s not even in a structure where it’s like, week by week, it’s or like a summary of events. Sometimes it goes from one day to the next and there’s really mundane things there. At other times, it just skips over whole loads of weeks, especially when he’s actually at camp, which is funny enough, because the whole point of the book is to be about summer camp. But I was frustrated as a reader, especially as someone that was outside of this summer camp, because reading this, it was such a mishmash of people timeframes and tenses were made it hard for me to read. I can kind of take that with like a pinch of salt, because I know it’s a self-published book he’s done through the KDP programme. But when I was reading this, I was just so frustrated because it just needed a bit more care and attention and a bit more time. I didn’t know for instance, who’s who, who’s friends with who. And that’s a really hard problem to try and sort of fix as an author of a book.

That’s why it took me so long to get There’s No Place Like Summer Camp up to its release where it is today. Getting it to a point where it can be released to the public, and it’s going to be readable for the Average Joe, it’s not just going to be readable for those that are at my camp. It’s a lot more work to it than just throwing something together based on memory, and jumping all over the place, especially with the tenses and the rhythm of the book.

There’s a whole chapter in this book as well on a rainy day where George has played some football. And then he goes on a Skype call. Now, that’s a fucking chapter of the book. I don’t like to swear, but what is the point of that chapter. I’ve summed up a whole chapter of this book, where he’s saying, I’ll play some football, it rained today, and I went on Skype. What’s that doing in there? I don’t care that you did those three things that such mundane things that I could easily do at home. I didn’t understand the connection of why the unplug summer, sort of tied in with stories like that, where Skype calls, you had a Skype call. Okay, cool. Tell me a bit more. Tell me. What does that mean? So what I found that there was way too much description of really mundane boring things like the setup of an icebreaker, rather than the people that he’s meeting.

Summer camp is about the people

Surely when you go to summer camp, the people are the most important part and the relationships that people have and meeting strangers for the first time and becoming friends with those people. That’s the whole core of summer camp to me. And I’m sure that resonates with a lot of you have been to summer camp yourselves. It’s not about what are the exact rules of the icebreaker and did it rain today? Or did I have a Skype call to home. Now this is a cutting review. And I do apologise. But I think it gives you some perspective on the amount of work it takes to try and get a book that’s out there that’s going to be entertaining, educational and insightful. And that’s what I have tried to do with There’s No Place Like Summer Camp now.

A note from a fellow self-published Author

I’m not criticizing this book like I’m saying There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is going to be perfect.

Because I could see a lot of connections when I was reading George’s book here that remind myself of my time applying through the story and I’m getting myself through those processes and sort of, you know, I could see a lot of connections between our story and his or my story in his short essay. But I think it just needed a lot more work. And I was surprised actually to see at the end of the book, there’s a lot of thankyous to the people that sort of helped him to get to where he is now. And I was surprised to see that there were two editors on this.

Now, I saw a lot of issues with I think what you he needed was sort of an overall big picture, zoom out of the book, see what’s the problems with the overall rather than the spelling. I think, where the problem is, with this book is the spelling is perfect. I can’t fault the spelling. I can’t fault the grammar or anything like that, I can only follow the overall story because it’s so hard to read, and the structure is all over the place. And I’m really surprised that two editors couldn’t point that out to George.

So, like I say, there’s a lot of skimming over the details that you wish you’d learn a bit more about. Like, I want to know more about the camp, I want to know how big it is, what sort of people are there. I want to know about the specialties like there’s times during this book where I was just so frustrated, but I kept going through it because, I’m writing a book on it, I need to see what “the competition” do. But I was struck. It’s an uphill read. If you get this book, it’s going to be an uphill read. And like I say, I’m not trying to slag anyone off. I’m not saying that my book is going to be perfect. I expect reviews like this for my book. And I think constructive criticism helps.

The Book is a Circus Specialty

I’m not trying to get personal. I’m not saying George is a bad person. I’m not saying anything like that. I’m saying this project for me, personally, it didn’t connect with me. I wish it could have been better because there were some real ingredients there. That could have been so good. Like, he skips over partway, about walking past the circus specialty. And I’m like “Circus specialty!? Tell me more about that!” I would have loved to have known more about this circus specialty. I didn’t know circus was a thing that summer camps teach. What is that? Like? Did he ever have a go? It sounds so cool. But yet, it’s just skimmed over. It’s just like, oh, yeah, walk past this circle specialty. When I was taking the kids back to the cabin. Okay. You’ve just missed a real opportunity there to tell me more about your camp in particular. And I think Michael Eisner does quite well in his book. Something that I’d recommend, I did enjoy his book, a lot more than this.

Glossing over the entirety of camp

Similar to the circus speciality, also skimmed over is speed boating. One of the characters he introduces is a speed boating teacher or specialist. I want to know about speed boating. That sounds cool. Did George go on speed boating? I don’t know. Was it something that he just cut out from the book? Or is there a reason he didn’t go on the speed boating himself? Did he ever take the kids speed boating? This is frustrating because I can’t answer that and other read the book. But it’s something that The Unplugged Summer I wished delved into those details. I wish he went into a bit more about how George was thinking at the time. I think the overall bigger picture of this book is so hard to pinpoint what he’s trying to achieve here. Because it’s not so much a diary. But it’s not so much a story either. It’s nothing, there’s no base there’s no structure, there’s no thought that’s been put behind. This is exactly what I’m going to tell and why. But I have to say that adding the detail to the behind the very start of going to some accounts. That was quite cool. I have to say it’s “quite cool”, but it just went on for way too long 73 pages before you get to summer camp. Now I can tell you, that’s way too much.

Okay, I’ll finish on my last beef with this book, okay? There’s more conversation with the camps that George didn’t get into, than his first two days at camp. Now, that does sum up this book because I don’t care about the camps that he talked to one time and didn’t get in. I care about the camp that he’s going to. When I look back and think about my summer camp experience. I don’t remember exactly all of the camps that I spoke to, the process that I went through and how frustrating it was. Or even almost quitting because there’s too many steps. I don’t care about that. I care about the time spent account, the admin and boring side of paying, going for an interview, going to the doctors, getting a CRB check. That’s such mundane stuff, that it was just like I say, it was frustrating. And to see that there were more conversations with the people that he got interviewed for and then didn’t get the positions. Or he decided the camp wasn’t for him. I don’t care. I care about those first two days at camp a lot more because they’re the people that you can be at camp with. And I think it missed the mark on that one.

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The good points

So, I’ve gone over the bad points of this book. The good points. Like I say there’s a lot of there’s a lot in this book that I could kind of see myself connecting the dots from my story to his. There’s a lot in this book about mental health, which is cool. He opens up quite a bit. And for some reason he goes on he goes on these random tangents like talking about Robin Williams his death. I don’t know why that’s in the book, but he touches upon it. But he goes into mental health quite a lot. And I think this may have been written a time where now I’m completely guessing here. This may have been written at a time where he’s trying to reminisce and I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But I like how he opens up in this book. He opens this up. He’s opens himself up well.

Obtaining the visa

There’s a whole chapter in this book about him going to the London embassy getting the visa. And he paints that picture well. I enjoyed that chapter. That was the first chapter and that’s probably about page 50 that I thought are finally we’re starting to get into summer camp. He’s not doing a driving test. He’s not bored at work. He’s not applying and passed finding and applying for all these different summer camps. He’s getting his visa. And I was like Jesus Christ this time. But I enjoyed that scenario. I even had the same problem that George had, when he went to the embassy and he had missed out printing a certain document and had to go to some Cafe down the road, I had to do the exact same thing. So, seeing that in his book is cool. Because as a complete noob, to travelling myself, I didn’t have all the documents and I remember what it felt like when I had to go to this cafe down the road thinking, oh my god, I’m a complete idiot. No one else does this, who goes into a shop and asks to use their printer for fuck sake. But to see it’s a common thing. And quite a few people do it. It was cool to see.

The Four Loko connection

There’s a point in this book where he talks about Four Loko, which is a drink that I had at camp. And that was a cool touching point for me where I thought, you know what, there is something here, there is something here, I do like this. Now, George does a lot of the sleeping with the kids, because I think he’s a counsellor, if I remember rightly so, he sleeps in the kid’s cabins. And there are a couple of funny moments. But the one that stood out for me is when he’s scared of their sleepwalking. They just like stand up in the middle of the room and just like look down on him, and he’s just like, Oh, my God, what the fuck? And he just sat there like do I did do I disturb him? Do I wake him up? Now, you’re not supposed to do that it’s a real bad thing to do for someone that sleepwalking. That was quite funny.

Colour War

And also liked the end of colour war, he summarized colour war quite well, especially with the closing point of the two sides of the camp, finally, finishing that war, and now coming together as one and celebrating the end of colour war. That’s something that I think a lot of summer camps will relate to..

Conclusion of Review

So, like I say, this book, I have to say, I can’t give it a great score. It reads well, there’s no spelling problems. But the strange focus on the technology side, the tenses that are all over the place. There’s a lot of telling in this book, rather than showing the reader and letting them use their imagination to like paint the picture of the things that you don’t tell the person. There’re way too many adverbs I found it was just hard to read. And it’s disappointing because I want to see other people’s stories. And I think one of the dreams for there’s no place that summer camp is to inspire other people to tell their story. Because 1000s of people do this all the time. And everyone comes back saying it’s the time of their lives. And now I’m going to publish my story of why summer camp for me was the time of mine. It took a lot of work to get my book to that point. And there’s going to be people that think its shit, there’s going to be people that love it, I hope. And I hope it inspires people to tell their own story. But I just couldn’t see that with this one.

I think there are a lot of fundamental issues, especially when there are two editors on board. I don’t know if he just hired ones that do spell-check. And that’s disappointing. But overall, a half, I can’t help but give a harsh score, because I want to stay true to myself, Okay, I don’t want to give fake scores out there. And then people go and buy a book because I recommend something. And then they’re like, actually, this is complete crap. So, I think as a score, I’m going to have to give it 2 out of 10. That’s as high as I can go. To be honest. The reason it gets 2 rather than 1out of 10 is that the Summer Camp Association because it’s a genre I like and I like to see new books within that genre because I think like I say, it’s interests me. I like to see how my camp compared to others. I just really hoped that there was there was a lot more and a lot more strategy around the book. I think it needed a lot more time in the workshop, to sort of think about how it’s written. Why is there this massive 76 Page start to this book? Why is there no telling of the story after camp and travelling with friends and that sort of thing?

Finishing notes

I just think it missed the mark. And now I know that this comes across as in a review. That’s just absolutely slugging a book off. I know that it’s not a good look. And that’s why I’ve taken this time to go away. Think about if I want to upload this book review, and I came to the decision that I should, because if I’m not true to myself, then I don’t know what this podcast will be. And like I say, this podcast, this book that I’m writing myself, it’s a self-passion. It’s a self-starting project a side hustles you may or may think, and a lot of the podcasters and podcasts that I listen to say, you have to be true to yourself, you can’t lie. You can’t hide the truth. How are you going to grow personally, if you just keep lying to people, and you’re going to get yourself tied in knots. But also, it’s good for the person that’s not being lied to. Because I think deep down, I think in a few years, he will look back on this book and think I shouldn’t have released that. Because it feels half-finished. I think the angle that he was trying to go for with the Unplugged Summer was an interesting one.

When I saw it on Amazon, I thought that’s an interesting take, like no one’s talked about how the lack of technology is like a summer camp. But it doesn’t touch upon that at all. And it rambles far too much. And the subtitle of the book is an Englishman’s perspective of life at the American summer camp, but it’s a sort of a nothing eBook. So, like I say, two out of 10. For me, it’s harsh. If I had to give out a five it would be one out of five. And it’s not a nice thing to say. But I think you know, if I’m reading these books, I should give my opinion on them. Because I want there’s no places like summer camp to be sort of like a good place for people that are passionate about summer camp, and a good place of reliable information for my opinion on things. I don’t want to be lying on my own content.

So anyway, I’m going to wrap up this episode. I hope you enjoy it. There are other summer camp books I have read. And I haven’t done a review of on the podcasts. I can imagine people that have written a book about summer camp, or they’re like, oh, fuck, after all that off there, all that review, you’re going to go and read mine. And I’m like, hell yeah, I’m going to go read yours. But like I say, I have read, I think two other summer camp books that haven’t reviewed on the podcast yet. And I’ll be interested to try and get the people on the podcast. So, George, if you’re listening, I have nothing against you. I have nothing against anyone that I sort of talk about on this podcast. I want to have open dialogue on a reminisce about your time at summer camp. So, if you want to come on, get in touch. I’m available on Twitter at Andrew WO9. You can also enter the competition as well. theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/competition.

It’s been a long podcast, okay. All right, guys. I’ll see in the next week’s episode. Who knows what it’ll be but yeah, I hope you enjoyed this one. It’s I can’t recommend Unplugged Summer. It’s a different angle for sure. But it’s not an angle that worked with me.

Right then. I’ve got two bits of news and both of them are good, which makes a refreshing change. The Book Has a Release Date There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is officially launching on 4th April 2022. I know, I know — I’ve been building up to this for a very long time. Some of you have been here since the early podcast days when I was recording in a room that sounded like a broom cupboard, talking about a book that felt like it might never actually happen. Well, it’s happening. 4th April. Mark it in the calendar, tell your friends, shout it from the rooftops if you’re that way inclined. The book will be available in paperback, ebook and hardback from launch day. The audiobook is also in the pipeline, but that one’s coming slightly later — recording yourself speaking for hours is, it turns out, a very specific kind of experience. More on that when it’s ready. What Is the Book, Exactly? For anyone stumbling across this episode without much context — There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is a true memoir of my time volunteering with Camp America in 2014. I packed a bag, flew 6,000 miles to Atlanta, Georgia, and spent a summer as an Outdoor Living Specialist at a Jewish summer camp called Camp Honeystone. What followed was three months of chaos, campfires, incredibly loud American children, a bear encounter or two, Jewish traditions I absolutely did not know before I arrived, and some of the best friendships I’ve ever made. The whole thing was documented in a diary at the time, and that diary became the book. It’s funny. It’s honest. It does not glamorise volunteering at summer camp while also making you desperately want to go and do it yourself. I think that’s the right balance. The Competition — Win a Free Copy Now for the second bit of good news. I’m running a competition to give away free copies of the book before launch day. Because why not. You’ve all been along for the ride and the least I can do is try and get some of you a free copy. To enter, head to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/competition and follow the instructions. It involves following along on social media, which I’m aware is a big ask, but it takes about forty-five seconds and you might win a book, so I’d say that’s a reasonable deal. The competition closes on 1st April — which I’m aware is April Fools’ Day, but I promise this is not a joke. The book is very real and so are the prizes. How to Buy It If you don’t fancy your chances in the competition (or just can’t wait), the book will be live on Amazon from 4th April. You’ll find it by searching There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, or by heading to the https://theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/books/. Thanks for being here, genuinely. This has been a long road and the support along the way has meant a lot. Now go and enter the competition. Update: The books are out now: Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

Right then. We’re in the home straight.

If you’d told me back in 2014, standing in the Georgia heat covered in bug spray and surrounded by extremely loud children, that I’d one day be sitting here with a finished book about to drop — I probably would have laughed, tripped over a root, and blamed it on a camper. But here we are. The book is actually happening. And it’s happening soon.

One Month to Go

At the time of recording this episode, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is one month away from being on Amazon. One. Month. That’s not very long at all when you consider the thing has been in the works since 2016, has had approximately four different names, two cover redesigns, and one very long pandemic in the middle of it.

I’ll be honest — I thought I’d feel more prepared than I do. I thought by this point I’d be sitting in a high-backed chair with a cup of tea, smugly admiring a finished product. Instead I’m recording this and mentally listing all the things I still need to do before launch day. It’s fine. It’s totally fine.

What’s Actually Left to Do

Without giving too much away (because that would be telling), the final stretch of any creative project is basically a long game of whack-a-mole. You fix one thing and three more pop up. I’ve been going back and forth over cover details, making sure the formatting looks right across ebook, paperback and hardback, and doing all the boring admin that nobody ever tells you about when you decide to become an author.

The audiobook is also in the works, although if you’re holding your breath for that one at launch, don’t. We’ll get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither, it turns out, is a narrated version of a summer camp memoir.

Why I’m Taking a Short Break from Episodes

I need to go heads-down on this. The podcast isn’t going anywhere permanently — I just need to stop talking about the book and actually finish getting it out the door. If you’ve ever had a massive deadline coming up and someone keeps asking you to do other things, you’ll understand the vibe.

So for the next few weeks, it’s going to go a bit quiet on the episode front. But when we come back, it’ll be with something worth shouting about. Namely: the book is out. Which, if you haven’t gathered by now, is kind of a big deal to me.

The Backstory (For Those Who Are New Here)

In case you’re new and wondering what this is all about — There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is a memoir of my time volunteering with Camp America in 2014. I went to Camp Honeystone in Georgia as an Outdoor Living Specialist, which is a fancy way of saying I ran campfires, led hikes, and spent three months being absolutely bossed around by eight-year-olds who knew far more about American pop culture than I ever will.

The book is the full story. The good bits, the hard bits, the bits that probably shouldn’t be repeated in polite company, and everything in between. It’s been a long time coming and I am incredibly proud of it.

See You on the Other Side

Right. I’m going to stop recording and go and make this thing happen. If you want to know the moment it goes live, follow along on Instagram or sign up to the newsletter. And if you want to get yourself a free preview of the first chapter before you commit to buying it, that’s available over at theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/free-preview.

See you on the other side.

The books that came out of this is now available:

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America – Second Summer Shenanigans

Look, I love summer camp. You know I love summer camp. This entire website, podcast, and book series exists because I love summer camp. But in the spirit of honesty — and because I think it actually does prospective volunteers a disservice to make it sound like three months of non-stop magic — let’s talk about the bits that were, shall we say, less than ideal. This is episode one, because there are definitely more where these came from. It Is Never, Ever Quiet This sounds obvious in retrospect. You are going to a place specifically designed to keep large numbers of children active and entertained from morning until night. Quiet was never really on the agenda. But I don’t think anything truly prepares you for the relentless noise of a summer camp. It starts at breakfast and it does not stop. Kids shouting, laughing, crying, singing songs you’ll have stuck in your head for the rest of your life. If you’re the kind of person who needs peace and quiet to recharge — which I somewhat am — this hits differently by week three. You start treasuring any five minutes of genuine silence like it’s a rare natural resource. Privacy Is Basically a Myth You are living with people. All the time. In the same cabin, the same dining hall, the same activities. There is no getting home at the end of the day and decompressing on your own. The same people you work with are the same people you eat with, sleep near, and spend your days off with. For most people this becomes one of the best things about camp — you form friendships at warp speed because of this constant proximity. But there are absolutely moments where you would give a significant amount of money for one hour entirely by yourself. It doesn’t happen. You just get used to it. You Are Permanently Tired The schedule at camp is long. You’re up early, you’re responsible for kids all day, you have duties in the evenings, and then by the time you’ve actually got a moment to yourself it’s already late and you need to be up again in a few hours. Sleep deprivation becomes your default state by about week two. It’s a particular kind of tired too — not just physically tired from the outdoor activities and the heat, but socially and mentally tired from being constantly “on.” You’re someone’s responsible adult all day. You can’t really switch that off until the kids are asleep, and even then, not entirely. The Pay Is Not the Point — But Still First summer pay at Camp America is low. There’s no way to dress it up. Andrew covered this in the Pros of Returning to Camp America episode — first year pay is kept down partly because the camp covers your transatlantic flights, but when you’re in Walmart trying to budget your days off, you feel it. This isn’t a reason not to go. It’s really not. But walking in with eyes wide open about the financial reality means you don’t arrive expecting a summer salary and leave disappointed. Take some spending money. Budget for your days off and any post-camp travel. It goes further than you think when your accommodation and food are covered. You’re a Very Long Way From Home Six thousand miles, give or take. In a country that, for all its similarities to the UK, does things quite differently in ways that catch you off guard at unexpected moments. There will be a point — usually around week three or four — where you just want a familiar face or a familiar place and you can’t have either. Camp does an incredibly good job of becoming its own world, and the people around you become your family faster than you’d expect. But homesickness is real. It hits at odd times. And the fact that you’re in such a structured, busy environment doesn’t always give you the space to sit with it properly. So Why Go? Because all of the above is real, and the experience is still worth every bit of it. Knowing the hard parts exist doesn’t make them go away, but it does mean you’re not blindsided by them. Go in informed. Go in prepared. And then go. The full story — the good, the bad and the Georgia wildlife — is in the book: https://amzn.to/3LVc9BC. Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

Hello everyone, 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’re taking a look at and reviewing Michael Eisner’s Camp Book. So coming into our tent, and I’ll spill those juicy, juicy beans.

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp”. I hope you’re doing well. It’s a nice summery day, which feels very out of place for January. And I’ve just spent the last probably week or two reading Michael Eisner’s Camp Book. Now, this was touched upon in a previous podcast where I was looking at the celebrities that have gone to camp, or famous people should I say? And Michael Eisner stood out because he’s the former CEO of Disney. And what stood out even further was, as I was recording the podcast, I found out that he released a book all about his time at summer camp, which is cool to see. Of course, if you’re brand new to this podcast, you may not know this. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is all about summer camp, of course. But there’s also the book that’s been in the works for a long time. So let me just start with that.

 

So the book is coming on well. I am so close to finishing it. I’m not sure if I should give you the full ins and outs. But let me just say, some very progressive stages have been completed now. And the release date will be very imminent. I’m getting some author copies just to double-check that the book looks right and feels right in the hand. I can’t say too much more. But “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp” is not only just a podcast, it is a book as well. So when I stumbled upon any summer Camp book really, I always make sure to give it a buy, and try and give it a review. I think I’ve only done one of these reviews before, but I have read a fair few. So look out for those future episodes. But anyway, let’s crack on with Michael Eisner’s Camp.

Who is Michael Eisner?

So who is Michael Eisner, that’s probably a good place to start? Because maybe you’re not all familiar with who he was. But when I saw his name and my research, it stood out to me, because he is the former CEO of Disney. And that’s a big name if I’ve ever seen one in business. He had volunteered at a camp called “Keewaydin” for many years. So he volunteered at camp as a staff member for four years, but he had gone to camp as a camper for many years too. He once told in an interview, obviously, as a CEO, you get interviewed quite a lot by the press and the media and that sort of thing. One of the questions that came up to him one time was, where was the place that you learned everything you needed to become the CEO of Disney? He pondered about this question for a little while, and then came back with summer camp Keewaydin. The interviewer sort of like chuckled, and I think the rest of the room did too.

Ex-CEO of Disney

But the more he thought about it, the more he was assured that he learned the most for becoming a CEO of such a great company as Disney at summer camp rather than school, university college or any of that, and that was telling. I might butcher the name, but I’m gonna stick with Keewaydin as the name and that was something that I’ve found with this book. There are so many different names and funny names for things. So not only have you got a strange name for the camp Keewaydin. There are so many funny things or terms for things that I was reading in his book where I was sort of like, what’s this? So he’s got a thing called by, this is probably common lingo for someone in America but I’d never heard of beds referred to as cots. So throughout the whole book, he was talking about sitting on their cot, and I was like they’re caught this. There are all these campuses are sleeping in cots because obviously, a cot in the UK is sort of like a baby bed, very small baby bed is the best way I can describe it as like sort of gated sides. So the bed you drop the baby in, you put the baby to sleep, you can look over, should they’re still in the bed, they can’t roll out or anything like that. And that’s what a cot is to me. But during this book, they seem to be using a cot as a bed a lot of the time.

