All The Cool Adults Apparently Heading To Grown-Up Summer Camps

Anyone who’s spent the intervening years since the dawning of adulthood and its subsequent loss of a guaranteed three-month vacation, dreaming of bunk beds and bug juice, you might think all hope of going back to camp is lost. But it ISN’T! You can still go canoeing and make lanyards, or be an actual adult about it and go to wine camp. There’s something for everyone these days.

In a round-up of adult camps, the Wall Street Journal points out there are plenty of ways for adults to relive what a lot of us see as the best times in childhood. And according to the American Camp Association, a million adults went to the around 800 adult camps last summer.

We picked out a few categories that sound fun and could make for a different kind of vacation this year — even if you don’t have the entire summer off to plot your grand makeout session with Bobby from Vermont.

Band camp redux: So perhaps there was that one time, at band camp, where you finally felt like you belonged and were one with the music. You can sing or play your heart out again with music camps, like Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and its adult summer camp. There are programs including choral music, concert band and chamber music all geared toward grownups.

“I had the time of my life,” says one adult attendee who went last year. “It’s a magical, creative place. People are fulfilling dreams and working hard to elevate themselves in their crafts.”

She and her family rented a house on a nearby lake but there are accommodations on campus, including dorms and lakeside cabins. So you can sneak out and find Bobby/Jenny, if he/she is still around.

What you think of when you think of camp: Ah, the great outdoors! Full of nature and plenty of opportunities for the almighty campfire. Why not trying the grown-up pursuit of bird-watching at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine?  There’s hiking, exploring and of course, bird-watching during the day and tasty lobster and “cream puffins” at night while listening to lectures in a 19th-century farmhouse on the ocean.

There’s also a YMCA camp called the Active Older Adults’ Camp if you really want to dig into your past and go canoeing, try archery, yoga and square dancing.

But let’s just be adults and drink: So you love food and wine, like many of us that are of age. There’s a wine camp in Napa Valley at Schramsberg Vineyards in Calistoa, Calif, where campers learn all about wine during three-day sessions. Campers go through about five bottles of wine in that time and learn how wine is made, as well as actually use a grape press and more. Oh and you get to open a bottle of bubbly with a saber and eat a lot of tasty food.

I still want to be a cowboy: Not really ready to admit you’ve grown up? Well there’s such a thing as cowboy camp, so there you go. Arizona Cowboy College offers lessons on riding horses and roping and herding heads of cattle before cowboys and cowgirls head out to a ranch for four days. It’s a working cattle ranch, and campers usually sleep under the stars or in a rustic bunkhouse. City Slickers, anyone?

For more adult camp options check out the source link below. Pardon me while I go find that picture of Bobby from Vermont.

The Best Summer Camps for Grown-Ups [Wall Street Journal]

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