Americanisms make the book great

So I don’t know if that’s just an American thing, and I was just getting confused. But they also have words like coupe, which is like their version of certifications and getting some recognition for the stuff that they do around camp, which was pretty cool. Week wham, which is the night which is the word for the names of the units. And they refer to their staff as staff men, they don’t call them counsellors or specialists or anything like that. They call them staff men. And that was interesting. That was cool. Just to get a bit of perspective into how different summer camps run and their terminology of things was cool. And right at the back of the book, you do get a camp dictionary, which I kind of wish at the start of the book, they said that the dictionary was there because it wasn’t that well spelt out. And another little minor point, this is where I’m touching upon some poor writing. I’m talking like I’m a fucking JK Rowling over here. It’s not the case, trust me. This is just my first venture, but I like to review books. I’m an avid reader, and this genre appeals to me. But just when I was reading the camp dictionary at the end, as well, there were so many times in there that weren’t referenced in the book. And I get that there’s a lot of nostalgia for Keewaydin. And the terminology that he may have used around camp, but when I was reading that camp dictionary, I was just like, you haven’t even mentioned half of these words. But that’s just a minor point. I’m talking like, I’m JK Rowling. So I need to get off my high horse and continue with the rest of the review.

Keewaydin Summer Camp Book Review

So, what is Keewaydin? Well, Keewaydin, and this is what I really liked about reading this book. It offers you a different perspective on what different summer camps are like now. You will know that the summer camp that I volunteered at for two years, was a Jewish summer camp. And coming from an outside perspective, with no Jewish upbringing, no knowledge about Judaism or anything like that, and not being religious myself at all. I sort of came into the summer camp that I went to, with sort of open eyes and learning a new culture. Keewaydin it’s a different type of camp. It’s not a religious one. It’s a canoeing camp, and it’s only for boys. So that was interesting, just to get a different kind of camp. One of the things that they often do, Keewaydin is tripping. Now, this is a big part of their camp where they take a few days out of the camp schedule to take campers canoeing and going on massive canoe trips, camping outside of the normal camp bounds of Keewaydin. And sort of getting that independence to cook your food, make sure you get there in one piece and make sure you’re sort of surviving in a way.

 

So going to read about a different camping experience was cool. And I think if you have the passion for summer camp a little bit over the top as I do in a way, I think you’ll enjoy reading this book, it gives you a different perspective and how different camps can run. I loved this book, how he talks about a lot of the firsts, like the unease of growing older, taking responsibility, being a bit of a counsellor, and staff men for these kids, and feeling like an adult for the first time and making the sort of mistakes as you do as you’re growing up. But I have to say, it’s a completely different experience to what my camp was like. Now, of course, my background when I was volunteering at my summer camp was as an outdoor living specialist. So I was responsible for taking the kids out on their campouts and it was similar in a way too there. So the Keewaydin way of taking kids out on their canoe trips and staying away from camp for a little bit. I can see there’s a cross similarity there. But what likes baffled me was hearing about these spa sessions, these staff men would set up for these kids so they’d be doing their campout stuff and they’d be doing a campfire and the tents would be all sort of like, maybe a bit wet, maybe their clothes are a bit wet. So what these staff members would do, would put rocks within the campfire. Cook up some rocks, get them to really hot temperatures, pick them up with like a shovel or something and dump them into a tent. And what essentially that would create is sort of like a spa inside the tent. And that was ringing so many alarm bells for me. As someone that took kids out on camp trips, I would never put boiling hot rocks within the tent to try and create a sparse theme room sort of atmosphere.

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Michael Eisner at Summer Camp

Now this story is all about Michael Eisner and his perspective of summer camp. Now I’ve touched upon how you get a different perspective with this book because this is coming from a CEO of Disney for number one, is coming from someone that’s had many years of being a camper number two. And number three, he’s been a stockman, that’s number three. Number four is, that he’s also got the perspective of after camp now. And after his Disney times and being a parent and sort of having the scholarship schemes where he can take camp unprivileged underclass, I don’t know if that’s the right term, but unprivileged sort of campers to camp. So you’re getting a very mixed perspective on summer camps, you can tell that this is someone that has camp running in their DNA. So you get a lot of different stories and a lot of different time jumps within this book, and that’s where I found the writing hard to read. And sort of understanding why certain chapters were in there entirely. I think that is a tricky challenge to try and do when you’re fucking CEO of Disney for Christ’s sake.

This is sort of a side hustle like a hobby ish type of book. So I understand why it was quite a hard book to write. And it would have been very hard to reminisce about summer camp without hopping all over the place because he wasn’t someone from what I could tell that wrote about summer camp while he was there, similar to what There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is all about. So it was cool to get that perspective of those four different stages of where he has had camp run through him. And a lot of this book, he dedicates to one individual called Waboos. And this gentleman is a Camp Director that has camp running through their DNA. He’s been running the camp for like 80 years and he’s sort of the heartbeat of this camp, and he means a lot to Michael Eisner. It’s sad to see that Waboos has passed away since this book has been released. But I’m sure Keewaydin gave him a very good send off as well as sort of like the flower bed they created when his wife passed away shortly before he did.

A dedication to Waboos

So, there’s a big part of this book dedicated to Waboos. And how this Waboos guy was very involved with all of the kids would recognize all of their faces, all of their intricate stories. And he’d be doing it year after year after year after year, and he would live and breathe summer camp, and this person that sort of kept them going as well. So they did have some tricky times, like back, I think it was just shortly after World War II, they were struggling with finances, and they potentially were going to sell the camp off. And he was one of those rescuers that came to the camps aid and has been with them ever since. And he’s been with camp since he was about eight years old, from what I could tell. So he did live and breathe Keewaydin. And a big part of this book is dedicated to him. So I’m sure a lot of us listening to this podcast today can sympathize and also understand that there are those characters where you go to summer camp, and you have those people that just literally live and breathe it and bring such an energy to your summer camp that makes it so special for you. So I appreciated how in detail, he went with Waboos and also dedicating the entire book to him.

 

Now, midway on from this book, not only do we talk about Waboos, but we touch upon two campers. So there’s two campers called Que and Pepe. Now, these are campers that are going through Michael Eisner’s scheme, where it’s like a charity foundation sort of type of thing. They bought two campers in from California. And they’re from dodgy sort of backgrounds where they can’t afford to do anything. The Disney program, I think it’s called growth or something like that. Accelerate or power, Disney something, there’s a Disney program that sponsors kids to do these sort of things, which is really cool. And these two kids that went to, that are focused on in this book, I’m sure there’s hundreds of kids that go every year. But for particularly this book, Que and Pepe are focused upon. It’s cool to see how these two particular campers grow and become familiar and make so many friends and the inner workings of what camp is like how they become these outsiders to intermingling with the people that have been coming for some time or a local to the area. It’s just really cool to sort of see two different perspectives because you have I think it’s the Que that’s very outgoing, very sporty, very cool, gets all the girls. Then there’s Pepe who’s a little bit more reserved, but they both come from these backgrounds, where all of their friends back home are sort of getting into drugs, drinks, and violence and that sort of thing. So I think Michael here has sort of demonstrated that camp does have a touching effect on so many people. And this is just to campers that he particularly singled out because they go on such a transformative journey by the end of it.

 

Now, I previously touched upon how there’s like four different sort of sections to this book, how he was combat himself, how he was a staff man, how he’s a dad with his own son going to camp and how Michael has this foundation bringing these kids through the camp scholarship sort of program. And the one of the other really interesting parts was the part where his son is going to camp for the first time. I think his name was called Breck or something. And what he’s done is, he sort of keeps all those nerves and excitement in this. Breck, son of Michael Eisner knows at the age that he’s going. I think he was about eight years old when he was going to come for the first time. He understands that this is an important place to his dad, his granddad and all the generations before have been going to this camp. And when Michael Eisner is taking his son there and dropping him off, Michael in his head sort of knows that this is going to be a transformative experience for him. And it was cool to see how Michael was not trying to cover him in candy floss, and make him safe with bubble wrap and that sort of thing because he knows that there’s going to be ups and downs and it’s sort of the first time that Breck is going to be, I was gonna say Brock, but that’s someone from Pokemon.

 

Breck is going to have his ups and downs on the roller coaster at camp, and he’s going to miss home because it’s the first time that he is living away from his parents and that sort of thing. And I’m not, I don’t know if you know this, but I don’t have any children yet. But when I was reading this book, I was like, Oh, that’s a different perspective, or something I wouldn’t have thought about. And because I’m not a parent, I don’t understand yet the anxieties of having your child and sort of trying to bring them up, but also not trying to close them off from having their own experiences and understanding things in their mind without being told how to experience things by their dad sort of thing. So that was cool as well.

Summary review of Michael Eisner’s Camp

In closing, this review, I think that “Camp” by Michael Eisner is a great book. It’s by someone that has camping their DNA. And it’s coming from someone that is very high up as you’d like to say, I don’t know if you know the ins and outs of the Disney story and that sort of separate to this book. But Michael Eisner is no longer with Disney. He left as this book was being published, which was a bit strange, but this was always a side project and something that he would always sort of like come back to reset his mind. He’s no longer with Disney. But he’s still very successful. He’s currently owning many different businesses. And the one that stood out to me was Portsmouth Football Club, which is pretty crazy. So he is in the UK, which is a bit strange, or at least he occasionally visits to come and support that team. But like I say, it is a great book, you get a lot of different perspectives, coming from someone high up as well is cool to just sort of tell that story in the passion that he has for summer camp. And he touches upon a lot of firsts within the book as well, which is something that I’ve tried to do with mine, because summer camp for me, I could kind of relate.

Relatability of volunteering at camp

There was a lot of things that I did at camp where they were first for me, and the amount of responsibility that you’d have and the growth that everyone goes through not just the staff, but also the campers too, it’s cool. And he does come across that well. The only thing that I didn’t like about this was the writing it had, it has to deduct some points for this for me. It was really hard to read. And I think that is a shame because there is so much there that comes across well. But it’s just told, it’s told in a clunky sort of way, the time hopping doesn’t help. And I think that could have just been a bit more polished in my opinion. But I think this is a good book. I like after say this, because I am jealous of the inner design work of the first, like the hardcover, you open the book and the first pages you see a map of the camp, and that’s cool. That’s something that’s always going to be there for years and years to come. And that’s something that sticks with me as my book is about to be published. I’m going to be long gone, and my book is still going to be around.

Hopefully it’ll be in people’s homes, hopefully, it’ll be in charity shops and available online. That’s something that happens with these books, they’re always going to be available. They’re going to outlast you and having this dedication to Keewaydin and Waboos and how formative the camp was, and having that image of the map just sort of show how it all comes together, and that sort of thing is cool. It’s touching piece. So anyway, it’s a good book. I did enjoy it. I have to say it’s not probably going to be for everyone, but I think if you really enjoy camp and you like Disney particularly, it’s going to be an interesting read. It gives you a lot of different perspectives like I say, there are plenty of worse books out there. So in my review, I give this 7/10. Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode that was “Camp” by Michael Eisner.

 

I’m excited to try and like see where this podcast goes. Because this wasn’t an episode that I planned at all. I think the sort of episodes can come up and come from the blue. So Michael, if you’re listening, I’m always here. You can reach me on Twitter at @androow09. We’re also available in Instagram, theresnoplacelikesummercamp, or you can go to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/contact. And there’s like a contact form there. But I think interviewing celebrities, man, I call him a celebrity. I don’t think that celebrity is the right term. It’s a CEO. It’s an ex-CEO, it’s someone that’s famous. It’s someone that’s been successful celebrity to me, it’s someone that’s appeared on a reality TV show and that’s not the case for this guy. So we’ll see what happens.

 

Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed this one. It was certainly different. Camp is available on platforms like Amazon and eBay and that sort of place you’d be out. I think you’d be able to get them secondhand by now. Because this was released in 2005. I don’t know if they’re still printing this, but have a look. I don’t think it’d be too expensive. For anyone that’s interested in Camp, for anyone it’s interested in Keewaydin, especially if you’ve been there, 100% the one for you. Give it a read. It’s going to be going on my bookshelf, and hopefully, mine will be alongside it very soon.

 

Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please subscribe. Please like the podcast. Tell your friends. Tell your mom, and I’ll see you next Tuesday. All right, bye.

This episode, we talk about a recent trip to Loch Ness, plus the five luxuries you should take when volunteering at summer camp.

This episode is all about eating healthy and staying healthy while working at summer camp. Is it even possible in America???

In this episode, we discuss the quickfire summer camp facts you may not know about. Stay tuned for info on the book release too!

It’s episode 69. Its Christmas. What are the chances? In this special episode, we have a live reaction as I watch my Camp America application video and cringe at its hilarity. Watch along yourself by searching for Andrew Waterhouse Camp America on YouTube!

Update: The podcast has since returned! Check out the latest episodes — and both books in the series are now available on Amazon.

This episode we say goodbye to the podcast. It’s been great guys, but I really have to focus on getting the best out of my time. Expect to see me promoting There’s No Place Like Summer Camp on TikTok and other platforms to help spread the word on how good summer camp truly is. It’s not goodbye – I’ll come and go but for now its an adios to the podcast and on to other projects. Thanks for your support, kind words etc. I’ll be back, just don’t know when. Stay up to date on my whereabouts by following me on Twitter, @androow09.

A Transcription from the Podcast…

Hello, guys, and welcome to another episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m outdoors today, and it’s a nice day in the middle of May. However, there’s a slight difference in the audio quality and background sounds because I’m on the road and feeling a bit out of breath. Today’s episode is a little different as I want to talk about the changes in my life that have impacted the podcast and where we go from here.

Current Challenges and Confusion

In the previous episode, I shared with you all about my house move and some changes in my life. However, my current living situation doesn’t allow me to continue with the weekly podcast episodes. I’m feeling a bit confused about where to take the podcast from here due to my living arrangements and work schedules. The podcast has always been a place to promote my book and build a community around summer camp, as well as answering questions and providing entertainment. It has been an enjoyable project for me, but with the recent changes, I need to reconsider the format.

Reflecting on the Original Goals

The goal of the podcast has always been to promote my book and encourage people to volunteer at camp America during the prime time for summer camps. However, with the current challenges, I feel the need for a change in approach to get the best out of myself and promote the book effectively. My living situation has made it difficult to record podcasts every week and come up with new ideas, so I need to find a solution.

Considering the Way Forward

As we are currently on Episode 84 or 85 of long-form discussions about summer camp and all the tips and advice I could think of, I realize that the podcast episodes will always be available for new and old listeners to revisit. The interviews and discussions about summer camp will continue to be there for everyone to listen to. However, I need to make some changes to keep the podcast alive and thriving.

Finding a Solution

Going forward, I have a vague solution in mind. I want to keep the podcast alive but adapt to my current living situation. I will continue to share my deep passion for summer camp and how it has changed me and others. But I might need to change the format and frequency of the episodes to accommodate my current challenges. This is a passion project, to provide valuable content and engage with my audience, but I also need to find a balance that works for me.

Some Thoughts

I want to thank all of you for your continued support of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. The podcast is not going anywhere, but there will be some changes in the format and frequency of episodes due to my current living situation. I will continue to share my love for summer camp and provide valuable content to my audience. I appreciate your understanding and look forward to the next chapter of the podcast.

Introduction to Why I Wrote the Book:

Have you ever had an experience that changed your life? For me, it was going to summer camp. It took me from someone who was sheltered and introverted to someone with a world of experiences and friends. That’s why I decided to create a podcast called “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.” But now, after covering many topics, I think it’s time for a change. In this post, I’ll talk about my experience at summer camp and how it led me to my latest projects.

How Summer Camp Changed My Life:

When I went to summer camp for the first time, I had no idea how good it would be. I had only heard about how good it was from other people who had either done it or heard about it by word of mouth. It took a bit of a leap of faith to go, not knowing anyone or anything, and putting in about 1000 pounds. But I walked away with tons of stories, experiences, and friends, and my eyes were opened to the world. I knew I had to spread the word.

Creating “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp”:

One of the good habits I kept was keeping a diary, which I did from about age 16 to 23. Every night before I’d hit the sack, I’d sit on my phone typing away the notes of what had happened that day. I knew that I had to take what was such an amazing experience, from what was in my diary into something that the general public could really enjoy and educate themselves upon. And that’s how the idea for the podcast “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp” was born. I knew it was a passionate thing that I wanted to get out there, and I think it was such a niche that’s very untapped. I knew so many people who had done it, and I wanted to share the experience.

From Podcast to Book: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp

The project started from a dark place to be honest – a long-term relationship had come to an end shortly after my second stint at summer camp, and I needed a project to distract me. I had quality content in my diary entries, and I knew it was something that I wanted to get out there. That’s why I wrote my debut book, “There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.” I translated my diary entries into something that people could enjoy, adding dialogue that was never there in my diary entries, and more.

Next Steps: A Children’s Book

After my book was published, I found myself looking for a new project. I decided to break out of the routine of going back through diary entries and translating them into something that people enjoy. That’s why I’m working on a completely different kind of project now – a children’s book called “The Fly That Flew To High.” It’s a story that I’ve had in the back of my mind for about two years, and I’m excited to get it out there for a different kind of audience. It’s really weird how the story came about, but I’ll keep that for another episode.

In Closing…

Summer camp changed my life, and I hope that my book and podcast can inspire others to take that leap of faith and experience it for themselves. But now, it’s time for a change, and I’m excited to work on my children’s book and see where that takes me. Thank you for coming on this journey with me, and I hope you keep an eye out for “The Fly That Flew To Hi” and other projects in the future.

This week, we review Secret Diary of a Camp Counselor, a book available on Amazon which tells the female side of what it is like to volunteer at summer camp. It’s a good read, worth picking up through the affiliate link below if you want to support the show and Lucy Harper. For my honest review, listen to the podcast on your platform of choice!!

Buy Secret Diary of a Camp Counselor here.

We go over the book subtilte thats been chosen for the book, as well as a list of celebrities who have volunteered or been to summer camp themselves. There are some names in there you wont want to miss! You can follow us and get involved @TheresNoPlaceLikeSummerCamp on Instagram or @androow09 on Twitter.

You voted and chose my book cover! In this episode, we also talk the best christmas presents for camp counselors. You can follow us and get involved @TheresNoPlaceLikeSummerCamp on Instagram or @androow09 on Twitter.

This week, you get to choose my book cover! We go through the Instagram contest, where you choose the cover that There’s No Place Like Summer Camp will use on the shelves! Follow us on Instagram to have your say and view the choices!

We’re back with a brand new episode! In the first episode of series two, we’re talking all the changes that have gone on behind the scenes, including book release information and so much more. Watch out for next Tuesday where the new covers are revealed…

Podcast Transcript

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, we’re talking Season 2, baby! So come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans!

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. It has been far, far too long since I last did a podcast episode. But I am so thrilled to be back because I really do love talking about summer camp. I know there are plenty of you out there that just love to listen to the podcasts as well. And you know what… 2020 was a horrid year. I think that was when I last recorded a podcast actually. Because it started to not make sense to record podcasts about summer camp when the whole world was in lockdown. COVID was running rampant. And my personal life was just starting to get too in the way of recording podcasts, keeping up quality material, and working on the book. But here I am today with some fantastic news to bring you.

So here we are with what I call this season two of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, episode 64. It’s been a while. And I very much welcome you into my tent. I hope you’re very excited about what’s to come because I have some cracking announcements to make today. So what’s been happening while I’ve been away from the podcasts?

Updates since 2020 New logo!

Well, let me tell you, there has been quite a lot. In case you haven’t seen it already. There’s been some new artwork designed for There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, and there’s a fresh new logo that I really admire, I think it works really well. It works well for the podcast, as well as the book. So there’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to just tighten everything up, make everything as good as it can be because you only got one shot of releasing a book. This is where I have a couple of announcements to make. It’s a design that I really much like, but I’m open to your feedback, the previous logo of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp was good, I really did enjoy it. But the problem it had was it was quite hard to read. Especially for the podcast logo, it sort of had the dark sky in the background with a yellow tent. I don’t know if you remember that. And it didn’t really say summer camp to me. But it was something I just threw together and didn’t really think too much about. So it was always in the back of my mind that it doesn’t really line up with what summer camp is for me. When I’m thinking summer camp, I’m actually thinking of the sun, I’m thinking of fun times I’m thinking of kids, I’m thinking of staff and thinking of all these different things, I’m not thinking of a yellow tent in the dark. With that, the There’s No Place Like Summer Camp logo is revamped. That was one of the first things or wasn’t actually the most recent things that has been fixed, to be honest, is the logo. And I think it comes across now in a much fresher, cleaner style, there may still be smaller tweaks to be made to it. So it can read as well as it possibly can be. Because of that first logo. Actually, I have the old one here beside me.

It can be pretty hard to read. But this new one really fresh, clean design, which I think will work well with the book too. So new artwork is here and more is to come

An update on the book

On top of this, there has been the vast majority of 2021 and 2020, the back half of 2020, where I was just working on the book. And I think I last left you with if I remember rightly, I think I left you with me being in a bit of a limbo, where I tried to find a good editor for the book. I kept getting a great editor and then they would fall out because of their personal life and that sort of thing. I’m thrilled to say that I’ve completed the editing phase of my book, it’s all done.

There’s No Place Like Summer Camp book is all written!

It’s all written. I’m happy with it. I’ve run the book past everyone possible that really makes sense to run it past and to make sure that they’re happy with all the things that are in there. And just to get some feedback really on my writing style if it makes sense if it reads well, and all that sort of thing. So I’ve run it through my edits with my editor. And she really helps me to change the tenses of the book, she made it more readable to people that haven’t been to my summer camp before, and cover up plot holes. I’m not the best of writers… And I’m not trying to be a perfect writer, I’m trying to be someone that’s actually got a book published at the end of the day.

So my editor really helps me to think about the grand picture, and think about the audience that I’m writing for. And giving a bit more background to what the diary I wrote at the time when I was at summer camp, it can often gloss over things. So I’m thrilled where it got to. And it was fantastic to find someone that connected with the book. Of all places that I got this editor from, it was Australia.

I didn’t think we would work as well as we have. But it reads so much better than the first iteration of the book. I am thrilled with where it’s got to.

So she gave me a ton of feedback, and often I went back to the drawing board. I think in total, I’ve written seven versions of this book and it’s consistently gotten better.

With this seventh one, she gave me all that feedback and I have addressed all of the problems that she raised, I loved her writing style. She has left me with a polished book. So I am thrilled to where the book now is.

Of course run it through my group that I feel is most appropriate to see the book before it is published. The feedback there, again, has been worked upon, it has been incorporated and any worries have been addressed as well. It’s up to a point where it was ready for the second phase of its editing process. So not only have I hired an editor, but I also hired a proofreader as well. That really just went once again, over all of the changes that I made, making sure it read well, making sure punctuation and spelling was all good. And yeah, I’m thrilled to say that it’s all written, I’m really happy with it, the people I’ve been sharing the book with have been really happy with it, too. So there’s been tons of work in the background. And I’m really excited to see where the book has really come into its own because I think that’s where in 2020 it was hard to juggle the podcast and the book. So one of my resolutions for 2021 was to release the book.

Releasing the book has often been a question that crops up in my Twitter and Instagram messages. And it’s really great to see that enthusiasm for trying to get your hands on the copy when it does get released. And it has been my goal for 2021. However, I don’t think it particularly makes sense to release the book right at this moment, because there’s still some fine-tuning to do.

So keep your eyes peeled, it’s looking like Q1 2022 that this book will be released. So I’m thrilled to put that date out there. And we’ll see what happens.

Note, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is available now since this episode was launched. You can read the book over at Amazon here.

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Covers and design decisions for the book

Okay, so on top of the editing changes that have been made to the book and how it reads so much better than it did ever before. I’m actually getting really positive feedback from my beta readers, and it’s really good to see that I’ve actually been doing some design work too. So keep your eyes peeled on the socials. There might be an update in the next few days or so. Maybe in the next episode, we can go over the covers and the designs that have been made. So it has been a really productive few months.

The Journey we have been on

It’s staggering to think that I started this podcast way back in like 2016 and we’re on our 64th episode now. We’re finally at a point where the book is really ready to sort of go live. So keep your eyes peeled for that and keep an eye on the socials as well. So of course, you can follow me on Twitter @androow09. I have to say this every time because my Twitter handle was so bad. So badly spelt, but I’m not changing it. On Instagram, we can be followed by going to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. Pretty cool.

So I’ve been doing a lot of work with editors, a lot of work with designers, the books really up to a point where I’m really happy with it, the editor is happy with it. And those in my circle are happy with it too.

Updates through 2020 and 2021

So let’s talk about what I’ve missed since being away from the podcast because there have been some updates 2020 and 2021. Were two of those summers were really the whole world was in chaos. I have to say, I can’t blame 2021. 2021 hasn’t really been at fault for this, but 2020 certainly has. It all started of course with the COVID outbreak and the pandemic across the whole world. Never in my life did I think I’d actually lived through a pandemic and actually catch Coronavirus myself. If you haven’t heard that episode, go back a couple of episodes and you’ll hear what it was like to actually have COVID-19.

But of course, having that pandemic sweep, the entire globe meant summer camp was really cancelled for a lot of people that want it to go. Certainly it’s had its after-effects in 2021. However, since I’ve been away, there’s been some updates. It’s with great delight that I’ve seen some updates in the political sphere where the US and the UK have come together to make an agreement to allow fully vaccinated people to travel between the two countries. So of course, that not only means for travel and trade, but it also means for summer camps, you will be able to travel for 2022, which I think ties in well with the reasoning of why the book release date is Q1 2022. I’m really trying to hone in on a specific date.

I want to make sure everything’s perfect because you only really get one shot at this.

So I hope you understand I hope you’re really excited for it to come out. Of course, there’ll be an update on here and on the socials when it does finally go live. (it is live – see https://amzn.to/3Bf7vv2). But yes, there’s been an agreement between the US and the UK. So from November 2021, I think it’s actually in place at the time that this episode goes live. Travel between the two countries is open for those that are fully vaccinated. So if you want to go to Camp America, you want to go and volunteer at summer camp, make sure you’re fully vaccinated and you should have no issues so great news to see finally.

Personal Life updates

So what else has been going on in my personal life haven’t really touched upon that. For the last couple of months, I always the thing is with my memory I always don’t remember the full year. I instead remember the most recent things I’ve been doing so I’m just giving myself a bit of a reminder here on what I’ve done since I lost in the podcast episode but from the top of my head the most recent things are travel wise, I haven’t really gone abroad.

The last time I went abroad was to Prague when I caught the COVID-19 virus and that was fun.

Loch Ness and Isle of Skye

But most recently, I’ve been travelling mostly within the UK. Of course, we can’t really travel anywhere it’s not really worth the risk, especially as I caught COVID while I was abroad doesn’t really make sense to go back out. But most recently, I’ve travelled to the Loch Ness and that was really fun. That was back in October so it was quite recent.

It was really fun because it was quite a travel time up from the northwest like Manchester sort of area up to Loch Ness is you think that the UK is only about six hours in length. It’s really night. It was six hours from Manchester to Loch Ness, which is absolutely ridiculous. But we had a fantastic time we went to, of course, the loch itself where we did a boat tour. While we went to the Isle of Skye, which is a really quiet countryside, outcrop of the very northern tip of the UK.

Lads trip to Lake District – Cliff Climbing Scare

I’ve been on lads trips too. And this time, instead of going to Prague, we went to the Lake District. We did things like Cliff climbing, which really put me out of my comfort zone, completely shitting myself to be honest, and absolutely hated everything about that, literally scaling the side of a cliff, it’s probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done. To be honest, I was sweating buckets throughout the whole time. There was this one part in particular, that was really scary, where we had to do a tight rope walk from one mountain to the other. It was just a tightrope, essentially, but you walk, you walk down, and I absolutely Catamarans didn’t look down once.

So that was fun.

Harry Potter World

Most recently, too, there’s been the trip to Harry Potter World, which was an overdue Christmas present from 2019. It’s been two years since that was purchased. We were able to finally use it. It’s just nice to see, you know, the world is coming back to its normal self. And it’s just nice to be able to do things again, and being able to travel abroad is one of the things that I’d like to do. But I’m in no rush to do if you know what I mean. But I’m sure there are plenty of you on this podcast that are just gagging to get yourselves to summer camp, because, you know, you’re only young once and you’re only gonna be able to do this once sort of thing if you’re lucky. So make sure you make the most of this when it does actually allow you to do so. So Camp America 2022 applications are open, if you go on to their website, you’ll be able to sign up, log in, enter your details, make sure you’re fully vaccinated, and you should have no problems getting over there. I’m sure they have like some sort of refundable policy as well if anything does crop up. So you don’t have to worry about that.

Professional life updates – new job as a web designer

Oh, I almost forgot, it’s been, you know, over a year since my last episode. And it’s crazy to think how much my life has actually changed on a professional level, too. So since I last spoke to you, I was talking about how terrible a job I had at this web design agency. And to give you some context, it was a husband and wife, company. And man, it was hands down the worst place I’ve ever worked. And there was bullying going on, towards me towards other members of staff.

It was just a really negative place to work. To think that in the span of just a year, I’ve left that place. I’m now an operations manager at a web design agency, just within a year, it’s really touching to think and I think that’s something that everyone can do, especially when you’re thinking of travelling to summer camp, or if you’ve been there before, just take a moment out of your day to think of what you’ve had, and where you’ve come from and the journey that you’ve taken, because no one can really take that away from you. The position I have at the moment is unbelievable, because I was actually scrolling through some previous personal development program review documents that I wrote with my, one of my previous bosses. And in one of the questions it was where do you see yourself in five years sort of thing? In that answer, I said, I want to be an operations manager. Then in the space of one year, I find myself in that position. So I’m incredibly grateful for that. And I think I’ve probably developed a lot as a person too, because not only have I got a better job, better title, better team, and a better work-life balance.

Where I can make a real impact on my small corner of the world. But also in speaking with people that have gone to my camp as well and have them preview my book. They really see how far I’ve come to so that was quite touching. When I sent them a copy of the book and they said, Oh my god, your writings really good. It really reads well, it’s entertaining. It’s funny, and it paints a real good picture of what summer camp was like. So I thought I’ll just throw that in there anyway. So I think for the most part, that’s pretty much it for this episode. Just to give you a bit of a heads up of what to expect. I’ve got a full content calendar for the next few months, probably up until the book release. And I have ideas for each one. I’ve got some really cool episodes off my sleeve, which we haven’t really done before. I’m really excited to return to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp and I appreciate all of your patience in the run-up to these episodes.

It’s great to be back. It’s great to have a book that’s actually finished now and you should stay tuned for the next episode because we’re going to be talking all things book cover related. Trust me, you really want to be there for that. It’s going to be a great one.

So thank you again for your time. Thank you for coming over to this podcast. It’s great to be back. And I shall see you next Tuesday.

 

The podcast is going to be taking a bit of a break. I discuss it all in this weeks pod, as well as the reasons why volunteering at summer camp is amazing for the CV.

I caught Coronavirus from Prague. This episode spills all the beans on what its like to catch COVID-19.

Right, so you’re sixteen. Maybe seventeen. You’ve heard about Camp America from someone who went, watched a few YouTube videos about it, and you’re thinking: could I actually do this?

The short answer is: almost, but not quite yet — and this episode explains exactly what you need to know so you’re not wasting a year and a half being frustrated, and instead use that time to set yourself up properly.

The Minimum Age for Camp America

Camp America requires applicants to be at least 18 years old by the time they depart for camp. You do not have to be 18 when you apply — applications open months before departure — but you must be 18 by the time you actually get on the plane.

So if you’re 16 now and turning 18 before the summer departure window (roughly May to June), you’re technically eligible to apply in that cycle. If you won’t be 18 in time, you’re looking at the following year.

This is actually not as gutting as it sounds, because what you do in the meantime matters.

Use the Time to Build Your Application

The Camp America profile system asks about your skills, experience and qualifications. The stronger this looks, the better your placement. Sixteen and seventeen is genuinely ideal time to be building it.

Things worth doing before you apply: Get a First Aid Qualification

St John Ambulance and the Red Cross both run courses for under-18s. A first aid certificate is one of the most valued qualifications you can have on a camp application. It takes a weekend, it costs relatively little, and it will improve your placement options meaningfully.

Swimming and Lifeguarding

If you can swim confidently, look into your local pool’s lifeguarding or swim teacher training. Waterfront roles at camp are always in demand and well-compensated relative to other positions.

Scouts, Sports Coaching, Youth Groups

Any structured involvement with younger children or young people counts. If you’re already doing this, keep going. If you’re not, joining something now gives you 12-18 months of genuine experience to point to.

Learn a Skill

Camp activity specialists are recruited for specific skills: archery, horse riding, climbing, drama, music, art, photography, tennis, watersports. If you have a genuine interest in any of these, pursuing it now isn’t just fun — it directly makes you more hireable.

What About Camp Leaders and BUNAC?

Camp Leaders and BUNAC have similar minimum age requirements to Camp America. They’re all operating within the J-1 visa framework, which has its own age requirements. The bottom line is the same across the main agencies: 18 is the floor.

The Practical Upside

People who go to camp at 18 or 19 — right after finishing school or in a gap year — consistently describe it as one of the best decisions of their lives. You’re old enough to handle the responsibility and young enough that the whole thing feels completely wild and new. The timing is actually pretty good.

Use the time between now and then to build the application. You’ll go in stronger, get placed in a better role, and have a better summer for it.

 

Read my hilarious books on how summer camp was for me: 

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

I’ve changed it up this episode with a peek behind the curtain of who I am. What brought me to do Camp America, what experience did I have and how summer camp actually was. Next Tuesday, we’re discussing tips for a 16-year-old wanting to do Camp America.

In this episode, there are a lot of exciting updates to share. From editor updates to personal life and podcast episodes going forward. You won’t want to miss out on those. In this episode, we discuss the cliques of summer camp, including what to expect as a camp counselor for kids too.

Two weeks ago I published the original five-year goals post from 2017 and did a podcast episode going through what I actually achieved versus what past-me had optimistically written down. This week, it’s the follow-up — looking forward rather than back, and setting out where I want to be by 2034. Yes, 2034. Not 2027, not five years from now — twelve years from now. Bear with me. Why 2034? Good question. The short answer is that five-year goals feel a bit short now. Five years goes quick — quicker than you think when you’re inside it. Twelve years is a horizon that actually feels like a horizon. It’s far enough away that you can aim for things that require real sustained effort, but close enough that you’re still thinking about a version of yourself that’s recognisably you. Also I’ll be approaching fifty in 2034, which is the kind of statement that makes you want to lie down for a bit, but also clarifies what actually matters. What I Want to Have Built by 2034 I talk through this in more detail in the podcast, but the broad strokes: I want to have built things. Not just one thing, multiple things. Writing is part of it — there’s more in the There’s No Place Like Summer Camp series that I want to get out into the world, and the summer camp stories don’t end with two books. There are other projects in the mix too, other ideas at various stages of being developed. The specific goals are in the episode because honestly they’re easier to explain in conversation than in text. But the underlying theme is pretty simple: do the work, make the things, don’t wait for a better time because there isn’t one. On Being an Author One of the things this whole five-year exercise has clarified is that “being an author” isn’t really a thing that happens to you — it’s a thing you have to keep doing. The book existing is great. Writing the next one is the work. And then the next one after that. If you’ve read There’s No Place Like Summer Camp and you’re wondering whether there’s more coming — yes, there is. The second book is already in the world, Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans covers the return summer, and there’s more where that came from. The Honest Version The honest version of goal-setting is that you don’t know what the next twelve years hold. You set a direction, you make decisions that move you toward it, and then life does whatever life does. The goals from 2017 were partially right and partially completely wrong, and 2022 is better than 2017-me imagined in some ways and different in others. That’s probably how 2034 will look too. But you may as well aim somewhere.

This one comes up constantly and it’s an understandable question. You and your mate both want to go. You’ve talked about it for months. The idea of doing it together sounds brilliant. So can you just both apply and end up at the same camp?

Technically: sometimes. In practice: it’s complicated, and this episode explains why Andrew actually thinks going with a friend might not be the dream scenario it sounds like.

How the Placement Process Works

Camp America, Camp Leaders and BUNAC all work by matching you to a camp based on your profile, your skills, and what camps need. You don’t just pick a camp like booking a hotel. Camps select you from a pool of applicants, or you get matched through the agency’s system.

For two people to end up at the same camp, both of you need to be wanted by the same camp, in the same summer, for compatible roles. That’s a lot of variables to align. It’s not impossible, and agencies do sometimes accommodate requests from people who want to be placed together — but it’s not guaranteed, and trying to force it can limit your placement options.

The Case Against Going With a Friend

Here’s the argument Andrew makes in this episode, and it’s worth taking seriously: going alone is part of what makes camp so good.

One of the most commonly reported things by people who’ve done Camp America is how quickly you make friends. The shared experience of being thrown into a completely new environment with a group of strangers accelerates bonding in a way that normal life rarely does. Within a week, people you’d never met before start to feel like family.

If you arrive at camp already attached to a person you know, there’s a genuine risk that you:

– Spend your time gravitating toward each other instead of pushing yourself to meet new people
– Miss the full experience of having to find your feet independently
– Create a dynamic that puts you slightly outside the natural group-forming process

The discomfort of going alone is basically the mechanism through which camp works. Removing it removes some of the magic.

If You Really Want to Go Together

If going together is genuinely a hard requirement for you, contact the agency directly and ask about their policy on placing friends together. Some agencies will note the preference on your applications and do their best to match you. Go in knowing it might not be possible and that if it’s not, that might actually be fine.

Also consider: even if you end up at different camps, you’re both in America for the summer and will likely have time to meet up afterwards during the travel period. People do this all the time.

The Honest Take

Go. Whether together or separately. The experience is worth it either way. But if you’re on the fence about going alone — don’t let that be the reason you don’t go. Solo is the better bet.

 

Read about how Camp America was for me as a solo traveller in my two books:

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

It usually happens at the most mundane moments. You’re doing the washing up, or you’re on a bus, or you’re sitting in a meeting at work, and out of nowhere something from summer camp surfaces with complete clarity. A specific smell. A phrase someone used to say. The sound of the bell for breakfast. The way the light looked over the lake at a particular time of evening.

This episode is about those things — the ones that come back uninvited and remind you that some experiences just don’t fully leave.

The Sensory Stuff Hits Hardest

Smell is the most reliable one. The specific combination of sunscreen, insect repellent, lake water and whatever the dining hall was cooking constitutes a scent that doesn’t exist anywhere else and when you encounter something close to it — even years later — it can stop you dead. This is apparently just how human memory works but it feels particularly acute with summer camp because the sensory environment was so different from everyday life.

Sound is the other one. Camp songs, obviously. But also specific phrases — call-and-response chants, inside jokes that became camp-wide shorthand, the particular cadence of a camp director’s announcements over the tannoy. These things encode themselves at a depth that most experiences don’t.

The Specific Absurdities

Beyond the sensory stuff, camp generates a specific category of memory: things that were completely normal at the time and are now absolutely inexplicable to anyone who wasn’t there.

The rules that made no sense but everyone followed. The traditions whose origins nobody actually knew but which happened every year without question. The particular person in your cabin who did something so memorably weird that their name has become a shorthand in your vocabulary — even though you haven’t spoken to them in five years.

These are the things that make the Camp America alumni experience so specific. You can meet a stranger who also did camp and within about three minutes you’re comparing notes on things that would require twenty minutes of context to explain to anyone else.

Why This Matters for the Podcast

The reason this episode exists is that summer camp nostalgia is one of the main audiences for this podcast. Not just people preparing to go, but people who went and are still processing what it meant. The randomly-remembered things are the evidence that it stuck — that it was, as many people say, genuinely the best summer of their lives.

If you’re in that camp (pun fully intended), the books are where I unpack those summers in full: 

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp on Amazon Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

 

his one comes up more than you’d expect. And the honest answer is: it depends. Which I know is not the satisfying definitive response you were hoping for, but it’s genuinely the right answer and this episode unpacks what it actually depends on.

The US Visa Is the First Hurdle

Whatever agency you apply through — Camp America, Camp Leaders, BUNAC — to work at an American summer camp you need a J-1 visa, which is a US cultural exchange visa. The US government controls who gets this visa, and a criminal record can absolutely affect your eligibility.

The key factors are:

• Type of offence. Minor offences — particularly spent convictions for things like petty theft or minor drug possession that are old and isolated — may not automatically disqualify you. Serious offences, particularly anything involving violence, weapons, sexual misconduct, or offences against children, are a different matter entirely and would be disqualifying.
• Whether it’s spent or unspent. In the UK, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act means many convictions become “spent” after a period of time, meaning you legally don’t have to declare them in most circumstances. However — and this is important — visa applications are one of the exceptions where you may be required to declare spent convictions. Don’t assume a spent conviction is invisible on a US visa application.
• How you declare it. If you have something to declare, declare it. Being caught lying on a visa application is significantly worse than having a minor conviction. Camp America and the other agencies have dealt with this before and may be able to guide you through the process.

What the Camp Agencies Say

Camp America, Camp Leaders and BUNAC all require criminal background checks as part of the application process. Camps themselves also typically run their own checks. This is non-negotiable — you’re working with children.

If you have a conviction you’re concerned about, the recommended approach is to contact the agency directly before you get deep into the application. Have an honest conversation about your situation. They will give you a clearer answer than any podcast can about your specific circumstances, and it’s much better to find out early than to invest months in an application that can’t proceed.

Working With Children Offences

If you have any offence related to children — full stop — you will not be placed at a summer camp. This is absolute. It is not a grey area and it does not depend on the agency, the camp, or how long ago the offence was.

The DBS Check

UK applicants will typically need to provide a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check as part of the application process. This shows your criminal record history. You can apply for a basic DBS check yourself online; the agency will usually specify which level they need.

Don’t Just Hope for the Best

The absolute worst approach is to have a conviction you’re unsure about and just not mention it, hoping it doesn’t come up. US background checks are thorough. Getting caught out mid-process — or worse, once you’ve arrived at camp — is an outcome that’s easily avoided by having an honest conversation upfront.

If your record is genuinely clear and you’re asking out of general anxiety about the process: you have nothing to worry about. Go apply.

I have quite a few updates to share in this podcast. This isn’t your typical Friday episode.

*SPECIAL EPISODE* In this episode, we have our first female guest on the podcast! This interview delves into what life is like for a girl with four years of Camp America under her belt, what its like to be a Camp America Interviewer, and the best advice she has to offer!

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse, and in today’s episode we’re taking a look at whether you can do camp America with tattoos. So, come on in to our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. We are here in a Friday episode where we answer your questions about volunteering for summer camp.

Project Update: Blogs

Just before I begin, I have an update for you, regarding the general state of where There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is and any sort of projects I’m doing on the side for the show and the book website. Now this one is particularly around the website because one thing that I’ve noticed that I’m really maybe missing out on is getting the word of, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp out there. Now I’ve made some changes in regards to how the blogs are going to be working from now on, on the website, because they seem to be. It’s a bit of a strange situation but a lot of people search for things around camp America and volunteering for summer camp, but the way the podcasts are, it can be pretty hard to look at a podcast first before you go to Google, a lot of these questions you’ll be googling.

Now, one of the things that Google somewhat lacks at the moment is being able to take a look at a podcast episode or some sort of audio and push that towards a user, rather than push them towards a standard blog or news article type of thing. So, going forward, the announcement is. We’re going to be transcripting, every episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, which is a bit weird at the moment because as I’m saying this is going to be transcripted into a blog post itself.

There’s quite a backlog of episodes that have to go through and work through so they’re not probably going to be all up to date at the same time. But just to keep you all aware. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is going to have a better presence on the internet, a better presence on Google in particular because all the episodes will have some text-based content and when you search the sorts of questions or any of the other episodes that I’ve done already, they’ll pop up a lot more frequently, and it’s going to be a little bit of a manual process I think. And you’re going to have to kind of bear with me on that front.

It was something that I did initially do so write some of the earlier episodes of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. They do have their own blog articles but I found that it was taken up a little bit too much time to do the episodes every week, as well as writing them up, and then working on the book as well. But I think I’m in a position now where I found a really good tool that will help me for this so just to keep you all up to date.

There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, is going to be having text-based blog posts going forward, and hopefully, that will get the name out there. So if you think anyone will benefit from these podcasts, the website and all that sort of thing please recommend them. It’s very much appreciated as well as any reviews on podcast apps because that really helps get the name out there, helps the podcast bump itself up a bit if it’s got some reviews, and I’d really appreciate all feedback.

Camp America and Tatoos

Now, onto this week’s question, because every Friday is a questions episode. This is can you do camp America with tattoos, so let’s get on to the question.

So doing Camp America with tattoos totally applies to actually all the agencies out there, it’s not just Camp America it’s not just Camp Leaders or BUNAC, it applies to them all, and pretty much the long and short of it is that every camp has their own dress code.

For example, camps are going to have their own dress code on the clothing that is worn. That has to be appropriate for walking with children, it makes total sense. And this extends also to tattoos. It also extends to things like piercings. It totally depends on the camp they make their own rules for their kids, some don’t care as long as your tattoos aren’t offensive, but some may ask that piercings are removed and tattoos, get covered.

Now, in your interview with camp, they will make a mention of these types of things if they see this sort of thing that’s on your summer camp profile when you’re creating your profile in camp America or any of those other agencies. If they see something that’s in your profile that they have particular rules around the person interviewing you is definitely going to make a note of that and make sure to tell you like oh by the way we have this rule in our account that means tattoos have to be covered, or you’re okay with this, and that sort of thing.

So, when you apply through your summer camp agency there is a part in your profile section, when you fill this sort of stuff out. It’s kind of similar to the smoking question that I had a few weeks back. So if you haven’t checked that episode out already, make sure you do if you’re smoking at summer camp. There’s a whole episode on whether you can smoke while working at camp. Click to learn more about the smoking episode here.

Why do camps have rules about tattoos?

There is a reason for this as well because it’s not just the camps themselves that make these roles just plucking them out of the air. Some parents can actually get a bit funny about seeing staff with loads of tattoos and piercings because it sends off a different kind of message to someone without these sort of things. But the long story short, is, if these are on your summer camp profile when you’re applying for summer camps, then your camp director will already know what sort of person they’re hiring what sort of things they have, and what you’re coming with, so don’t worry it’s not that big of a deal if you are applying to volunteer at summer camp with tattoos.

Now as we close this podcast off, I have a very special announcement for Tuesday’s episode because it’s a change of schedule. In Tuesday’s episode we have a very special interview. I should leave it there. I’ll see you on Tuesday. It’s going to be a really good episode. Trust me, I cannot wait to share it with you all.

So, till the next time campers.

 

This podcast is a long one! In this episode, we talk about summer camp bingo, or a shortlist to prove that you’ve done everything at summer camp!

A heads up, CC USA has opened their applications for 2021. Same for other agencies too by the way, so get on that if you’re interested!

Welcome to summer camp bingo! This is a shortlist of things to prove that you’ve been to summer camp. See how many you can tick off!
– The Blob: Infamous for being a part of summer camp. This blob of air lies on the lake where campers, as well as staff, can take turns to launch people into the air.
– Getting hooked up: Well, I didn’t realise this was so far high up the list but here we are! There are so many people and so many occasions I can say where people hooked up at my summer camp. It seems to be a rite of passage for pretty much anyone who goes to camp.
– Ziplined: Now this is one that I haven’t personally done. I don’t believe… as far as I can think, did zipline at camp. But most camps have them, and they are a great laugh. Fly down the zip and see the sights and sounds of camp around you. Grab a go pro and enjoy being in summer camp!
– Drove on other side of the road: This is such a blast also. The feeling of driving on the other side of the road is quite enthralling. I drove on the other side of the road while in my specialty, on those great American roads. Out the window, the great American countryside and Grand Theft Auto-esque feel that America has.
– Gone Walmart: Walmart is an experience in enough itself. It’s such an amazing place to go and visit particularly when you are an international foreigner to the country. You get to see the bargains to be had, the strange people you can find down the aisles while getting lost in its labyrinth of a megastore.
– Colour War: 94% of camps have these –  a stat I totally just made up. In fact, summer camp is all about colour war. Its the event that all the kids look forward to each session. They love getting in competitive mode, fighting for that luxury of being on the winning colour war side. The games, the thrills, spoils… Its all to play for in colour war!
– Found a favourite camper: It can take a while to find your favourite camper, but its well worth it. You will have a spark with a few kids and connect well with them.
– Found your worst camper: In the same breath, its easy to find campers that get on your tits. They can rub you up the wrong way, be rude or frankly ungrateful for being at summer camp. I think only when you find both your favourite and worst campers, can you grow as a person yourself and learn to deal with the two sides of that camper-sized coin.
– Gave a meal a miss because the food was bad: Walmart ties in with this one well, because if you have smarts, you should have a go-to stash of food for the ‘Jacket Potato Day’.
– Played gaga: The sport that seems to be THE sport that defines summer camps. Played in an enclosed arena, Gaga is similar to dodgeball. It’s intense and tightly enclosed, meaning wall bounces are the best ways to knock out countless opponents.
– Played ultimate frisbee: Another sport that America seems to be obsessed with. Frisbee in the UK is one of those things only thrown around when at a beach. But in America, they seem to care about frisbee like its a proper sport. The throws Americans can do are not only long but pitch-perfect accuracy. It’s insane to play a full-sized game when you have all the staff and campers about.
– Sick new tan: Going to America to some extent guarantees you will come back looking fresher than ever. The weather out in The States is better than the UK (which isn’t hard!). So expect to catch some rays by the pool and come back with a sick new tan.
– Tie-dye shirt: How I forgot this on the recent T-shirts episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is beyond me. Tie-dye is a staple of summer camps and was in fact one that I sorely missed the first summer I worked at my camp. I made sure on that second summer to pay the tie-dye a visit and come back with a shirt that I’d never wear (it was way to colourful).
– Smores, campfire: If you go to camp and don’t have a campfire, is it really a camp?!
– Made something: Every camp has different activities of course so this will change from camp to camp. At mine, I made my own mug
– got some new clothes or cheap stuff online: In my case, I spent my hard-earned camp salary on getting an iPad. I know, iPads aren’t exactly ‘cheap’ in a sense. But going to America, you shouldn’t expect to come back with savings from working abroad. Have a blast, pick up some cool tech + things that would be a bomb in the UK. Go check out my cheap things to buy in America podcast if you want to know more…
– Get dragged into basketball: What is with Americans and their obsession of weird + niche sports? Basketball I would say is rarely played in the UK. The only hoops you’ll see around the country are those attached to some children’s playground. But while at camp, you can be sure that some American will drag you into the game to make up the numbers!
– Scavenger hunt: this is a great way to spend time with your kids and perhaps only applies to the counsellors. Killing time is an artform and what better way than to hide things around the cabin and reward them when they are found?
– Struggled to get kids to clean up: On the flipside of being a counsellor, or specialist for that matter, is the time you need help cleaning. For me, working in a camping specialty, it was like pulling teeth out to have the kids clean up a campsite. And the counsellors would frequently describe their ordeals to have campers clean themselves in the mornings!
– Custom camp chants: Spending time at camp means only one more thing – camp chants! These will stick into your skull like they were tattooed onto your brain. You’ll come up with some cool and cooky chants with your campers, especially if you are a counsellor.
– Had your head checked for nits: A strange one, sure but this was a right throwback when this happened to me at camp. Of course, summer camps check for nits on the kids, but adults and volunteers too! when my head was checked, I seemed to have a flashback to when I was 7 years old at school.
– Seen some sights while travelling: this could be anything from seeing things during intersession to travelling america with buds to exploring new york on your last day prior to your flight.

Now there’s gonna be loads I missed from this list – it could be another episode! If you think there are glaring missing things message us and I’ll use it in part two of this episode.

The treks of America are a subset of summer camp that many volunteers like to do. In this episode, we take a look at what Camp America treks are, how much they cost, and whether they are worth booking.

First, what is a trek?

Camp America Treks are pre-organised roadtrips that you book onto in advance. You travel as a group of 13 and you’ll be assigned an awesome trek leader who will be your guide and your driver and will generally take care of getting you from one place to next and ensuring you’re safe and having fun! You’ll be travelling in a cool customised van with 14 seats, wifi, and plenty of roadtrip tunes! Accommodation will vary depending on your trip and most nights you’ll stay somewhere new. They are the perfect and easiest way to see a lot of America in one go and have a variety of trips starting from 3 to 23 days – so there’s bound to be a trek to suit you!

Its all about group travel + if you do Camp America and then Camp America trek, you get a 15% discount on the prices (a bit dodgy though if you ask me).

Camp America Treks: They are paired with Intrepid. And looking at their prices for guidance, it was around £1500 – £7500. Quite a wide range but there’s quite a range of different trips you take. There are 10 treks at the time of recording. And only 4 destinations: Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York. There are different durations of the trip, up to 22 days.
They all follow the same structure, you spend a night in one city, move onto the next. Then the next till you’ve done so many places stayed in so many hotels. You’ll have so many Instagram moments + memories.

Specifically, around the prices for these, I couldn’t find a trace of anything. I don’t know if its Corona having an impact on this, but the prices were all not revealed – or they are just expensive and don’t want to promote them.

What about TrekAmerica?

Now, another big player in this is TrekAmerica. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they are bigger than Camp America Treks. They are recommended by other agencies like Camp Leaders and I in fact know 2 people that did these treks themselves.

They have 74 trips on their site and a wide range of treks you can opt to take after your camp ends. The prices are from £329 to £8229 and there’s a ton of difference in the middle.
For instance, the most expensive trip is 60 days long(!). And there are other trips that are 75 days long, almost as long as the camp itself!
There are a ton of destinations with this, 11 I found. And they seem to be better specialised for this type of experience in my opinion. They give you a full breakdown of what you are booking, like how many nights you are staying in tents, how many nights in hotels, which sights you will see and the sort of things you can expect on the trip. They break down each day as there’s a recipe to these sorts of things.

In my opinion, Trek America is the go-to for these trek like experiences. I know the couple that went on this themselves loved it. But personally, I think it is a lot of money and you can have just as much fun, or if not more fun by arranging your own travel with friends from camp. The USA is your oyster!

 

Listen to the podcast below!

The 50th episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp!! In this episode, we celebrate while discussing the best things to bring back from your time volunteering at summer camp.

In this episode, we’re talking about things you’ll want to bring back from camp. NOT THINGS WE ARE TAKING TO CAMP.

Camp shirt (I have 4): A camp shirt is the holy grail of all momentos from summer camp. They have the blood, sweat, and tears from your time at camp in their DNA. Everyone at camp wears their camp t-shirts like no tomorrow. If you check out our Instagram, you can even see mine which is framed loud and proud in my man cave wall.

Things kids made you:  This can be memories to remind you of your favourite campers. Friendship bracelets are a prime example of a gift you’ll definitely want to bring back with you from summer camp.

Things you got from counsellors + staff: Chad, who’s been mentioned before in the interview with Scott episode is a prime example of swapping things with counsellors + fellow staff. For he swapped his beloved football shirt with his co-worker while she gave him a shirt from her city, Chicago. These are small things to remember the good times with people that you are likely to not see again. And I exchanged pants with one girl!

Memories from camp: One of mine was a piece of rope from rope burn. Which is an activity from colour war (all to be discussed in the book!). To be honest, I think I may have chucked this one out specifically as it stank of smoke when trying to fill my suitcase for my travels after camp. A logical decision, but damn do I wish I kept it now.

Cringe Warning

Now, these final 2 are cringey, but are so true. Just like the post I did to Instagram the other day about ‘this one time at summer camp’ and feeling like the girl from American Pie. Damn, I love those films.

Photos: Remember to take photos of your time in America. you are out there for a long time and you want to remember all the memories you make. What better gift than having the gift of looking back in time to see the incredible memories you made. You can make them your wallpaper background on your PC or phone. Or even use them in some sort of decor in your bedroom perhaps. The more photos, the better.

Social media friends – Now I’m going to refer back to Chad one final time in this blog post as prior to camp, he didn’t have social media. All for him – it’s terrible for your mental health! But by the end of camp, he couldn’t resist. The thought of never seeing how people he grew so close with, in such a short space of time was too much. He caved in and now uses social media to stay in touch with people all around the world. So make sure to use social media in the best way, to stay in contact with incredible friends you’ve made at summer camp.

Listen to this episode below!

We go over the deadlines that you’ll need to meet in order to volunteer at summer camp. There’s more to this than you would have thought!

Coronavirus update

This month we’ve had The Most Common Reasons Counsellors Are Fired, Where Camp America Is in New York and the Top Things to Buy in America for Cheap.

This coming month’s calendar of content has been posted to Instagram!

When the Deadline is for Camp America?

Ok now, this episode is all about pretty much when the deadline is for submitting that application to Camp America (or other agencies for that matter). But before we begin, there needs to be some context as there’s no ‘one date fits all kind of thing’, instead there are dates, smaller deadlines and that, which you need to follow.

First:
To be able to apply for the programme applicants need to be available to fly to camp between the dates of 1st May and 20th June. This is due to when the majority of camps start and being able to arrive in time complete staff training and orientation. You can enter the earliest date you can depart on your application.

Although all of the camps that we work with have varying programmes and dates, we do ask that all applicants are available to be at camp for a minimum of 9 weeks. This is the typical placement length for most camps but it can be slightly more or less. The longer you’re available the better

—but you can expect to be on camp for around 9 weeks from your camp’s start date once hired. By giving us your earliest start date, we will match you to a camp that has their staff on or after that date so you could depart later than your earliest available date.—-

From Camp america terms and conditions

f) It is your responsibility to ensure your application is completed and relevant documents submitted in a timely manner. We expect that all references, police checks and medical forms will be submitted and deposits paid no later April 1st. Failure to do so may result in cancellation from the programme with no refund given. If you are placed after April 1st, a separate deadline will be communicated to you. Returners will be expected to adhere to deadlines in order to keep their discounted application rate.

a) Programme payments are due 14 days from the date the charge appears on your online Camp America account. You should adhere to deadlines issued via your online Camp America account in order to avoid penalties.

b) You are expected to supply criminal history documentation and medical documentation within 14 days of placement. The final deadline for all documentations is 1st April.

Further deadlines + tax returns

Speaking of deadlines, b) Camp Counselors and Campowers (who hold J-1 visas) are required to file a U.S. Federal income tax return and in certain cases, a State income tax return to satisfy their U.S. income tax liability. If tax has not been deducted by your camp, then participants are required to make their payment to the US tax authorities when submitting their tax return. The deadline for tax payments is January 15th in the following year.

b) The deadline for changing to either a Camp America flight or the Own Transport option is 1st March (note, Camp America flight option is not available for applicants placed in California/Wisconsin). Any changes after this date will be subject to a penalty fee being imposed.

Listen to the podcast this transcript was made from below!

In this episode, we listen to the CEO of American Camp Association, Tom Rosenberg to hear how inflation is driving up the cost of summer camps. It’s an interesting listen as he is interviewed by Yahoo Finance and I give you my personal reaction too.

Podcast episode transcript:

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, I’m taking a look at how inflation is driving up the cost of summer camps. So coming into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans

I believe this is episode 84. As we are quickly honing in on that magic 100th episode, in this episode is something a little bit different again.

So…a bit about me is in 2020 onwards, I’ve been very interested in getting into the financial system, investing, crypto, short squeezes, and loads of different things.

And it was one of those hobbies that I really picked up during the pandemic. Because I was sat at home, I’d always wanted to get myself involved in economics and make myself financially independent and learn the intricacies of stock markets and shares and growth and that sort of thing.

Now, I shortly recently just say, I recently saw an article come up on YouTube from Yahoo Finance. And the title was how inflation is driving up the cost of summer camps. So in this episode, we’re going to be watching this interview on Yahoo Finance, and doing some commentary over the top. So let’s give it a watch. Now, before I start this, I know that your audio isn’t going to be the greatest I’ve done.

Like everything I possibly can to try and catch the audio of this. Of course, if you want to go and check it out, you can go on to Yahoo Finance and search for how inflation is driving up the cost of some accounts, you can watch it yourself, otherwise, you’re going to be listening along with me. And I’m just going to be doing my commentary over the top. Okay, let’s see how this goes. This is Yahoo Finance and how inflation is driving up the cost of summer camp.

Here’s the Yahoo Finance video:

Speaking of COVID, we know they did affect a lot of summer camps over the past few years. In fact, according to the ACA, the average cost of Bandcamp now has more than doubled to $178 a day compared to about $76 last year. Now that’s a ridiculous stat from 2021 average cost of a day camp was $76. Fast forward to 2022, just one year later, that’s $178 a day. That’s mental. And that’s a day camp. That’s not someone like staying for days upon days upon days, that’s just like going to camp for the day. It’s like that’s ridiculous numbers I’m seeing across the board. Prices are going through the roof.

I’m trying to get a house at the minute at the time of recording this, I’m trying to get a house. And we offered 10,000 pounds over the asking price and we still didn’t get it we got outbid by someone else. It just goes to show that at the minute, I think prices are very susceptible to a complete and catastrophic crash. Because it’s not sustainable to have prices more than double in a year. And the inflation rates at the minute are like mirroring double digits. wages aren’t keeping up, everyone’s going to have to like cut back on their non-essential spending, which is why you’re seeing things like Netflix’s share price, absolutely crater over one day, they lost about 40% over one day just because their metrics weren’t a lining up. So from $76 in 2021, for an average cost at a day camp to 178 in 2022. So let’s carry on with their interview and see where this goes. Let’s let’s bring in our guest Tom Rosenberg, the American Camp Association, President and CEO, thank you for joining us. So first of all the top expenses that are now driving some of these prices up and are there any ways to release with these parents in terms of perhaps financing?

Well, yeah, it can cost the cost of providing camp just like everything else right now is really going up. We’ve had increases in labour. We’ve labour costs, food costs, program supply costs, and COVID-related costs, everything has gone up. So cancer are are trying to operate at scale this summer, which is different from the past few summers. So there will be an additional expense most camps have to pass along. Some price increases to families. We thought we found this specific on how much day camps have increased, almost doubled. How about sleepaway camps? And what’s been the biggest challenge? Why are those prices increasing so high? I would say labour is one part of it. Certainly, there’s a shortage of qualified staff to work in camps. And so we’re trying to hire as many staff as we can to operate. So just to give it a pause there, the average cost of a sleepaway camp has tripled year over year. So currently, we’re sitting at $449 a day, on average to have a sleepover to have your child at a sleepaway camp. Now, that is ridiculous. I thought prices were ridiculous when I was volunteering at summer camp because parents were paying so much money and it was like 1000s upon 1000s of dollars to make sure their kids had the time of their lives. And it is quite a project. And when you consider how much how many staff there are, how many resources there are, how many activities you have to put on for these kids.

But at the end of the day, a lot of these summer camps are businesses too. They have to be self self-sufficient. They have to self-fund themselves to increase the availability and excitement of their summer camp, adding new features and that sort of thing, which I touched upon within the second year of my summer camp because I returned for a second summer. Now that book isn’t even written yet is it the raw material is there but have yet to start actually converting that into a book. But anyway, let’s get back to this interview and see where this goes from here. $449 a day for the average cost of a sleepaway camp, which has tripled over 2021. Now is that sustainable, let’s see. Right as it scale as possible, but also the cost of insurance, think about property casualty insurance. And within a youth market, the very hard market right now, it has been for some time, and it’s only getting worse. Also, we have, you know, windstorm and fire and things like that, that are affecting camps across the country. So, but also, they’re just, you know, this summer, camp directors and overnight camps, for example, are really hoping that they can count on getting the food that they order on time so that the menu they plan will actually happen. So last year, they were juggling a lot of things to make that happen with the supply and logistics challenges that were occurring. So it’s the good news is, Camp is going to happen at scale as far as it scale as possible. So millions of children can once again, go to day camp and overnight camp like typically pre-pandemic that was 26 million boys and girls.

And demand for campus soaring right now. So we’re doing so that’s really good to say that demand for camp is soaring, you have to bear in mind that 2020 and 2021 will have heavily affected by COVID. Of course, COVID is still a thing as you can hear my voice, I’m actually COVID-positive at the time of recording.

And it’s very interesting to see 26 million campers, on average go to summer camp in the year and they want to grow that number. They don’t want to stifle it. And that’s the problem that summer camps do have it and it’s often glossed over. Problem. When you look back at volunteering with Camp America is the swathes of kids and families that don’t actually get the chance to take their kids to a summer camp and have the time of their lives is very much of a dream for many families, many kids that they want to go and have these crazy once in a lifetime experiences. And there are so many kids and families that are able to budget themselves over the course of a year. So every year they can go and work or shall I say enjoy themselves summer camp, your best to manage costs as well as we can. But prices are going up. And I would say demand is outstripping

supply in a big way right now. We’re going to ask them, What do you have this sort of the labour shortages and these other pressures? How much has it changed pre-pandemic worsens. Now in terms of the people trying to get into camps, and just how much you’re able to accommodate people? Well, you know, they’re 74 million school-aged children in the United States, I believe, and a pre-pandemic, we were serving about 26 million of them. But a lot of children out there who have not yet had the privilege of attending a day camp or attending an overnight camp that’s a shame. We’re very much aware of that we’re working really hard to find funding for. For more kids to go to camp. We also need to build more camps and grow camps make the increase their capacity. Even the United States Department of Education has provided summer learning dollars available for you

Have you been most disproportionately affected by the pen? See, it’s quite interesting to hear that the amount of kids that don’t go to summer camp is actually larger than those that do. As he said, I think it was roughly about so 70 million was it 70 million kids that they could get. And then there’s the 26 that actually end up going. So there’s quite a big gap between those two. And it makes me think that if I was like a billionaire if I was a philanthropist, I would love to be able to put in or own different camps. Why is that not a massive thing that billionaires and millionaires do pull their money together literally give the kids the experience that they remember, and make it affordable? It’s really hard. And a lot of the time you people see summer camps as sort of like a charity. But at the end of the day, they are business. And they do take substantial risks by having so many activities, and they need all this insurance and all this coverage and legal protection. And then there’s all the staff as well. And this guy here from the ACA, he’s the head of the ACA, what’s his name? What’s his name? Tom Rosenberg, the American Camp Association.

He touched upon the labour law, he touches upon the labour shortage really hitting the summer camps, which is forcing the higher wages. So you have to think that often, when I’m browsing through sub Reddits, or I don’t know online news, you get to see, I don’t know, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Starbucks are all offering these really higher wages than they used to previously offer back in 2020, or 2021. Because there’s a market at the minute of labour that really sees their time is valuable. And they don’t want to be working at these really menial jobs.

Especially after having that break with COVID, where everyone was able to go back home, they had to stay away from work, they didn’t have to work at McDonald’s all that time, and they were able to upskill themselves. And that really does have an effect on the wages that these companies have to offer to entice people back into the stores and doing those sorts of menial jobs I use with air quotes. Now that obviously has its own impact on summer camps too, because while it’s not a menial job, it’s definitely a different tangent from working the nine to five that most people like to do. So it’s quite interesting to see that the summer camps are having to increase their wages, in line with all the other inflation that’s going on. As for the food, that’s not something that I’m overly familiar with. But personally speaking from the UK, when I go to the supermarkets now, or if I go to a takeout joint, I do really notice the increased price that all of these foods are demanding. And it’s really, it doesn’t really feel sustainable to me. So as a man, then as a millennial, I’m really hoping for a market crash sometime soon.

Endemic through as your funding through the State Superintendent and the local superintendents. So we’re trying to create summer learning opportunities like camps for all kids. But there right now we’ve got lots of new families who’ve never had their children attend camp, lots of families who have been sending their kids to camp for years, everyone wants to go to camp this summer, there’s never been a more essential time for children and youth to have access to summer learning experiences like camp. So you have to remember that in 2020 and 2021, these camps were closed. So for the families that were always sending their kids to camp, that’s really only added to their desire to get their kids to camp while they still can, because their kids are two years older. So you can understand that. At the same time, these parents that have been staying at home saving the money on the family holidays that they used to have, now have this opportunity to actually send their camp their kids to camp for the first time, which is only adding to the increased demand send what business 101 is supply and demand, the supply has roughly stayed the same. Obviously, there’s not been many new camps that have popped up around the USA. But the demand for Spaces has really increased and therefore the prices reflect that. Yeah, a lot of kids have not had any socialization in the last two or three years. You get a sense of how much the pandemic is still factoring in at both day camps and sleepaway camps and we talked about masks, social distancing, and limited numbers, are we back to pre-pandemic camps? Yeah, that’s a great question. Camps must prepare for whatever comes to summer, no one that I know has a crystal ball and understands what variant might or might not affect this summer. So we, you know, camp directors are always prepared to the best of their ability to manage communicable disease.

So this summer, you know, we know from two summers from summer 2020, and the summer of 2021, we know that you know how to operate day and overnight camp safely. And this is time-tested research from outside researchers.

So this so the interesting graphic that they have on the screen at the minute are showing the number of summer camps that were open in 2020 versus 2021. In 2020, only 20% of summer camps were open 20% in 2020, in 2021 67% of camps were open. So you have to understand there’s still a substantial margin of summer camps just last year that were still closed because of the uncertainties of the pandemic. Now, in 2022, what they’re estimating is, is that number is going to be substantially higher than 67% As people are vaccinated wearing masks, following good protocols, and everyone just wants to go back to normal life. And the pandemic seems to be more accepted, accepted within society rather than feared. So people are saying that we’re potentially over that worse hurdle. And we’re sort of treating it as a secondary, cold or flu nowadays. So it’s interesting to see those differences. And that’s a particular reason why there’s no place like summer camp wasn’t released back in 2020. When I initially had hoped, because no one was travelling, no one would be able to see or find out about this podcast, see the book, and want to travel. So now it’s out. Now it’s available for everyone, make sure you go and pick it up. It’s available on Amazon and other book retailers. So let’s see how the rest of this interview plays out.

Over we have access to the vaccine, and many camps are asking parents to please make sure that their kids are vaccinated if they’re eligible. They’re asking their staff to please consider being vaccinated if they’re eligible. There’s also pre-camp testing. We’ve seen this in schools, where basically, pre-camp testing and also for like a day camp, there may be opportunities during different parts of the day camp experience when they’re asked to be tested as well. But in addition to that, you know, depending on what we see this summer, they should be ready with all of the multilayered mitigation strategies that we employed in the summer of 2020. For those camps that did operate, which about 20% of overnight camps operated in the summer of 2020. And about 40% of day camps operated in the summer of 2020 and 21, we had closer to 100. Most overnight camps were able to operate, and most day camps were able to operate. But they didn’t operate at scale. This summer, we hope they’ll operate at scale. But we’ve got to have those multi-layered mitigation strategies like masking behaviour change before you come to camp.

All kinds of these different layers of strategies have to be read through ready to implement them.

Tom, how much? How much are they still making up for losses in the pandemic? And that is a result of these prices?

That’s a good question. That’s a great question. He said himself. Right now camps are really just trying to ameliorate the effects of their cost this year, cancer really hurt and the summer of 2020. Many overnight camps did not operate and day camps did not operate and went a whole year without revenue. And so through PPP and other programs, they were able to get some relief. But there has been no industry-wide relief like there has been for restaurants or for Broadway shows and other or industries like that. To see that that’s a bit sad to hear. But I think that’s always going to happen with the sorts of businesses when something so unexpected as like a fucking global pandemic happens. Not all industries are going to get that government support because there are lobbyists for the bigger entities out there. And there are more obvious more obviously hurt enterprises than summer camps that spring to mind like you say, the restaurants the takeaways, the theaters, events and theatricals and all of these other things. I’m very much taking the centre focus which you can understand, but the summer camps are taking that backseat and therefore that prices really have to make up a substantial gap that’s been had in 2021 and 2020.

But it’s kind of a difficult situation because we’re at, we’re being asked to scale as much as possible to serve as many kids across our country as possible, yet cancer or have been really hurt in the pandemic. So, to a great extent right now, they’re just trying to manage the increasing costs of operating in this year. But they also have working capital challenges, they also have improvements, they would like to make their camp, but probably you’re gonna have to pause on those improvements.

Because of the other challenges that are facing at the end of the day. The key to a high-quality camp is having highly qualified staff, who are well-trained, who really love working with kids and who understand how, how to do all of that. It’s also about having a safe and healthy facility and having a high-quality program to really keep the kids engaged and help them sort of re-ignite their 21st-century learning skills. All right, Tom Rosenberg, American Camp Association, President and CEO, appreciate your time. Thank you. Hey, go. So that’s the American Camp Association, Director, or CEO, shall I say, Tom Rosenberg, it’s very interesting to hear his take on why summer camp prices are literally going through the roof. You saw earlier about the prices, literally tripling in some cases, compared to what they used to be like in 2021. And even in 2021, and 2020. Even back when I used to volunteer at summer camp, I thought that summer camp prices were ridiculously high. So to see that now, with those increased prices, and everything, you can totally understand their point of view of why they’re being increased by such a substantial margin.

And you also have to remember that a lot of these camps actually do take a lot of voluntary donations from parents to help fund the sustainability of their summer camps. So wherever they want to create new activities for the kids, or maintain their camp or anything like that, to really help the running of the day-to-day of summer camp. The summer camps really do rely on the income that’s being generated. And you can see that they’re having to make up the lost ground of 2020 and 2021. So personally speaking, I wouldn’t want to be in any summer camp director’s shoes at the minute, but I think these testing times, they’re probably the most rewarding and satisfying, when 2022 would come to an end of summer camp, and you can look back and think you know what, the world’s coming back. And it’s great to have summer camps alive and kicking again. So it’s been great to hear from someone that’s so senior at a summer camp Association. I’m going to try and keep an eye on any further developments, especially from someone so high up as the American American Camp Association, anything to do with summer camp in the news. I’m going to be doing these sorts of episodes a little bit more.

And yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was different. It’s just an interesting take to see what it’s like in these pandemics sort of times on how some accounts are being affected, you can totally understand all the different aspects that have combined together to really squeeze these prices through the roof. So we’ll see how it ends up. Hopefully, 2022 is going to be another memorable year for you guys that are either going over to summer camp to volunteer or for these campers that are having their return to summer camp or even their first time at summer camp. Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I shall see you in the next one. Have a good one.

Smores are an essential of any campfire and summer camp experience. In this short episode, we discuss how to make the best one.

Hello and welcome to there’s no place like summer camp. I’m your host Andrew Waterhouse and in today’s episode we’re taking a look at how to make the best s’more. So come into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Coronavirus Update

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of there’s no place like summer camp I hope you’re doing well on this fantastic Tuesday. I think the weather in the UK recently has been amazing and of course it has been when we’re all in lockdown still, which is a bit of a strange situation to be honest. You know, because the coronavirus is ongoing but we’re told to not stay at home anymore just to stay aware and it doesn’t really feel right still go out. We are in a changing phase at the moment and I hope in a few months we’ll be able to look back on this as just a really weird time that hopefully prepares us better for the future. But anyway, speaking of the coronavirus. There’s no coronavirus update from the summer camp agencies.

we have a new Podcast trailer!

So we’re going to be cracking on straight away with this episode but before I begin, I’d like to just announce that there’s a new trailer for the podcast that’s been created, you may notice it if you’re on Spotify. I think it will actually be on other podcasts, as well so that’s something to talk about. Hopefully it provides a bit more insight into those that are just scrolling through podcasts and want to have a little bit of a taste of what there’s no place like summer camp actually is. Now they can because there’s a trailer.

what is a s’more?

Okay, so in this episode we’re going to be taking a look at s’mores. And first of all, the first question that I have is what is a s’more, because this is something that even though I go on a hell of a load of campouts in the UK through scouts and cubs and that sort of thing. I didn’t really have much of an inkling of what a s’more actually was but when I applied to camp America, and I was told that I was going to be an outdoor living specialist, everyone was like, “Oh my god, you’re gonna be having s’more around the campfire!”  and I didn’t really know what one was until I started googling it.

So what a s’more actually is and if you are new here, I have done two summers of doing camp America. And that was my job, two summers so I think I’m quite experienced now to define what a s’more is. Okay, so a s’more is basically a roasted marshmallow, which is in between two chunks of chocolate, and then two graham crackers, so it’s a massive big sandwich of tasty goodness really so that’s pretty much what a s’more is.

how to make the best s’more

Let’s crack on with the actual recipe for one of these is. So, first of all you need two graham crackers which seems to be a little bit tricky to get in the UK. I’m pretty sure if you do a google online you’ll be able to find some sort of knockoff of a graham cracker but officially you want the official graham cracker brand. And you may be able to find these in like the Tesco American aisle, you know, like in Tescos they have that little section of American goodies… And they seem to be really overpriced for what they are but because they’re official American products sort of thing you don’t mind paying that little bit extra. I think you could find graham crackers here and literally all they are is like a really thin, like graham cracker type of thing is quite sugary.

Now, the best s’more, I would say that you need four chunks of Hershey’s, which is two chunks for each side of the s’more.

Next, of course you need a marshmallow or two if you’re feeling fat and round, and you like to bounce on the ground. Then, of course, need a decent roasting stick and personally I always like to get a stick off the floor, and then use a knife to make some sort of spear out of the stick and you know it’s going to be a clean stick because you’ve literally cut off all the dead wood, and inside you just have literally that your wood. You have to worry about hygiene not that anyone actually cares about hygiene while you’re roasting a marshmallow anyway because obviously it’s burned to the ground.

Of course, without it goes without saying you also need a campfire too. You need to roast the marshmallow until it goes golden brown. Slide the stick into the ground cracker. At the bottom, with the Hershey’s there, and use the top cracker to hold the marshmallow in place, and pull out the stick. And then you can slide in the Hershey’s at the top, which, sounds a bit tricky if it’s just the one person trying to do this but trust me, it can be done. I did this with campers as well.

s’mores OVERview: in closing

So, there it is. That’s pretty much it for this episode guys I’m so sorry that it’s a short one, but let me know whether you would prefer shorter episodes like this, or longer form ones I do like to mix it up. So now we have a trailer for the podcast, I’d really appreciate it if you could follow the podcast on wherever you’re listening, whether it be Spotify or any other podcast platforms. I know personally I listen to quite a few podcasts nowadays and there’s so many different apps that offer different podcasts. And I think it’s only gonna get worse to be honest, I used to always listen to my podcasts through iTunes and apple. But nowadays iTunes is sort of dying because of streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music and even radio like tune in. They are all cracking places to go and listen to podcasts as well because you know it’s all in one place then, whereas iTunes used to be the go-to destination for music so it’ll be very interesting to see how that changes over time. But, again, I really appreciate a follow a subscription to the podcast and if you are enjoying it please leave a cracking five-star review. Okay, so in next week’s episode, we’re going to be taking a look at when you should apply for camp America or volunteering to summer camps in general. Okay, I’ll see you on Friday. Take care guys

Pay is a part of summer camp. And in this episode we discuss that topic, who pays what? How do I get paid more? What cards do I need for payment? All this and more for those new and returning to volunteer at summer camp.

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host Andrew Waterhouse, and in today’s episode we’re taking a look at how much you get paid volunteering at summer camp. So come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Hello and welcome to another episode of, there’s no place like summer camp. Today’s episode is a Friday episode, where every Friday we basically discuss the popular questions that people have around volunteering to summer camps.

Now, on that subject of having the two episodes a week. It has crossed my mind recently that it may be worth toning things down slightly, so we have one episode a week just the Tuesdays. I’m not sure if it’s maybe putting out too much content too soon sort of thing so let me know how you feel about that.

The summer camp pocket money drama

In this episode, there is actually no updates on the coronavirus since Tuesday, you’ll be happy to hear so be cracking on straight with the episode of how much you get paid while volunteering with summer camp agencies, and let me begin with this: camp America call this pocket money. And the reason they call is pocket money is so they can bend the rules of what employment is or the volunteers that come over to America.

So you’re not technically an employee or a volunteer, and you’re getting paid in pocket money which is like a goodwill package, rather than a wage, so to speak, so we’ll touch upon that later but that’s something I learned straight away camp America. They definitely call this pocket money and I think the other agencies have their own names for it as well they don’t exactly call it a wage.

Flights: To Book your own or Camp America book for you?

From my research of looking at all of the agencies that offer summer camp experience, there are always two different options, which I didn’t personally think was a thing. Basically, whether you would like to take up a flights package yourself as in booking the flight yourself, or whether you would like the agency to do it. When I first applied to Camp America in my first summer, I just went for the default package, where Camp America hand-hold me through the whole process. You just fill in the forms, make sure you have all the correct documents and that you keep paying that money required and going to the orientation day. Now I think of it, there’s a whole list of things that you need to do to get into a programme like Camp America. But one of the things that I just left to them was the flights, but this can actually be booked by you if you really want to.

And this is somewhat of a gamble because there’s like a different wage/pocket money for those that would like to book their own flights compared to those that would just like Camp America to sort it out for them. I remember when I first applied to come to America, I was 21. And when I did this, I didn’t have any personal experience with travelling abroad by myself so I didn’t want to have that extra stress of having to also book my flights and be stressed around the money that was coming out my bank accounts and that sort of thing. But it is an option if you want it. And that’s something that all the agencies seem to do.

So let me just start this all off with specifically for the Brits because of course I’m a Brit myself and I know that plenty of people volunteer for Camp America from Great Britain. And I have personal experience with this but I’ll try and keep it short and sweet for those that are listening from abroad. So for Brits, Camp America pay for your flights, the same for Camp Leaders, and any other programme Camp Leaders either do it from either your camp, or from New York City, whereas Camp America tend to always booked for flights from the departure of New York City. So just keep that in mind, which agency to go for. Just keep that in mind whether you want to travel in and out of New York or whether you would like to travel in and out of your own camp airport.

For EU people that are playing Camp Leaders flights are not included, and neither are Camp America’s. Both recommend only booking your flights after your visa has been approved. Now, on to the different options that these all offer and I know it’s gonna be a lot of numbers here so we’re going to try and keep this really condensed. I’m going to keep this to the main three as I’d like to say, but there are other options out there. So, Camp America let’s start off with those.

Camp America Wage

So for camp America for people that are brand new to the programme and want to volunteer over there. You get the option to see you get to fly over there for $750 a week flights included, so that’ll be your pocket money $750, the flights are included, you just pay all the fees to get there which roughly works out about just making shy of £1000. So when you think about it, you’re actually getting a very close deal of actually somewhat breaking even and you have to think that, you’re getting a three month holiday to go make some memories of a lifetime and you’re breaking even like it’s a win win.

If you don’t want to come to America to book your own flights though you have the option, and that would mean that you get a $600 bonus in your pocket money instead. And that equates to $1350, if it’s your first time over there. For Camp Leaders surprisingly enough, actually give you a higher pocket money across the board. So, if you would like flights in your first summer over to camp summer camp. You get $950 compared to the Camp Americas $750. And if you would like to book your own flights to get $1,550 pocket money compared to Camp America’s $1350.

COMPARISON OF SUMMER CAMP AGENCY WAGES

The last one that I would like to address here is BUNAC. But there are other options available from Americamp,  ccUSA, Interexchange and USA summer camp. They’re not particularly names that I particularly know very well. So, if you would like to know more about that, feel free to get in touch and I can send you the link I got all this information from.

BUNAC also offer $950 the same as Camp Leaders. If you would like to go, while you are between the ages of 18, and 20, and it’s your first time over in Summer Camp. You’ll get $950 we have flights included and the same as Camp Leaders again, $1550, with no flights so that’d be up to you to book flights. If you are over the age of 21 things change slightly. For instance if you are going with Camp America, and you would like the flights to be included. you would get $950 compared to $750 that you would get under the age of 21. No flights option also pumps you up to a $1550 compared to the $1350.

So, I think that pretty much sums up a general overview without diving into all of the numbers. It’s worth actually doing your homework on which summer camp agency you would like to volunteer through. I chose Camp America just because that’s the standout name of all of these I’ve never heard of company does, you know, or any of the others but I had heard of Camp America thousands upon thousands of times before. So I volunteered personally through them but if money is a significant factor then I’d recommend researching those more. I definitely recommend having a search of which ones offer the most money, as a general overview of this page, it seems to be those programmes such as Camp Leaders seem to be somewhat a little better paid than Camp America, but you have to remember also that this is only going to come in stages, across your volunteering at summer camp so you have to weigh up. not only the cost and the salaries that you’re going to be paid because that’s somewhat minor factor into all of this.

You also want to know that you’ve got the support of these programmes and if anything goes wrong, you know who to contact and they’re really supportive and they can basically handhold you through a lot of these things, especially for those that haven’t really done any solo travelling before like I had. I just wanted the easiest and the biggest name; something that you could put on a CV and be really proud of. And I still have Camp America listed on a CV of course I do. Yeah I’m writing a bloody book about it I should really make a big point of it!

should I buy my own flights for summer camp?

So I went for Camp America but it’s all down to personal preference, and you have to also remember if you do go for the no flights options, then you have to also consider that you’re going to be buying these flights. Because of the way the payment works at summer camp, each different in how they pay their staff. You’re not going to be paid back for that extra outlay that you made for those flights, until some way into camp. Its not like you’re gonna be paid this pocket money in advance so it’s all up to personal preference if you’d rather take that risk with your bank account. The risk you are taking is that you get the most extra value for money possible. In some cases, yeah maybe it’d be worth to get in the no flights option, but then you’re playing the gamble of whether the flights that you can find are going to make up the difference and you can walk away with a little profit. Which of course is all up in the air at the moment, especially nowadays with the coronavirus.

Wage spreads at Summer Camp

So typically something also I found out about the wages that you get paid volunteering at summer camp is the spread of the wage that you could get. And surprisingly, there’s a bit local window that you can get for your pocket money. So, based on your country of application, your skill level and your experience, you could get anything between $600 and $1,200. The numbers that I mentioned earlier are just like a wild finger in the air, sort of similar numbers to what I’ve experienced while I was volunteered at a summer camp in my first summer I got $750 so I believe these figures are somewhat accurate. But the window that you could get for pocket money is between $600-$1200 dollars, and from all the research I did for this episode I could not find anywhere where the skill level and experience is defined and how they choose, who is worth more and who is worth less. I don’t know whether it’s down to certifications, or your years of experience.

How you get paid at summer camp

How you get paid is different depending on the camp too, because for me it was twice over the 3 months at camp. And we had to sign up for a debit card, or like a traveller’s card while working in camp, so they could have the funds to pay into that card. On my first pay day, which was around the middle of camp, we got the card, and then we got half of the funds of our pocket money on that card. So you don’t have to worry a great deal around how you get paid, that’s gonna be something that will be addressed within your first couple of weeks at summer camp. I think one of the things that surprised me when I first volunteer that summer camp was how many things you had to go through and steps of like an induction process because there’s so many questions that you haven’t even pondered yet. Only at camp will they have all the answers to questions that you didn’t even know you had. So, just let camp sort out, that sort of thing.

Travellers cards at summer camp

I would recommend taking your own travellers card though as I remember Camp America at least back when I volunteered, recommended a certain card which was the Caxton card. And that was a real godsend. I loved having it I had no problems using my money abroad and it was all in the dollars currencies I wasn’t being charged travellers rates on withdrawals ATMs. Nor did I have any payment issues with restaurants or anything like that so I recommend taking a travellers card just to make sure you don’t have those charges applied when you try and take any sort of money out. Nowadays I probably recommend a card like Monzo. I use that daily in day to day life and they have some real good rates on using cards abroad and that sort of thing but with regard to the payment from Camp themselves, leave that all to your summer camp. Don’t worry too much as long as you’ve got your place sorted at some account, you’re probably going to get paid let’s face the facts.

New tax laws for volunteers at summer camp

So in my research around how much some accounts pay actually found some new things out, and I hope this is new to some of you out there as well, especially those of you that may be applying this year, or going forward. Especially those actually that have applied in the past because maybe some of these things might have gone under your radar.

“Due to recent changes to tax laws in the US, all J1 participants will now have taxes deducted from their pocket money and be required to complete a US tax return form, after they return to their home country. Please keep hold of your payslips, and you can read some more information from Camp America and the other summer camp agencies, about being taxed while in the US.”

This was something I never had to do while working at summer camp and it seems to me that maybe the US has started to latch on to all the summer camp agencies and probably a lot more industries as well we’re taking advantage of this little loophole. It’s where they call it pocket money, rather than summer wage and I do see how it could be a pocket money sort of situation because it’s not particularly like a wage type of role. You can’t really expect to be, you know, paid minimum wage to thousands upon thousands of volunteers that are going there to actually volunteer at summer camps. I could imagine going forward in the future if it gets real clamped down and they’re just going to say like look you can’t have this pocket money thing classification anymore. It has to be minimum wage or nothing. I could imagine going forward in the future there would be a massive question around whether you get paid going to volunteer at summer camp at all. Again, that’s just me chatting absolute shit so don’t take that for word for word. I think that’s my two cents on it is the way things go in the world you never know how things could turn out so that would be my recommendation is, obviously go ahead, apply and make sure you’re aware of this tax return form.

Now, I’m not sure how much of an impact it would have on the wages that you take because obviously it is very minimal sort of wage numbers you’re getting. And if you actually sit down to work it out like I did while working at summer camp, you actually get a little bit narked off is probably the time that you’re getting paid less, much less than, say, $5, an hour, even less than like £3 in some cases, when you think about how long you’re spending at the summer camp and how much you’re getting paid. But like I’ve said at the start of this episode, going to volunteer at summer camp is not about the wage so I wouldn’t really stress too much about that.

Returning staff: What wage to expect

Now I wanted to touch upon the returners of summer camps as well because not all people that go to summer camp are new, and the returners, you always have to pay for your own flights. From all the research that I found through the main summer camp agencies, you pay for your own flights and this was the case when I volunteered for my second summer at my summer camp. You pay for your own flights, but you end up going through a hell of a lot less process and interview stages. That’s because your summer camp knows who you are, your summer camp agency knows who you are and they know you can be trusted because the summer camp have asked you to come back to return so there’s a lot less red tape to go through. One of the real benefits of being a returner is that you get paid so much more than you would in your first summer. I remember when I volunteered for summer camp, the first time around about $750 and the flight was included so I didn’t have to worry about booking. The second summer I went, I think I got paid something absolutely ridiculous like $2,700, something ridiculous. And I was like, holy fucking shit you’re paying me like an actual wage out here, I wish I could do this all the time. But then again, part of that was spent on the flight.

 

So, I think that pretty much closes, all of the stuff around wages, volunteering at summer camps because not a lot of people actually realise at least in the very early days of my application I don’t think I even realised that you do actually get paid while working at summer camp. Obviously you pay those costs to come to America to make sure your profile gets through, and your application gets through to the summer camp to completion. But I never actually realized that you actually get paid while out there as well by your camp, just to say thanks for volunteering with us. It’s been a great summer sort of thing.

Costs, Wages and summer camp Agency Comparison: Overview

So in review of this episode. Different camp agencies pay different rates. You can choose whether you would like the flights included or not. Personally I would say go for the flights option because it makes it a hell of a lot easier not making that gamble, that you could get cheaper flights. I would also say in closing, that the taxes, around volunteering now are a thing, I just make sure you’re aware of those, you get paid by your camp you don’t get paid by Camp America so everything to do with pay and the cards that you need and that sort of thing will be handled by your camp especially when you get to camp before that’s when they would tell you more about that.

The flight situation, each agency is different so if someone like Camp Leaders would be open to booking your flight to and from your coming in and out of your summer camp airport if that makes sense. Whereas Camp America tend to have a preference to have it just go in and out of New York. So it’s all up to personal preference which one you would prefer. When you’re travelling around the US after your time in some accounts, has come to an end, you have to think about where makes sense for you personally to finish your travels. I found New York to be so much easier than having it go from, say, Atlanta where my camp was because in the first summer that I did summer camp, I travelled to Florida, then to Washington DC, and then to New York and from New York I came home. In my second summer I did, Florida. And I think that was it. It was just Florida and I did like Orlando and that sort of thing. It was really cool. Florida, and then straight from New York.

You have to kind of have some sort of idea of where you want to be so if you’re going to be in the middle of the US where nothing really is I know I’m offending a shit tonne of people just by saying that. Say your dream has always been to go to the east coast of America, you can go along the Miami coast and then do you, do you really want to go back to your summer camps airport to then fly back to home? I don’t know, a lot of people would say that the New York option makes more sense because it’s closer, anyway to where you want to be which is obviously the UK and Europe depending on where you’re listening from.

In closing

I’ve enjoyed that episode it was very insightful in maybe learn a lot of things about the new things around pay and that’s always gonna be changing with the tax returns and that sort of thing. And how different agencies pay different rates, and the pros and cons of having your flights included as well. I hope that’s educated you as well because yeah like I say it’s quite an in-depth episode on how much people pay but I can say at the start this episode I don’t think pay should matter a great deal but then again it’s all a personal circumstance.

So, I hope you enjoyed this episode if you did please rate on your podcast platform of choice, it really helps promote the podcast if you like the podcast please give us five stars or wherever you’re listening from. Enjoy this bank holiday weekend guys I know it is a bank holiday Monday at least in the UK, it feels a little bit strange having bank holidays and I think we’ve had maybe two or three now where I’m just like sick of bank holidays, I’d rather be at work, so to speak. Like, not to go too in into my personal life. I’m currently working from home or work in IT, and it’s a little bit strange when you have a bank holiday during a lockdown because you know you can’t go out, you can’t really go see anyone. And it’s a little bit strange so hopefully, they bring in that updates to the calendar where they have another bank holiday in October, just to address all these bank holidays that we’ve missed this year because holy shit, 2020 seems like been a total shit show and you’d never have thought.

Okay, so I’ll see you on the other side with the long bank holiday you know I’m going to be doing a bank holiday Monday, making another podcast, you can be sure about that. I’ll see you on Tuesday, where we’re going to be talking about how to make the best s’more, so we’re going to be winding things down once again. If you have any podcast recommendations, as I’ve said before, go to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, you can check us out. You can send in the forms, you can sponsor the podcast as well you can ask for specific episodes to be recorded that you would like to see. You can even ask to be interviewed as well. On the old another subject of plugs, please follow Instagram as well as the place like so we can try and amp that up soon as well. So, yeah, see you Tuesday guys have a good one. Bye.

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We take a look at the best cheap things to buy while volunteering out in America in this episode. If you think I’ve missed any, hit me up!

Introduction

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, we’re taking a look at what visa do you need to apply for summer camp? So, come into our tent and I’ll spill those juicy beans.

Q U E S T he’s on a quest, he’s on a quest. He’s on the, no, I’m not. I’m just answering questions.

 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I don’t know why I said juicy beans at the start of that intro, because this one’s probably the least juicy of the all. In this episode, we’re taking a look at the visa requirement for volunteering over with summer camps through any sort of program. Now, I did some homework on this one because I was always under the impression that I took a certain visa over when I volunteered at summer camp and everyone else was telling me otherwise so I don’t know if I’ve had some sort of Mandela effect where the effect where when he passed away Nelson Mandela, everyone was like, “I thought it was already dead.” And then there was like half of the world that was like, “I’m sure I’ve seen this news before.”

 

And there was like this whole trippy thing about parallel dimensions and stuff. I think I might have tripped into a parallel dimension here because I’m 100% sure I had this certain type of visa, but we’ll get onto that. First as with every podcast episode nowadays, we need to do a coronavirus update, and fortunately for you guys, there’s no real update from Tuesday’s episode where we discussed opening up the country and how that affects summer camps and that sort of thing. Again, I’m still very pessimistic on this one.

SUMMER CAMP VISA DETAILS

If you are volunteering for summer camp this year and you’ve had any updates yourselves, feel free to get in touch but yeah, if you go on any of the summer camp websites at the moment, they’re all saying the same thing. That they’re pretty much going ahead as if they are going to be open but this is the prime sort of time that people do get flown over there so it’ll be very interesting to hear how much of a percentage of the normal capacity are flying over at the moment, because I, for one, know that the skies are very clear at the moment. There’re hardly any planes compared to normal and I doubt that people are flying over there in their thousands. So, only the register of this episode, then I did tease it at the start that I thought I was under a certain visa. Now, this visa that I always thought I was under, and I’m sure when I was volunteering through camp America, I’m sure I was told that this was a J -2 visa. Now, for those that don’t know about visa types, some certain different numbers and letters get associated with different types of visas which give you different kind of rights and access to countries when you go and volunteer.

 

The American, I think there’s J and I think there’s F from looking into it. The J1s are the ones that you want to be concerned about. They’re the ones that you’re going to be applying for go over to the exchange thing in the middle of London. Let me just talk about the J-2 visa though, because that’s the one I thought I was on and I’ve my passport right here. And I’ve had to dig this out because I was like I’m sure I had the J-2 visa. So let me just explain what it is direct from the US government website. The J2 visa is a non-immigrant visa issued by a counselor official at the US embassy or consulate for spouses and independent and dependence which are unmarried children under the age of 21 of the J1 exchange visitors who accompany or later joined the J1 holder in the United States.

 

So that wasn’t what I was. I wasn’t a dependent, I don’t think I was under 21 when I volunteered at camp America and I wasn’t a spouse. So I was like, I’m a hundred percent sure that this was the visa that I got. I’ve got my passport here, both summers that I went, I got a J1 visa. So I don’t know where down the line like caught wind that this was a J2, but a bit strange. I was probably embarrassing myself on quite a few occasions where I was introducing myself and saying, “Oh, the process to get is I write pain in the bulls and all this sort of shit”, and my camper probably like, “Oh, he’s this weirdo, he’s fucking got a J1 visa like, who’s he married to sort of thing”, but no the visa says I’ve got two J1 visas.

What happens to passport?

You get like an imprint into your passport, and they, yeah, show that you can go over to the US to volunteer for a summer. So I’ve learned something this episode I had a J1 Visa. Let me get onto the J1 visa now for that is what the episode is all about. So when you first volunteer for summer camp, you hear a lot of lingo, a lot of official terms for paperwork, which can be a bit daunting. I know for one that all the numbers and the letters are kind of like camp America just deal with it and that’s probably the best way of dealing with things. And we’ll touch upon that later after this little segment here.

Rules of the J1 Visa

To work in the USA, you need to have the right visa for the amount of time that you are in the United States and for the type of work that you’re performing and every type of work, and every visit type is categorized with certain letters and numbers, and the visa for camp counselors or specialists is the J1 visa. There you go. That’s pretty much the long and short of it if you want to just know the certain number for this visa, it’s the J1, but what is it? The J1 visa is a cultural exchange visa that supports, visitors or volunteers who are promoting and participating in cultural exchange, and in our case, this is summer camp.

 

The cultural exchange is like an official term for this sort of thing, with visas and governments and stuff. It’s just so they have like a proper relationship and they know what tourists are coming over and what travelers are coming over for what reasons and it gives them better insight into who’s coming over basically. The cultural exchange sounds official, but broken down is pretty much a relationship between two countries, potentially sharing ideas, creating friendships, and forming a mutual understanding. So, it pretty much makes sense that the J1 visa fits perfectly into this position because those that are going over to volunteer at a summer camp are going there for these sorts of reasons. They’re going over for a bit of a cultural, deep dive into what working in camp America is all about. So, yeah, that’s pretty much just a fancy way of saying you’re coming over to volunteer for summer camp. Of course, other people could be using the J1 visa, should they come over?

J1 VISA stages

So the J1 visa has a few requirements, and if you’re going through a summer camp program, it’s very easy to pass all these. So let me give you a quick overview of what these are.

Interview

The first is to have an interview with the sponsor.

The sponsor, in this case, will be your summer camp program as in camp America, camp leaders, those sorts of companies that’s specialize in getting people over there and having the best some of their lives. So, you have an interview that’s part of the application process for pretty much of these places. It ticks off that you are who you say you are pretty much, and you are not a psycho, and you’re doing it for the right reasons that you’re over 18, that you are good at English. Someone has to check that out face to face. That interview also checks off the J1 visa requirement as well because it means that camp America or whoever you go through have checked that you are a real person and that sort of thing, and the sponsor can take full responsibility for making sure you get through the J1 visa program.

Insurances and medical checks

The next requirement for this is to have some insurance and the medical insurance comes as part of the package when you apply through this program as well, you don’t have to worry about that at all.

Orientation day

Another requirement of the J1 visa is to have an orientation day, which is a day by these companies. I keep saying companies, I don’t think that’s the right word. We’ll call them summer camp agencies. So these summer camp agencies love to have a really over the top fun, I guess, “fun” day, where you’re invited to an orientation day where there are loads of icebreakers and making sure you are in the mood for summer camp and giving you tips and answer any questions in front of a massive crowd of people, and it’s like a really fun day. I remember that I went to this orientation day in London, and it was a real, like, I was really scared to go ahead with the orientation. I guess we’re going on a different tangent here, and this probably be a different episode, but let me put it this way.

 

You have to go to the orientation day to be able to get this visa. There are other forms that need to come along with your visa as well. When you go and apply through the embassy. One of these forms is the DS 2019, which is the certificate of eligibility for exchange visitor J1status. It’s a really important part of the visa so don’t go losing it. One thing that I recommend is having some sort of folder or binder, or somewhere to put all your paperwork because there’s going to be quite a lot of paperwork that you’re going to have to take with you, not only to the embassy, but actually over to camp as well, and it’s better if it’s all in one place and you don’t have to worry about where all these sheets are. This DS 2019 form forms part of the visa so you don’t want to be losing it, and the better that your documents are all in one place, the better that you can just like whip out this document folder in front of someone and just give them what they ask for.

DS 2019 Form

A summer camp agency will provide the DS 2019 for you, and one of the main reasons to go with any agency rather than doing it yourself, it proves that this is a temporary state and that you’re going to be returning home. So as much as everyone wants to go over to camp and stay in the US forever, the US embassy needs proof that you’re going to be coming home. So evidence around this could be that you’re going back to uni or that you have a job sorted for when you come back.

Monitoring of VISA status

The final requirement of the J-1 visa is monitoring.

That pretty much entails that your summer camp agency is going to be checking in with your camp every month just to see how you’re getting on. They’re going to be available 24 hours a day, just in case you need them as well so you have like an emergency contact book, and in a previous episode, I discussed where camp America is in New York. In that episode, we discussed the new what the fuck it’s called? The America Branch so that’s always available as well. It forms part of the J1 visa requirement so the maximum length of any J1 visa is four months, and this pretty much lasts for the length of your summer camp contract. As long as you are employed by your camp, your visa is active, but then what happens when you actually travel over to America and you don’t instantly touch down and start your job, you normally have like a week or two before camp starts.

That’s fine. The J1 visa was designed to give you the best taste of America because travel is a huge part of what this whole visa entails. It lets you see the sites, taste the food, and get to know the cultures, and there’s a whole grace period around this as well. Your visa only starts when your contract at camp starts so probably more than likely around the first day of camp. Once that visa is over, which could be up to four months, you have 30 days grace period to take up after your camp comes to an end. You don’t have to request this grace period. You just have 30 days by default, and it means that you can travel around America for 30 days totally like scotch-free. You just need to leave the US within 30 days and you mustn’t work once your contract has finished.

Travels After Summer Camp

So there’s no way that you could go and work at camp America and then finish your visa and then go and work somewhere else for another few months. That would be a whole other kettle fish, and that would be something for your summer camp agency to discuss if you want that. I don’t think that’s something they provide, to be honest. So applying for a J1visa is pretty tricky I guess, but the summer camp agencies are all there to help you handhold your way through and all of their online portals and profile areas allow you to just log in, go step by step through the process and figure out what you need to do to get to the next stage. The stage for the J1 visa primarily is the interview at the embassy is only in London. If you are from anywhere else in the UK, you have to travel to London specifically to have this interview on a certain day.

Interview at the Embassy

This interview typically lasts around 30 minutes in my opinion, and there are normally at least in camp America’s case, they have representatives outside who will check your paperwork, and make sure you’re all up to date. In my case, I was missing something. I can’t remember specifically what it was. I think I was missing that DS 2019 form if I’m honest and they helped point out that I was missing this form just like an hour before my interview was scheduled so you can imagine what I was like, and they pointed me in the direction of a nearby internet cafe. So I ran over there, went into this internet café, put these coins into the computer in like real, like a throwback kind of moment of old technology I guess, and logged into my camp America profile, downloaded that form, printed it off, ran back to the embassy and then queued up and got seen to.

When you’re actually in the embassy, another thing as well is it reminded me of like an old school post office. You walk in and you take a little slip like a number off the machine, and then there’re loads of people sat down on chairs, looking at screens, looking on their phones and that sort of thing- bored. And you take one of these slips and you just wait for your number to be called. Once your number gets called, you go and stand next to a counter similar to like a post office. There’s someone behind a glass window and you’d hand over all of those papers that I was telling you about earlier. Just have them all in one place and they’ll be able to pick out what they need then you’d hand over your passport and they would keep your passport to print this new visa and grant you the visa based on the interview that you have.

What Questions to expect at the embassy?

Typical questions are like: what going over there where are you going? Who are you? Where are you from? Just to make sure you are saying who you are. So it takes about two weeks for your visa to be printed and it can take up to four to six weeks. So make sure you book your appointment in the embassy well before your travel date, This was something that I was close to missing myself. I’ve discussed it before, where I was close to missing out on summer camp, and that was because of this. I think they cut it so fine that I was literally about one week before I had to shoot off when they had my visa ready. I did want it to get delivered straight to my door but because of the one-week situation, I had to go and drive into the middle of London and collect it instead just to make sure I was going to camp that summer.

So that’s pretty much it, that’s pretty much the visa that you need J1 visa which is designed for you to work at summer camp as part of a cultural exchange program. The appointment costs $160. It’s put into your passport, which is supported by other documents like the DS 2019, and it’s valid for up to four months or your contract length.

Closing of VISA Summary

I hope that’s pretty much answered all the questions around the visa situation. I know it can be very daunting but that’s part of the great thing about volunteering through a program like camp leaders or camp America. Now, should you not want to do this through camp leaders or camp America, there’s a whole load more paperwork that you need to do and a whole load more testing. It’s not worth the hassle guys looking into this.

 

The whole point of having a sponsor is that they can put their name to you and make sure you are easily whisked through the application process of getting these visas but if you’re doing it yourself, you’re not going to have that interview, you’re not going to have all the things in the background to make sure that you’re going to be okay out there and that you’re going to make it back. So I would highly recommend, there’s like a hundred percent recommendation that you go through an agency for this. It’s not worth the bother of trying to do it, not through an agency. Because one of the things that if you were going to go and do it directly with your camp and cut out the middle man of camp America, it’s a lot more hassle than it’s worth. The summer camp themselves have to put their name to a lot of things and support you and be in touch with the embassies and yeah, it’s a right headache so I 100% recommend going through a summer camp agency. So there we have it.

 

Another end of another episode of a Friday episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I hope I put that intro in the start, Jesus Christ, the number of times that I forget that the questions intro exists, but my God is it brilliant. In the next episode guys on Tuesday, we are discussing the top things to buy in the USA for cheap because I, for one, know that America is a whole land of opportunity, the American dream and those prices man, those Walmart prices, there’s something to behold. So, I hope you enjoy this episode, guys. I shall see you on Tuesday.

 

Make sure you go follow us on Instagram. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp and I’ll see you on Tuesday. Bye.

 

Campers ask all sorts of questions. those that niggle the back of your head, those that make you pull the hair off your head and those that make you laugh. In this podcast, we go through all the common questions you can expect while working at summer camp.

A popular question is what age do you have to be to volunteer for Camp America? In this podcast episode, we discuss this topic and address the issue of age when applying to volunteer at summer camp.

People are fired from summer camps every year. In this episode, we discuss the most common reasons that summer camp counsellors are given the boot – and what you can do to keep yourself safe!

Transcript from the Podcast

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse, and in today’s episode, we’re taking a look at the most common reasons that counselors are fired. So come on into our tent, and I’ll spill the beans.

Hello, everyone, welcome to the 41st episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. This is the most common reasons that counselors are fired. A bit of a change of tune from the last week’s episode. So if you haven’t checked out already, that was the episode that was talking about where is Camp America in New York.

However, let’s crack on with the rest of this episode.

My Camp is closed for Covid

I have some breaking news in regards to updates since the last episode, which are very interesting, indeed. My camp personal camp that I went to for two summers, Camp Coleman has closed for 2020, which blows my mind. And if I’m honest, the people I’ve been speaking to, it was probably in the works and probably the most likely scenario for this camp. There was a decision made by the U R.J, which is the Union of Reformed Judaism. I think something along those lines, it’s the greater powers of the Jewish summer camps. And they’ve closed a number of summer camps for 2020. Basically, they made a decision that obviously the Coronavirus was too serious and too much of a risk for their camps to continue for this summer.

As far as I’m aware, this is only the second time that my camp personally has closed for summer. I forget off the top of my head the exact reason why it closed once before but I do remember at my camp, previous counselors speaking about it. And I think it was something similar to this actually where there was some sort of pandemic. Pandemic-ish, obviously wouldn’t be to the scale of the Coronavirus crisis, because it’s a global event. And I certainly don’t remember anything like this happening in my lifetime at least. But I do remember that. At one time in the past, Coleman has it has closed its doors. And yeah, here we are with them closed again. It lives long in the camps memories. It lives long in the directors and the counsellors, like for camp for so many people is their bread and butter is what gets them up in the morning or so they it’s what they dream about when they go to sleep. And it’s who they stay in touch with for the rest of their lives. Obviously in my case, it means that you make a podcast about it, it means you make a book about it. Some of your best friends may be from camp. So when you hear that your camp is closed, even if you’re not going to it yourself. It somewhat deflates you.

So I just like to start the episode off just mentioning that it’s a very sad time for all camps really, because I’m sure even those that are open. They’re going to be feeling the effects of the Coronavirus crisis. To some extent, I’m sure there are plenty of parents that don’t particularly want to send their kids to an enclosed summer camp where there’s a lot of contact between people. And the whole science behind the Coronavirus is still up in the air to some extent.

I know that schools are still closed, but there was a time at least in the UK where people were confused whether kids could even contract the disease and then that creates all sorts of confusion. So I’m sure some parents have been have been pulling their kids out of camp, even if their camps are open for this summer. But at least in my case, Camp Coleman is closed.

Now, you may have noticed in previous episode with the interview that I had with Alex, a fan of the show that I briefly skimmed over the idea of potentially postponing a few episodes of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp should all camps in Camp America close and cease to exist for 2020. It’s something that I definitely have to think about personally, as you are all well aware that this podcast is a work of passion and it’s a pet project that I love to try and inject some of that soul that summer camp brings to you through the through the medium of audio. And it’s worth me thinking about whether it’s actually worth still continuing with episodes and content because it does take a lot of time to create these but I do really enjoy it. And I had a discussion with a couple of people about potentially postponing the podcast should that happen.

So just so you’re all aware, you’re all in the loop. That could still happen if Camp America decides, you know what it’s too much risk for us to send out all of our volunteers and potentially contract something and then where to Camp America lie in all of this, authorizing the go-ahead of 1000s of volunteers flying over to America.

Camp Leaders’ stance on COVID

But at the time of recording, there’s been no real update from Camp America in regards to whether they’re going to be closing for the summer, they’re still going ahead with the idea that camps are still going to be going ahead for 2020. However, there is an update from Camp Leaders. So let me give you a bit of insight into that if you are applying through there, or you just want to keep abreast on top of all these summer camp updates.

So on the 28th of April, Camp Leaders provided an update on the Coronavirus crisis and how they’re having a heavily reduced staff force at the moment where they’re all social distancing working from home, they’re trying to do their best. Basically what they’re working on at the moment is a system to allow participants to defer their applications for the summer of 2020 over to 2021 or 2022.

If volunteers do not yet have a place at camp or are now unable to travel. So probably does is not suspending the program. The majority of the camps that Camp Leaders work with are gearing up for an incredible summer, they’re just adjusting their operations may be moving some dates around. But nonetheless, they’re excited to welcome campers and international staff. So they do encourage that everyone stays on the program at this point if you can. But of course, safety is a priority. And will not facilitate summer camp travel, if it is unsafe to do.

So it will obviously be reviewed on a regular basis, following the advisories from the US visa sponsors, national government authorities and public health services. That’s pretty much the update from Camp Leaders, they have actually got that system in place now as of the first of May. If you do want to defer your application, you think you know what, it’s too much of a risk.

But I’d love to still do summer camp and volunteer over there, so I’d recommend going into campleaders.com. It’s accessible through the desktop, you can’t do this through the app, by the way, it has to be done through the normal website through campleaders.com, where you’ll be able to defer your application to a later year.

Possible episode freeze during covid

So back to the discussion of potentially pushing back some episodes or maybe trimming down or having some sort of break until maybe September or later in the year. It’s still all in the air, I’d really welcome some feedback. So if I think the majority of the listeners would prefer to carry on with the content because it provides you with a summer camp spark that may be lacking in these weird and strange times. If you have any feedback as to whether you would like to like for this to continue, please hit me up I’m available at There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.com You can send me a little message through there. All your support is welcome this time. And until otherwise, until official word from Camp Leaders or Camp America officially cancelling all camps, I think I’m gonna still continue but it’d be nice to get your feedback on this. Okay, so with all those updates out of the way, guys, let’s carry on with the rest of this episode. I’m sorry, there was such a long introduction for this one. But I think it’s really good to get an overview of where I’m currently at where summer camps are currently at. And a bit around the podcast as well for update news.

The Most Common Reasons Counsellors are Fired from Summer Camp

So in this episode, we’re taking a look at the most common reasons counsellors are fired. And trust me every year, every camp, someone gets fired. So let’s hop straight into it.

Alcohol – the big reason counsellors are fired from camp

Okay, so we’re gonna start this off with the big boy, which is alcohol. Every year without fail, someone will get fired, because they come back to camp drunk, or they get caught with alcohol on their person. Camps are very stringent on these sorts of things. They can’t be having staff members coming back and then supporting their kids or looking after kids or looking after an activity even if they’re coming back to camp intoxicated, it pretty much makes sense.

Before I start properly with this list, every camp has their own rules and their way of dealing with things so it’s not all-encompassing this episode. There are just the most common reasons that counsellors are fired rather than every single one and I’ll Get into the terms and conditions of actually applying through Camp America as to potential reasons that you could be fired and all that jazz. We’ll come to that at the end of the episode.

Americans take Alcohol so Seriously – its a culture to adapt to

Alcohol, though, is a massive one. Because in case you didn’t know that minimum, yeah, the minimum legal age of drinking in America is 21. So if you’re going over to America to have a really good time get wasted, make some good friends make some really cool memories. Don’t expect to be going into a shop at 19 or 20, being able to buy alcohol. Suddenly, no you can’t, it’s a strange thing. Because in the UK, obviously, it’s 18. You can just walk into a shop, flash your ID, and there you go, you’re served. But when you’re in America, it’s 21. So if you do end up potentially being served, you’re obviously breaking the law.

Even if you come back to camp slightly tipsy and they could smell alcohol on you, you could be fired just for that because you’ve broken their law, and therefore you’ve broken the visa terms as well. So camps are really tight on these sorts of things.

Drugs will get you fired

The next one in particular, which is drugs, really ties into this one as well. If you’re going to be having drugs and weed and, you know, as a whole umbrella of drugs that this could fall under, then they’re obviously going to revoke their hire. Camp are going to take back those contract papers, they’re going to make sure that you get out of the country as soon as possible. Because at the end of the day, the camps are there for the kids, they’re not there for people to have a massive piss up and get off.

Camp is there for the campers and parents to be 100% trusting that this place will take care of their kids, making sure that kids will have an absolute blast, and grow their kids into something new. I think that is something that’s so addictive about going to summer camp is that it transforms you and it makes you learn and makes you grow into a proper person, rather than a child. I think that’s something that’s maybe missing a lot in normal society because summer camps are their own enclosed bubble. And this probably ties into scouts and cubs as well, which is my background of how I got into Camp America in the first place. When you have such a tight knit community, you’re going to grow and you’re going to make some really good friends and have some incredible memories. So they don’t want some twit from the UK to come over, pissed off their head because they think they’re 20 years old, and they can just drink and have a good time. And then try and smuggle drugs into camp, it’s not gonna happen, you’re gonna get the boot. And you’re going to be heading on the next right back to the UK or wherever you’re from.

The third common reason for firing: Smoking

The third one that will tie into this most common reasons that counsellors are fired is smoking because there are loads of camps that actually have non-smoking policies in place no matter that the camp is outside and away from, you know, the normal hobble and bubble of daily activity. There are there will be quiet places that you can go to in camps and sneak off maybe have a smoke. But some camps are really tight on this. And they don’t want their counsellors to be smelling of smoke.

They don’t want them to give off an impression to the campers that this isn’t the most premium place in the world. So obviously, again, this ties into specific camps. Some camps are more lax on this, they actually encourage you to put the detail into your Camp America profile that you do like to have a smoke. I’ve actually covered this in a previous episode. If you haven’t already, go check out the older episodes that I’ve recorded. Interesting one, and I learned a lot myself.

But if you do get caught smoking on a camp that has a zero-tolerance policy, you could get the boot as well.

Hooking up at camp can get you fired!

The penultimate one on this list is sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse, guys… sexual intercourse.

Put it this way. If you are caught having sex, then you’re not really doing your job of being a volunteer. You’re not looking after the kids you’re looking after yourself. So I think that pretty much makes sense. Let’s move on with the last one.

The last one really encompasses all of the little bits that I’ve missed off. Because at the end of the day, these four subjects alcohol, drugs, smoking and sex, sexual intercourse all fall under the same header, which is that you’re compromising camp’s safety and standards. You would have had this from a previous podcast with Alex. Because at his camp, he had someone that was fired because they compromised camps safety. They were treating campers differently.

They were giving preferential treatment to some campers and not others. And it was just a little bit weird. That’s a compromise of other campers, you know, experiences. So I had an actual experience of this too. Not personally, of course, I wasn’t fired from my summer camp. But I saw a camp counsellor who was fired because they treated the kid in the wrong way. In a really difficult situation. Sometimes it’s not as black and white as you may think, like, getting fired from a camp sounds like okay, just don’t be an idiot. Don’t just for a couple of months, avoid alcohol, drugs, smoking sex, and just be, you know, nice to the kids.

But this particular situation at my camp was a really tricky one. And I’ll give you a little preview into it. And you can read more about it in the book, which comes out hopefully later this year is out now. So put yourself in this situation…

An example of where a counsellor was fired In a tricky situation

A counsellor has a cabin full of kids, 10 kids, and one of the kids has found out about a surprise that’s about to come around the corner for all of the camp. This is a top-secret surprise.

Only the staff know about it. But, this camper has taken a look into this counsellor’s bag saw a note and gone “Oh my God, look what’s happening tomorrow. Look what’s happening. Guys, guys, look!”

The counsellor then goes, “Boy, right? Stop. You can’t be doing that. What you’re doing is ruining camp!” So then the camper goes, “Ah, it’s real! Oh, my God, look, guys, look.” Then the counsellor brings the camper to one side and tells him to calm down.

“Tell the group that it’s wrong… make up some sort of excuse that this piece of paper doesn’t actually reveal anything. You need to stop, stop acting over the top. Calm down, you’re going to ruin camp for everyone. If you tell everyone this surprise, it’s ruined.”

The camper doesn’t take any notice of this goes back in and starts going “oh my god, surprise tomorrow, surprise tomorrow!”

Oh. And then the next thing you know, the counsellor has got so incensed by this that he picks up a camper drags him outside and goes “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t be doing this, this surprise is the biggest surprise of camp, what you’re doing!” The camper starts crying.

And next thing you know, the counsellor is booted out the door.

A camper ruining the biggest surprise vs a counsellor protecting his cabin

In that situation, it’s really tricky to see. You can see from both sides of view. And it was one that really divided camp, I think, at least at the time it happened. You could see the point of view of the camper because they’re really excited about the surprise and that he’s just a kid at the end of the day. But at the same time, you can see totally see the side of the counsellor.

The counsellor tried to spot something that’s gonna ruin camp for all these kids. He’s tried to stop this kid that’s trying to you know, spoil the surprise. And then, because the camper is not listening, he’s got so incensed and annoyed that he’s dragged him out. No real physical abuse, apart from maybe a drag. But it’s a slip of standard. And at the end of the day, I could see how he could do got fired personally. Looking back, it’s always a shock that someone does get fired. It’s not always so clear, grey like this was.

Not all firing’s are so clear-cut

So if you compromise on camper safety or campus standards, then you can expect to get the boot. They try to teach you these things in staff week. Well, I don’t know if staff week is referred to the same thing in all camps, as staff week. For me was a week before camp when all staff were in and we were getting trained all day, seven days a week, where we just basically be taught about what to expect for camp coming up, how camp runs, how it operates, what things need to get sorted in time and all that good stuff because there’s a lot to bed in. But staff week was really the foundation for all of this it sets the standards, it sets you how you can treat kids and how you can be the best counsellor or be the best specialist, be the best director or unit head… There’s so many different roles at camp.

So expect staff week to set the standard of what your camp is used to. And if you break these rules then expect to get punished.

Camp America Terms and Conditions on Getting Fired

So as we start to close up this episode, I thought it’d be interesting to actually take a look at the Camp America terms and conditions but because I think these are really interesting points for anyone that thinks it’s a fun idea to get fired, it’s really not.

So if you are fired, it is your responsibility to make your own flight reservations. And all costs incurred are your responsibility.

That is interesting straightaway, in case you didn’t know, if you’re fired, you have to collect the next flight back to your home country, doesn’t matter that you haven’t got the money, you have to buy it. And you’re going to be taken to the airport by a security member or a lead member of leadership. And then we’ll wait with you until you catch the next flight.

It’s illegal for Camp to keep you in the country after being fired

It’s actually illegal for them to keep you at camp or in the country. As soon as they fired you for something because it makes the visa that you’re on potentially a J1 or J2 visa invalid. So just a heads up, you really don’t want to be fired.

Another interesting point that I found in the terms and conditions of this was, you can be fired from camp for any reason. It’s entirely up to the camp, where the lines are, it’s not particularly Camp America’s strongest suits have the support that you’ve been fired from a camp and you don’t think it was justified. There might be some litigation process where you can go through and be like, look, the camps got it wrong. But this is my case, I want to put forward to Camp America, there might be a support mechanism in place. But I am slightly doubtful that that potentially exists because at the end of the day, the camp that you’re hired by is how you got the visa, it’s not Camp America.

If you are fired from camp, resign or leave camp due to homesickness, or if you engage in conduct, that in the opinion of Camp America is deemed detrimental, our sponsorship will be revoked, you will forfeit your pocket money, application payments, airport tax contribution, insurance payment and all other payments. You will be financially responsible for your costs to fly home and subject to the terms of program reimbursements stipulated in item 28. In such cases, you’re required to contact Camp America immediately on the 24-hour number, which actually posted in the previous podcast go check it out.

So I think that in general sums up reasons why you don’t want to be fired from campus. Not a good look. You are really fucked from a financial point of view, or what are the costs that you put into applying to camp have gone all the application fees or the visa fees, although they are gone already, the biggest thing is the flight back because you have to buy the next flight. And that’s entirely on you. Any support that Camp America can provide will be limited. It’s not going to be financial, and you’re going to have to sort out yourself, if you don’t have the money on you, that’s your problem.

If you get fired, you get no pocket money from camp

Because you won’t have pocket money, then you’re going to have to get in contact with people from back home, there might be a time delay with the time difference. You might have to wait at the airport like eight hours until they wake up. It’s a real shit show.

But you really are forced out of the country. I can’t stress that enough.

Get in touch to be a guest!

Right. As we’ve come to the end of the episode, I thought I’d brighten it up. And I think it would be actually hilarious to get in touch with someone that potentially has been fired from camp. Maybe you want to chat about it. Hey, I’m no agony aunt but it could be a real fun podcast fun interview, so get in touch. Because we all want to know about it.

It’d be really cool to hear about how rumours are spread, and what people have learned since so if you have been fired from a camp and you do want to chat, get in touch. In the next episode, we’re taking a look at what age you can do Camp America. And you would know this if you followed our Instagram page. I post a preview of the upcoming content.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and I shall see you on Friday. Keep surviving and thriving.

There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, the diary kept in my first summer of Camp America is available now on Amazon. Go check it out!

This episode tackles a question that comes up more than you’d think: where is Camp America in New York?

The short answer is that Camp America’s support office for the US is based in New York, and this is relevant to volunteers in a very specific situation — if something goes wrong during your placement and you need direct support from the agency, New York is where you’re ultimately directing that.

What “Camp America in New York” Actually Means

Camp America is a UK-based organisation that places international volunteers at summer camps across the United States. Its operational infrastructure in the US runs through New York. If you’re on a J-1 visa through Camp America and you encounter a serious problem at camp — a dispute with a director, a welfare issue, a placement you need to leave — Camp America’s US support is accessed through that New York operation.

This isn’t something most volunteers ever need to think about, because most camps are excellent and most summers go smoothly. But knowing it exists is useful. If you need help mid-placement, you’re not just stuck with whoever runs your camp. There is a layer of agency support above the camp level, and for UK volunteers specifically, Camp America provides a 24-hour emergency line.

Camps Near New York

A separate reason people ask about New York is simply: are there summer camps near New York that I could be placed at?

Yes — and quite a few excellent ones. New York State, particularly the Catskills region and the Adirondacks, is one of the most dense concentrations of residential summer camps in the entire United States. These tend to be private, well-resourced camps with long histories. The Catskills in particular have a strong tradition of Jewish summer camps going back decades, which was the world Andrew stumbled into for two summers (albeit at a camp in Georgia rather than New York).

Being placed near New York has the practical advantage of making post-camp travel extremely convenient. Flying home from JFK or Newark is straightforward, and you can spend your travel weeks exploring New York City before you go — which is, frankly, not a bad way to end a summer.

The City Itself

If you do end up with free time in New York — either at the end of summer or during any days off near the city — the usual suspects are worth your time. Times Square gets the coverage but the High Line, Central Park, Brooklyn, and a genuine New York bagel will serve you better than the tourist centre.

A running joke in the episode is that the “New York” connection to Camp America is more bureaucratic than glamorous. You’re probably going to be in the woods somewhere, not the city. But as post-camp destinations go, New York is hard to beat.

 

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

An interview with a fan of the show! Alex is from Germany, and provides entertaining insight and stories from his time volunteering with Camp America. Due for a return this year, we also discuss the impact of the Coronavirus on summer camp volunteers.

 

Podcast transcript:

Hello. And welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m Andrew Waterhouse. And in today’s episode, we have another cracking interview lined up for you today. Before it begins, I should mention the sound quality.

But I hope the quality of chat and laughs more than makes up for that. If you hadn’t guessed, this interview is with a fan of the show. And I’ll let Alex speak for himself with regard to his Camp America experience and his German background. It’s a cracking episode for sure. Speaking of which, if you’d like to get interviewed yourself for this show, feel free to get in touch by going to there’s no place like summer camp dot com.

Now with that all out of the way, let’s crack on with the rest of this episode. Coming into our tent, and we’ll spill the beans. Right. So it’s recording. Welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp.

Thank you. Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? My name is Alex. I’m, 19 years old.

I’m from Hamburg in Germany. It’s a big city in the north. Yeah, I’m still a student. I’m doing my a levels this year, this summer, next week. Good luck.

Good luck. Cheers. Well, I will I was just gonna ask, like, why did you go to camp? I just wanted to have break from school last year. And, so I just I I looked up, possibilities, and then I saw, okay, camp.

It’s possible. It’s not too long, so I could I can go to school afterwards again. And yeah. So that was your first summer last year when you were you 18? Were you 18?

Yeah. I was 18 years old. Okay. How did you find that with all the drinking laws and the 21? Yeah.

It was quite, quite, annoying. It wasn’t as bad as people might think. Okay. We’ll leave it there. So we plan are you planning to return?

We plan to return this summer? III already signed up, and I paid the fees. And I already have my visa. And now let’s see what’s happening. Mhmm.

I have I have come been in touch about, maybe postponing or any cancellations? Or is it still going ahead as far as you as far as you know? So my camp director is, like, giving us, news, like, every 2 weeks. And, he’s positive that that it’s, happening. But I know he he said he’ll give us, more information at May 15.

So when the US, government decides what’s happening now. Mhmm. It’s all in their hands, sort of thing. Yeah. How do you feel about going?

Because if I if I was returning this year, I feel a bit anxious about going over there when. Did you fly into New York? Because Yeah. Yeah. So That’s, like, 1 of the worst affected places is, is that?

I so I’m in, Long Island, New York. That’s where my campus. And the little town that’s close is, like, 1 of the worst parts of New York. -So -Oh, yeah. -Um, I mean, if if it’s possible, I would still go.

But I I don’t I don’t really I can’t see it happening right now. Mhmm. Neither can I, to be honest? But it’s, I find it surprising to see Camp America still pushing for it because, obviously, they don’t wanna lose loads of money and, they they must be pulling their hair out at the moment. So, yeah.

So we know you’re from Germany. The question that everyone wants to know is how does the accent work in America? I think people think it’s it’s funny. Like, and people don’t think about it as much as I do. So I had I had 1 German, we had 2 German counselors in our camp.

And when I heard him speaking, I thought, ah, that sounds quite German. Yeah, but, the Americans and, Brits, they didn’t really care. Okay. So you’ve had maybe found it hard to did you were you the only German in your camp? No.

We had 1 1 other German. We had 3 Germans. It was me, Roman, and, Lena. But Lena, grew up in England. So she does speak German, but she, yeah, grew up in England.

So she’s she’s English. Okay. So the question that everyone wants to know now is, did the accent help you get, the babes? Might have helped. Okay.

So, how did you come about doing Camp America? Is it like a is it like a popular thing in Germany to go and volunteer at summer camp? No. Not at all. I don’t know anyone who does who did it.

I just, looked up, walking travel, USA. Mhmm. And that’s, like, the closest thing you can do, in the US. Yeah. And, like, I don’t think that it’s not really, popular over here.

It’s what I heard, it’s very popular in, the UK. But in the rest of Europe, I don’t think so. Ah, surprising. So you just happen to stumble upon it. You wanted to go to America, and you were like, oh, I could do this.

I could go volunteer for a bit. Yeah. I know I know Camp America is a really popular thing in the UK, and New Zealand as well is a particular hotspot. We had a at my camp when I went, we didn’t have anyone from Germany or I don’t think anyone else from the rest of Europe, but we did have Australians and a Kiwi. So, what do your what do your friends think about you going?

Have you come back and told them all your stories and now they wanna, like, come along as well or check it out? Most of my friends, are busy with, a university or, job apprenticeships. So they they are not able to do this. And, like, I I taught everything and I think they they got, like, quite annoyed after after. Yeah.

I’m, like, the only 1 who does it. And it’s it’s quite special for me to be, like, the only 1 who does it. So I’m I feel I feel a little special. Nice. Nice.

I I had a question. It’s just gone for me. It’s it’s it must have been really good that you’ve enjoyed it so much that you tried to return. I don’t think I caught what job you had while you’re at camp. Was it a counselor?

So, what I heard that, my my camp is very different than yours. Okay. So in our camp, everyone was a counselor. Like besides the directors, we had, like, 1 camp director and then, 5 or 6, unit directors. And everyone else was a counselor and, was in the department.

So I was, spot department counselor. So I was in the cabin with another with 1 co counsellor and, 6 kids a week. Mhmm. And then I still I still ran, like different activities. So it wasn’t like in your camp that the counsellors followed around the group and yeah.

Everyone was busy with their activities and Oh, okay. So, yeah, at my camp, in case people haven’t listened to this before, we had counselors that would follow the kids, and they would have dedicated people on the activities that would only do the activities, and the kids would just come through, like, a conveyor belt. But, it’s interesting to hear how it’s, it can be so different at different places. So with the campers at yours, what what camp did you go to? Sorry.

Was it It was, the Peconic Dunes 4 h camp in Long Island. Okay. So at at that camp, were kids just coming in every week? Yes. We had a different, group of kids every week.

Okay. What what was it like in your camp? So ours was a Jewish summer camp, Camp Carmen, and, we had 2, 2 sessions of kids, which would last a month each. So you’d have a month of kids and then a 2 day break and then another month of kids, and then it’ll be finished. Wow.

That sounds, intense. It was intense. I loved it, though. I can imagine what was it like at at yours maybe getting to know the kids if you’re only seeing them for a week? Did you remember did you have favorite campers or I definitely have favorite campers.

And, I had campus I had weeks where I didn’t like any where everyone was, just, like, hard to handle. Mhmm. And, sometimes I wish, like, okay, couldn’t this kid, like, stay a few more weeks? Did you have troublesome kids as well? The ones that, would maybe push your buttons, try and annoy you, try to get away with with things.

Oh, yeah. I I had, like, in my first 2 weeks, I had, that could could also stay for more weeks. But, it’s usual that they stay for 1 week. I had should I say his name? III can predict the name.

So he he was a brad. He oh. What did he do to you? He he just didn’t didn’t listen. Like, I said, okay.

We we’re we’ll all go to take a shower now. And he said, why? I have had a shower yesterday. I don’t want to take a shower. I don’t take showers, daily.

We’re brushing our teeth now. Why? I brushed my teeth this morning. No, why? Always always this.

He says why. Always in this long Yeah. Version. He said why? No.

So did you have any experience of, like, working with children before camp? Like, what what did you put down in your profile when you first applied? I was a soccer coach, football coach. I had a group of 10 year olds. Yeah.

And that was quite good. So I could, go into the sports department. Okay. I remember you’re from Hamburg. Do you support?

Who do you support? I do, I support, Dortmund. Okay. But, like, you you have to support Hamburg as well. Like, it it would be great if they come to the 1st division again.

They’ve been relegated? Yeah. They they were relegated, 2 years ago, 2 seasons ago or 3 seasons ago. Yeah. Oh, damn it.

I’ve actually been to Hamburg myself, actually. How did you like it? That’s really nice. I went to the, do you have the the miniature museum? Yeah.

Yeah. I forget what it’s called. Miniature miniature Wonderland. I didn’t do the dungeon because we have a similar 1 in London, and I’m too scared. But this miniature this miniature world, I’ve never seen anything like it before.

It’s like miniature character characters and worlds and Yeah. Model train sets and it’s unbelievable. Highly recommend, check it out on YouTube if, you don’t go visit yourselves. So back to camp. What type of camp was it?

Was it was it like a normal, traditional camp? Was it religious 1? Was it, underprivileged? It wasn’t normal camp. It wasn’t, religious at all.

Yeah. And I think it was more onto the fun part. So, that the kids, like, can get out of their, Long Island’s rich kid lives. Yeah. Did you have any kids that were, like, related to celebrities?

Or No. Not not that I know. Okay. I guess it can be different when you’ve got, like, kids just for a week and then they’re gone, and then kids for a week and then gone. And, must be must be difficult.

So how long was your camp in total? Sorry. It was 10 weeks. Oh, we had 8 weeks where the kids were there, and before we had 2 weeks of, preparation. Mhmm.

How did you find this? So we we we call that our staff week where it would just be only us to do our training. How do you find that? Was it full of icebreakers and teaching you stuff over and over again, making sure you know what you’re doing and showing you things around camp, or was it, like, learning the activities because you have to lead? I don’t know.

What sort of activities did you have? So I was in the sports department, and, we had, soccer, handball, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, Gaga ball, that’s a -Yeah, All the kids go crazy for Gaga. Oh, you Gaga Ball. Gaga. And it was it was crazy.

I had to give it a try when I was over there just to see what the hype was about, and it was so much fun. It’s like dodge dodgeball, but 10 times 10 times the the the pressure and the tension in all enclosed. Gaga is way too cool. Yeah. Yeah.

We we were hanging out in the departments a lot And, yeah, we’re doing, sessions over and over again. We had, like, people coming in to tell us stuff about ticks and other insects and how to how to treat kids and, what not to do. Yeah. It was, quite, boozy. Boozy?

Yeah. You could you could drink? No. Not not not on camp. No.

That wasn’t that hard. Wait. Should I should I talk about this? Yes. Yeah.

We just had some some fun after after work Okay. At the beach. Oh, nice. So you were you allowed out of camp after your shift? Yes.

So we had 2 weeks 2 nights off a week and, the Saturday from 12 to Sunday 12. Uh-huh. Off and, yeah, we could do anything. And, it was recommended to go off camp, yeah, to get your head head free and yeah. Do stuff with your friends and don’t think about camping and during that time.

Nice. I think that’s a lot more relaxed than I had it. We would, we had a certain allocation of hours that would have to be spread over the month. And, typically, it would be maybe 1 evening off a week. Mhmm.

Then maybe in the next week, we’d have a full day. Wow. Yeah. It was pretty tough. But I I think I’m not sure if it’s the same same for you, but, working at summer camp was so full on and and, very it’s, like, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, it’s just work, work, work, work, work.

And then only in the evenings when you get to chill out with your friends, you’re like, wow. That was such a cool day. There’s so much that happened and, and that sort of thing. It was the most exhausting, job I ever had. Mhmm.

But it’s, still the best job I ever had. It’s, 1 of the, like, best summers in my life. Yeah. I I don’t regret regret anything. Mhmm.

So I missed a little bit of school, like, 4 weeks, but that’s that was totally worth it. That’s good to hear. A a question that’s just popped into my head is the drama in camp. I don’t know if you have big brother in Germany. But it felt it felt like big brother where everything’s in a bubble, everyone’s like getting on top of each other, having arguments, flirting, the hooking up, and people would get fired as well.

Did anyone get fired from your camp? Yeah. We had 1 guy getting fired. Any any juicy stories? So, he was weird.

He was he was cool. I I liked him. But he he didn’t want to listen. So he, treated some, campus better than others. He hung out a lot with, the older girls.

And our camp director didn’t like that. And he told him, yes, stop that and, distance a little. And he kept, he kept, making them, like, like, presents and stuff. And that was that was quite weird. So, at 1 point, it was enough.

And he said, our camp director said, yeah. Okay. You have to go. Okay. I think every summer, at least from what I’ve heard, someone gets fired from camp.

So that seems to follow the trend. What highlights of camp do you have? Oh, we had 1 1 activity called adventure trail. So we had a trail through the forest, and through the dunes. And me and, my mate, Jake, we we tried to make the best out of it.

We we made stories for the kids. Like, we had the prison escape, adventure trail for the younger guys. So we ran through the forest and, they had to hide, from the cops. Or, like, we had, keys or stuff so they had to find them. For the older guys we had a military, thing.

So, they had to do, like, a little boot camp. That was that was quite cool. Yeah. And camp in general is is such a nice, environment and so different from what I know from home. And we don’t have anything like that at home.

And that was quite special for me to experience that. Yeah. I found that as well, being in all the nature and being away from technology. I don’t know if it it was the case in your account, but, you’d have no you’d have no, mobile phone signal to be cut off from the outside world, and you’d be able to just chill out, be yourself, make some a load of new friends. And, yeah, being a a little bit carefree, I guess.

Yeah. A capri is is is a good word. Like, Canva is the only thing that, that cares right now. And, like, it was different for us In Peconic Goons, we had, Wi Fi, but it was, forbidden to use your phone in front of the kids. And when you’re on, your phone had to be in your pocket or in the cabin or like your backpack or something, so you were not allowed to take it out.

And, yeah, we had we didn’t have any, like, technology for the kids. Yeah. They were they weren’t allowed to have the phones as well. So it was was, different from, like, my usual life. Yeah.

And, well, yeah, it was the best time. I don’t know if I can say that, but probably the best time of my life. Yeah. Well, that’s exactly how I felt, like, while I was there. I I came to realize, like, holy hell, like, this is insane.

Like, when when I would be sitting on the porch late at night with friends that I’d only made at camp, like, when I went to camp to begin with, I didn’t know anyone. And over the course of volunteering at the summer camp, you get so close with people there that I still stay in touch with them today. And we we still talk about those nights at camp where it’s just insane, incredible memories, and that sort of stuff. So, personally, I like to stay in touch with them and try and arrange more travels, but, whether it lives up to what the summer camp itself was, it’s, to be, to be found. So we’ll see.

Where did you travel after camp? Did you did you use the is it AJ2 visa that you get over in Germany? Yeah. It was AJ1 visa. Yeah.

Okay. I didn’t travel much. I went to New York City. My my siblings came from Germany for a week. And, yeah, we had just a week in New York City, Explored the city.

Yeah, we were sleeping in, Brooklyn, in Bedford’s Diversend. It’s like a little dodgy area. It was a bit scary, but it was it was, cool. Yeah. I’ll, it was it was cool that my siblings came, like, picked me up from from America.

Nice. Do you have any plans, for this summer? So if if you if you’d happen to go over there this year, do you have plans on where you’d like to travel, or are you just gonna see that it what happens with all this pandemic stuff going on at the moment before making any sort of plans? Yeah. I’ve I’ve thought about just, booking flights a hard part so I can, so I I can use my, the the travel days, the 30 days.

Now I want to just look what I think we will just plan during the summer so we can see because, like, everyone gets different amount of money. Yeah. We can we can then see what everyone does. Mhmm. Are all your friends from the 1st summer coming returning as well?

Most of them from you. Yeah. And many from from the UK? Yeah. Most of the American Americans do.

My other German, counselor, he he can’t come back because he’s at uni. But besides that, yeah, almost, like, most of them. Nice. They’re important people for me. Yeah.

That that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Like like I say, I only went for, 2 summers at my camp, but, once your friends start to drop off, then you’re just a bit like, I don’t really wanna do it all over again. It can be hard to keep replicating that same feeling from your first summer account. We’re on to the last question now. And oh, actually, there’s 2 2 more questions.

The first the first of the last 2 is what would you say to someone thinking of doing Camp America? Just do it. Don’t think about it. Even, like, if you think it’s too expensive, it’s it’s not really expensive. You get you earn money in America.

And, it’s it’s such a good experience, and it’s, like, worth any every cent I I invested. So this is the last question And, I hope to ask everyone this going forward, seeing as you’re, like, the first proper interview I’ve had apart from the Scott episode I’ve done before. What food or smell will bring you back to summer camp? You can think about this 1. There’s no rush.

Shepherd’s pie? Yeah. Or Shepherd’s pie. Like, we we don’t have Shepherd’s pie in Germany. And, it does.

Like, it was bad bad 1, bad Shepherd’s pie. So it wasn’t, like but, if I could eat it now, I would I would I like, yeah, fajitas. Yeah. These little Mexican stuff or burgers. Sloppy Joe.

I’ve never had Sloppy Joe. Oh, it’s the worst. It’s just so it’s a bun with, like, sloppy meat and sauce in it. That that that doesn’t sound appetizing at all. But, yeah, we’ve come to the end.

I never thought I’d have someone listening from Germany. So, thanks for being on. Do you have any questions for me or you’re done? I hope you will keep going with the podcast. Yeah.

It gives me the it gives me the camp vibes. Thank you. It helps me through this through this time. I’ll try to keep it up. Yeah.

Like I like I said to you before, the whole crisis with this pandemic at the moment is is crazy. And if Capital America decides to shut all applications going over there, then I’d have to consider, like, what I do about the podcast. But I’d like to keep it on. But, like I say, I’m trying to promote a book here, and I don’t think there’s much point in doing a load of podcast content if, you know, no one’s gonna be looking at that sort of thing and everyone’s gotta hunker down, but I appreciate that. It’s nice to hear.

Yeah. When is your book coming? Well, it’s been in the works for, I’d say, around 4 years where I’ve just been editing and making it better and that sort of thing. The current state of the book is I’ve found an editor that I like. I’ve pushed the book as far as I can, and, I’m about to send it over to them.

However, they’re they’re a bit caught up in this coronavirus thing as well, which is a little bit crazy because I never thought it would affect my book, but here we are. It is. I’d hope my my plan was to release it this year, September, but, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens, with what my editor’s doing and whether they can get it out in time. So I’ll post updates to the website.

I’ll post updates to my Instagram and Twitter and blah blah blah blah blah, All all that good things. But yeah. Thanks for being on. Thank you for having me. No worries.

Here’s something that puts a lot of people off applying to Camp America before they’ve even started: the creeping feeling that they don’t have enough experience to get hired. No youth work on the CV. No formal qualifications in childcare. Never actually run a campfire in their life. Good news: that’s fine. Genuinely. Camp America is not looking exclusively for people with a stack of professional credentials. It’s looking for people who are enthusiastic, adaptable, and good with kids — and those qualities can come from a lot of places. What “Experience” Actually Means to a Camp When a camp looks at your application, they’re not running it through an HR system scoring your formal qualifications out of ten. They’re asking a much simpler question: do I think this person can be trusted with my campers? Experience that answers that question doesn’t have to be formal. Think about the things you’ve done that involved being responsible, working with young people, or operating in any kind of team or outdoor setting: – Babysitting or looking after younger siblings or cousins – Being involved in any youth group — Scouts, Guides, Cadets, sports teams, drama groups – Sports coaching or refereeing, even at a junior or amateur level – Teaching, tutoring, or mentoring in any form – Any skill that could translate to a camp activity — music, art, climbing, swimming, archery, drama, photography None of these require a certificate. They just need to be real, and you need to be able to talk about them genuinely in an interview. Building Experience Quickly If you feel like you genuinely have nothing relevant to point to, there are ways to change that fairly quickly before you apply:

1. Volunteer with a youth group. Scouts, Guides, St John Ambulance, any local youth organisation will typically welcome volunteer help and give you direct experience working with children in a structured environment. Even a few months of this makes a meaningful difference to an application.
2. Get a first aid certificate. The Red Cross and St John Ambulance run basic first aid courses that take a weekend. Camps love this — it’s a concrete, verifiable qualification that shows you’re serious about looking after people.
3. Get your swim qualifications. Lifeguarding and swim instructor qualifications are among the most in-demand skills at any camp with a waterfront. If you can swim and are willing to do the course, this will get you placed faster and in better roles.

What to Say in the Interview If a camp interviewer asks about your experience and your honest answer is “not much formal stuff, but here’s what I have done,” say exactly that. Camps interview a lot of people and they can tell the difference between someone who’s genuinely enthusiastic and has some relevant background versus someone who’s trying to bluff their way through. Be honest, be specific about the things you have done, and be clear about what you’re excited to learn. That combination will get you further than overselling a thin CV. The Bottom Line Camp America is specifically designed to take international volunteers, many of whom are recent school or university leavers with limited formal experience. The programme exists precisely because camps need staff and are willing to train enthusiastic people who fit the culture. If you’re worried about your experience level — apply anyway. The worst that happens is you get some interview practice. The full story of how a computer science graduate with no outdoor experience ended up as an Outdoor Living Specialist is in the book. Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

In 2017, I wrote a blog post asking where I saw myself in five years. It was a genuine stab at putting some goals down in writing, at a time when I was fresh enough out of my summer camp adventures to still be absolutely buzzing off them, and ambitious enough to think that five years was loads of time to sort everything out. Reader, it was not loads of time to sort everything out. What Did 2017 Andrew Actually Want? The 2017 version of this blog post is sitting somewhere in the archives of andrewwaterhouse.com, preserved in all its aspirational glory. I won’t go through every line here, because some of it aged about as well as a Camp America campfire singalong being remembered five years later — warmly, but with the specific embarrassment of hearing your own old voice. What I can say is that there were some goals in there about writing, about building things, about figuring out what kind of person I was going to be. The specifics aren’t the point. The point is that 2017 Andrew thought five years was a long horizon, and 2022 Andrew is sitting here thinking where did five years go. What Actually Happened in Five Years The book is the big one. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp has been in some form since 2016, went through multiple names and revisions, survived a global pandemic and a couple of false starts, and is now — as of this week — actually out. On Amazon. A real thing that real people can buy and read. That’s not a small thing. That’s the kind of goal that takes a very long time to feel real even after it’s happened. Beyond that: life happened. In the way it tends to. Things I expected to happen didn’t; things I didn’t expect appeared from nowhere. If you want specifics about where things stand and where they’re headed, this episode is worth a listen — because it’s easier to explain in audio than in text, and also because hearing my own mild bewilderment at how quickly five years passes is funnier than reading it. Setting Goals for 2027 The interesting part of this exercise is that going through old goals forces you to write new ones. So in the podcast I also lay out where I want to be by 2027, which is — spoiler — further along than I am now in a few specific ways I won’t entirely give away here. What I will say is that the goals are anchored in the same things they’ve always been anchored in: writing, building, and trying to make something worth people’s time. The summer camp books are part of that. The podcast is part of that. Whatever comes next is part of that. The Takeaway (If There Is One) Five years is both a long time and no time at all, which is an annoying thing to say but is demonstrably true. Write the goals down anyway. You’ll either hit them or you’ll have something interesting to read back and cringe at in five years, and both outcomes are worthwhile. One of the 2017 goals that actually made it: the book is on Amazon. Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

Fair warning: this episode contains terrible renditions of some genuinely great songs. The audio quality of the singing is not the point. The point is the songs themselves, and why campfire songs are one of those things about summer camp that lodge in your brain permanently and never leave.

Why Campfire Songs Are Actually Important

This sounds like a flippant topic until you realise that campfire songs are one of the most consistent pieces of institutional memory at any summer camp. Kids who attended the same camp ten or twenty years apart will know the same songs. The songs are part of the identity of the place in a way that very little else is.

As a counsellor — and especially as a British one who had never encountered this tradition before — learning the camp songs is one of the fastest ways to integrate. Knowing the words signals that you’re part of the community. Not knowing them signals that you’re new. The process of learning them is, weirdly, part of how camp gets under your skin.

The Classics

Most camps have a mix of their own original songs and versions of widely known campfire classics. The originals will be camp-specific and you’ll pick them up by osmosis. But the classics tend to appear at most camps in some form:

Kumbaya — Perhaps the most famous campfire song in the world and justifiably mocked at this point, but still somehow gets sung. Usually early in a session before anyone’s feeling self-conscious.

This Little Light of Mine — Genuinely joyful, works well with kids of all ages, hard to sing badly enough for it not to work.

Down by the Bay — Call-and-response format that kids love because it’s inherently silly and you can make up verses on the spot. A counsellor favourite.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) — Not a traditional campfire song by any stretch, but The Proclaimers have somehow become campfire canon. Andrew can confirm this one appears.

Camp-specific songs — Every camp has them. Some are beautiful. Some are aggressively catchy in the way that only children’s songs can be, meaning you’ll be humming them in a supermarket in England six years later and not being able to explain why.

The Campfire Itself

The songs are only part of it. The actual campfire — particularly if you’re running it as an Outdoor Living Specialist like Andrew was — is an experience in itself. Building a proper campfire that stays lit, produces minimal smoke, and doesn’t accidentally set anything else on fire is a genuine skill. The kids watching you do it don’t know that. To them you’re basically a wizard.

S’mores are mandatory. If you don’t know what a s’more is: graham cracker, toasted marshmallow, square of chocolate. You press it together. It is not a complicated concept but it is a disproportionately good food item and American children take it very seriously.

Read my hilarious, touching diaries from volunteering at a summer camp here:

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans

 

Smoking at summer camp can be a grey area, especially for those applying through Camp America. In this podcast episode, we discuss if you can smoke at Camp America, as well as an update on Coronavirus.

Transcript from the podcast

Hello and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse, and in today’s episode, we’re taking a look at whether you can smoke while working at summer camp. So coming into our tent and I’ll spill the beans…

He’s on a quest! He’s on a quest… No, he’s not, he’s just answering questions.

Introduction – Coronavirus Updates

Hello, everyone and welcome to another Friday episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp because we’ve got Coronavirus. Well, speaking of which we actually do have a Coronavirus update to provide you kicking off this Friday episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. So this one comes from Camp America. The update was literally the day I’m recording this Thursday, the 16th of April. So just so you’re all aware, I will try and keep these up to date and anything around Coronavirus and summer camps I’ll try and include within my podcast episodes.

Now, this one is speaking of course around the camp closures and weather camps still going ahead Camp America is still going ahead. And pretty much in short, Camp America is waiting for the governments of the US and the different states and the US Department of State to all work together and monitor their activity and guidance around travelling into America.

So America themselves are expecting an update from the Department of State by mid-May. So there is some confusion around it am I still go into camp? And what happens if I’ve got my flight out there before mid-May? So Camp America are actually getting in touch with these participants who are expecting to depart within the month of May. And you will shortly be contacted if you haven’t already. And Camp America will be working with you and your camp to make sure that any changes that need to be made will be made.

So this brings up the question of what’s actually happening with summer camps. And there has been a small number of camps that have sadly taken the decision to close their doors for the summer, which of course is a really terrible decision for any camp director to make. Camp America has itself been around since 1969. I’m sure there have been occasions when some camps would close. But I don’t think anything on a grander scale than what Coronavirus is doing to the travel industry, Camp America is going to be hit really hard by this.

So as a result, Camp America are working directly with the participants who have had their camps cancelled to either find a new position for the summer at a different camp potentially or to defer their application to the next summer.

Get in Touch if you were affected by closed camps

Now that’s pretty much all the details we have around the cancellation side of things. So if you are one of these people that have been affected, please get in touch and let me know what’s going on with your application you can go to our contact us page. And you can send me a form. It’d be interesting to hear what about people that just want to cancel their thing and just get the money back is there’s no real mention of money. Well, particularly around the Camp America fees and the visa fees, the passport. Personally, I suspect that most of the money that’s been into the Camp America program this summer will be just lost because these are fees, passport fees, checks, they’ve all been completed and Camp America have bought loads of flights.

So from the flights side of things, that’s something for Camp America to worry about and try and get their money back for the new participants to Camp America. For those that have been returning to a summer camp for a second summer or subsequent summers. You will obviously be working with your airline to get that money back rather than through Camp America. But for the fees side of things, the visas, the checks they’ve all been completed. The only thing that’s not happening is the actual going over there.

So there are a lot of things up in the air at the moment, I’d highly suggest getting in touch with your summer camp agency if you have any questions about this. I’m literally just reading off an FAQ blog post from Camp America who has recently posted.

By Camp America, I mean all similar agencies

If I haven’t said so already in this episode, I should really say it with every episode. When I do mention the words Camp America, I do try and encompass all of the summer camp agencies out there. There are plenty of them. There are upwards of five. There’s that plenty where’s the definition for plenty but seriously, I focused on Camp America, particularly Just because I did it myself. And I think that’s a real common slang name for going over to America to volunteer at a summer camp when you’re coming from abroad. Now, many camps are gonna be working on their different plans for the summer, they will have their Plan A or Plan B, the Plan C, and many more plans for the weeks and many camps are honestly considering amending their summers, which could mean that you start earlier or later and have shorter, shorter sessions. But if this is the case, of course, Camp America has been actually pretty generous here. And you will still receive the full pocket money allowance that you get, which is a term, I totally forgot that they use the words pocket money as the money that they pay you for going over there and volunteering for the summer. So if you’ve already got your wages, your number for the wages that you’re going to be getting while in summer camp, and you’re going to be maybe delayed and pushed back maybe a month or two, you’ll still get that full allowance, which is quite nice.

An update on Coronavirus and summer camp

So obviously, this is a challenging time for everyone and Camp America, we’re going to be taking a massive, massive hit. So obviously, as with everything at the moment, you’re going to have to have patience, and you’re going to have to remain positive guys, because these guys are really passionate about trying to get you over there for the summer. But really, this is really out of their hands. And it’s out of a lot of people’s hands. There are so many plans that have just fallen through and all sorts. So one of the things that come from their blog post is, if summer does not go ahead, there will be options in place.

Rest assured they will take the health and safety of the applicants very seriously. And we will not expect participants to travel if travel bans are in place. And they finish off the blog post with in true camp style you have banded together and been incredibly understanding. For now, we ask you to wait a little longer until we have further information. Once we have heard from the Department of State, we will update you once again. If you do have any questions, they do have a phone number there, I would recommend going on to the campamerica.co.uk website where they have further information on the Coronavirus. And with that all out of the way. Let’s crack on with the rest of this episode.

Can you smoke while working with Camp America?

So can you smoke in camp America? We’ll start this off with my own personal opinion. And then we’ll move on to the more official line.

Okay, so most camps let you smoke at camp, okay.

But there has to be a line there has to be moderation with this, I would say personally two or three times a day maximum.

And you should only really be smoking while on your break.

And honestly, don’t be a dick and take it when others other people that you’re working with have to pick up extra work because you’re going off to have a smoke that’s really crossing the line and isn’t accepted at all at summer camp. You’re there for the kids at the end of the day. And if you’re going off to have a smoke every hour, every couple of hours even, you’re going to be frowned upon and you’re going to be brought to one side saying, pretty much look, calm it down.

Smoking area and breaks

So typically there’s going to be a smoking area. And this is going to be normally away from the kids as well as it being very well ventilated, so you don’t stink of smoke when you come back. So you do really have to consider all of these things. At my camp, we had somewhere well above and out of the way of summer camp. So the kids would have no way to know nor see the smokers. And it was really in moderation. I think some people that would normally smoke a pack a day were having one a day in the evening.

Put it on your summer camp profile

One thing that I’d really recommend around this piece, if you are really concerned about having a smoker at Camp America is, I would put it on your Camp America profile because then camps will know before hiring you that you like to have a smoke. And you can also bring it up in a video interview. I think it’s one of the questions that they may actually ask you whether you smoke because, of course, different camps have different rules, some of them won’t even let you smoke at all.

The official rules on smoking from Camp America

So this actually brings me to the next point, which is the official line from Camp America, which is really interesting. Actually, I didn’t think of this I’ll read this word for word just so I get it totally clear. And then we’ll have a discussion piece around this. So when you’re applying to Camp America, there’s a total massive long list of a contract that you have to sign and part the part that’s around the smoking is particularly interesting. Okay, so here we go.

Analysis of Camp America’s smoking policy

So you agree to abide by all lawful rules and reasonable regulations of Camp America contained herein and of the camp you have which you are placed. Please be advised that all camps have a strict no alcohol or drugs policy. Some are zero-tolerance policy camps. Some also have no smoking policies that may extend to local towns as well as campgrounds. Most camps also operate a curfew require requiring you to return to camp by a deadline when on time off. If you break any of these rules, you will be required to leave camp immediately, and be responsible for your own costs. And for costs incurred by Camp America through non payment or reduced payment or fees by the camp.

It is illegal to buy, consume or be in possession of alcohol under the age of 21. In the USA, in line with standard protocols when working with children and vulnerable adults, participants are expected to ensure all social media accounts are set to private prior to departure to the US. Participants are required to supply personal social media accounts as part of the visa application process. And the US Embassy may use this information to determine suitability for the program.

The Smoking and Drinking Laws in America

Well, well, well, that is some juicy real juiciness coming from Camp America with all their guidance. And it’s I wouldn’t say it’s guidance, it’s the fucking like law pretty much. So it surprised me to hear that all camps have a strict no alcohol or drugs policy. I’ve read plenty of other summer camp novels and diaries and insights and blog posts. So yeah, in those blog posts in those books and stuff, some of them are a lot more relaxed than my camp was around the alcohol side of things. Man, that was literally zero tolerance, it was literally just like this, if you’re seeing with any sort of alcohol, you’re out of there. If you came back drunk, you were out of there, you had to buy the next flight home out of your own back pocket, and you wouldn’t be paid for the time that you had worked at your summer camp. So of course, with everything I’m saying, please, please follow this guidance, this sort of thing, this law, this thing that you’ve signed up for is the contract, okay. But all I’m saying is I’ve seen blog posts and books written where camps were a lot less relaxed.

Smoking rules depend on the camp you work at

Of course, if your camp is more relaxed, then that would have precedent over something like this, because they wouldn’t be bringing you up on a no-alcohol policy if your camp itself has a more relaxed alcohol policy. That is the line from Camp America, no alcohol, that makes sense. Camps will also have no smoking policies that may extend to local towns and campgrounds. Most camps also operate a curfew requiring to return to camp by a deadline when on time off. That pretty much makes sense to me as well. But in my camp, we had a smoking area, which was a lot more nice. And I think it actually means that camps can hire a lot broader range of staff without having to cut people out of their recruitment process just because they like to have a smoke in the evening.

I think that pretty much covers everything smoking-wise. Of course, if you do smoke, I’d highly recommend putting it into your Camp America profile, it might put off some camps from hiring you in the first place. But it will mean that you’ll be able to get the camps that don’t really mind the smoking side of things. As long as it’s in moderation, as I’ve said before, the part they have about the social media when you go and get a visa. Now, that was really surprising to me. But it’s a guideline that’s been in place since I went to Camp America in 2014. And 2015.

The whole thing around social media is you won’t really want your social media to be privatized and locked down because kids are going to be searching for you while they finish their session of camp for the summer. Or they look forward to the people that have mentioned the camp and then they’re like, ah, no, I know this guy is going to be working on my summer camp this year. So they really do like to dig deep, and try and find out as much information about camp that’s coming up because summer camp is their main thing they look forward to every year.

Smoking at camp and your social media

So trust me when I say this, they’re gonna dig deep into these sorts of things. But this guidance from Camp America is particularly around the visa application process, which wasn’t in place when I went to summer camp. As far as I’m aware, I didn’t have to supply any social media documentation to the visa application for them to look through my social media and see whether I’d been suitable for such a visa application to a summer camp. This makes a lot of sense to me, but it does have some like privacy concerns in my opinion, but I think it’s always smart to have your social media locked down anyway. You don’t want people to be seeing everything that you’ve been doing and if you’ve been a lot of people that apply to Camp America, those that are recently out of university and if you’ve got loads of pictures of you get an absolutely smashed and your profile picture is you drunk on the floor, they’re not going to want to hire you.

So this really sums up like the whole stance that you should have when you go to any interview to be honest so I think with our other way I think that pretty much wraps up the question of can you can smoke at Camp America?

I did intend for these Friday episodes to be a lot shorter but I think this one there was so much content to actually provide you guys and I really enjoyed actually recording this episode. There was things that I learned that I didn’t know were policy around Camp America and particularly the update around Coronavirus as well as how you can get actually get kicked out if you don’t follow the camp rules.

Okay, so without the way guys that’s another episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on Instagram at There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. Next week’s episode is coming up on Tuesday and in this one we’re going to be taking a look at the best campfire songs and who knows I might do a little jingle myself.

Okay, once again guys, thanks for listening. Please subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and check out the book. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp which is available on Amazon.

https://theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com

I’ll see you on Tuesday keep thriving and surviving.

When working at summer camp, you’ll be surrounded by a ton of new cultures and particularly, Americans. they’re obsessed with us, so in this episode, we discuss all you can expect being a Brit in America.

Driving while volunteering with Camp America can bring many great perks to your summer camp experience. How does it all work out, and how can you apply? Listen to this week’s Questions episode to find out!

Transcription from the Podcast

Hello and welcome to the Question series by There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. In this episode, we’re taking a look at how you can drive while out volunteering with Camp America. So without further ado, play the intro.

Q U E S T. He’s on a quest! He’s on a quest!… No, he’s not just answering questions.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode, a Friday episode of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. I’m your host, Andrew Waterhouse. And each episode we are looking at different questions that people have around volunteering with Camp America. Well, we do that every Friday, and on every Tuesday, if you’re new here, we take a look at other broader topics.

Driving with Camp America when British

But in this episode, we’re taking a look at how you can drive while out there volunteering with Camp America. I have to preface this video with some not so much warnings… But a bit of a head’s up this video… This podcast and blog are specifically for those that are British,

I’m pretty sure that other countries will follow a similar kind of process. But this podcast is for those that are volunteering from the UK to apply through a program like Camp America, Camp Leaders or any of those sorts of places.

My experience of driving in America while volunteering

Now, to be able to drive in America, I do have to give you a bit of a backstory because I have done two summers of Camp America myself. In the first summer of going over there, I had no idea that I’d even be needed to drive cars. In the second summer, however, I was more than excited to get my name down and have a vehicle to be able to drive out of camp and do not only my job of doing the campout, the campfires taking kids on hikes, canoe trips, and all those sorts of things, but also more fun things as well. So I could like drive out and get some takeaways and bring them back into camp and do those sorts of shenanigans.

How to drive in America when volunteering at summer camp

So let’s address the question of this episode. How do I drive if I want to go out into America? So what you really, really need is a driving license. Of course, you need to have a driving license from the UK. Before you go ahead with any of this if you don’t have a driving license, why are you even contemplating driving in the U. S, A. without one!? So make sure you get your driving license first in the UK, then you apply for an international driving permit.

International Driving Permit

Now this permit allows you to drive in countries where a UK driving licence alone is not sufficient. And these countries include the USA, Brazil, Japan and some others. So as soon as you get this, you’ll be able to drive in all of those, not just the USA. Now there are over 140 countries that are would require something like this document, as well as your driving license for you to be allowed to drive abroad with your license.

So what do you need to do?

Well, the first place that you really need to head to is the post office, the post office handles all of these. And what you want to take with you is your photo card, a driving license, a passport-sized photograph, which pretty much is a passport photo as well. And your passport as well as proof of ID. So you take your driving license, you take your passport photo, you take your passport, as well as a proof of ID. And then you go and find a post office that is able to give these out. So please do check on the post office websites for nearby post offices that allow international driving permits to be produced there as well. You take all these documents, and you queue up in a normal post office, and you have a £50 application fee to pay.

That is all you literally take all these documents, you put them in front of the post office worker, they go and stamp a few papers and write your name down and that sort of thing. And then they hand you back all of those things, as well as an international driving permit, specifically international driving permit 1949. And that’s it.

There is no extra test – just paperwork!

So with all these documents now you’re actually free to go abroad and start driving and make sure of course you have to bring your bring all of these documents with you. So you want to bring your visa, of course, that allows you to get into the country. You want to bring your passport that allows you to get in the country and you want to bring your driving license, as well as this slip of paper that basically says he’s allowed to drive in the USA, there’s not much to it at all. There’s no like hidden terms and conditions. And it’s no more expensive than £50, I really don’t understand why we need to sign this sort of thing, because there’s no test. There’s no background checks, there’s nothing whatsoever other than bring in some forms give us £5 and we’ll stamp a piece of paper for you to say that you’re allowed to go.

Becoming a driver at your camp

So once you get to your camp, this isn’t done through Camp America. By the way, if you want to be a driver at your camp, it’s all done through your camp. It’s not done through Camp America, I don’t think I’m 96.4% certain that you don’t apply through Camp America to be a driver. If you want to be a driver, you get hired as a normal specialist or counselor first at your camp.

And then you can go over to your camp and say, look, I’ve got all these documents. I really want to drive his all the stuff that you need. Am I okay to do this? And they should be able to go yeah, here you go. Here’s a car, and you can take it for a spin.

What about insurance?

Now everything to do with insurance and that sort of thing. That’s all covered through camp, whether they have insurance or not depends on what state and what regulations they have to follow. But 90% of the time, you’re all covered. It’s all cool.

So I think that pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the international driving permit, which allows you to drive in the USA, with Camp America, and all that sort of thing. Of course, this actually lasts between one and three years depending on how how much you want to buy this thing I think they asked you at the desk.

Can I drive after camp?

So even after your camp has finished, you’re able to still go ahead and drive in the States if you want to. And with that episode we’re at the end.

Guys, I hope you enjoyed this one. Catch me on Tuesday where we’re going to be discussing the questions you can expect from being a Brit working in Camp America, its going to be a fun one guys.

Keep safe and productive.

Keep thriving and surviving.

I’ll see you next Tuesday guys.

Peace out.

My story of volunteering with Camp America for the first summer is available now on Amazon. Check it out if you’d be so kind! Click here.