Mason Marshall

A peaceful sun sets over YMCA Camp Coniston, where the author attends.

“You spent how long there?” one of my classmates asked on the first day of school. 

Nine weeks, 63 days, 1512 hours. I spent basically my entire summer before senior year at a sleepaway camp. This had been about the 50th time someone had given me a puzzled look and questioned how I chose to spend my summer. Each and every time, I took a breath, smiled and began to talk about one of my favorite things.

“The best nine weeks of my life,” I quickly responded.

If I’m being honest, I can’t blame this classmate. From an outside perspective, it sounds crazy to spend the equivalent of two months at camp. When I think of the millions of mosquito bites, constantly painful sunburns, endless walking and daily wake ups at the crack of dawn, spending any time—let alone nine weeks—at a camp sounds insane. Yet, this “insanity” has been going on since the 1800s.

The idea of an organized summer camp began in 1861 with the Gunnery Camp. Operating a homeschool for boys in Connecticut during the Civil War, Frederick W. Gunn decided to take the school on a two-week trip to set up camp in nature. 

Now, over 160 years later, more than 15,000 summer camps operate across the country, drawing in 26 million campers. So, what makes camp so special to have made it last so long?

Firstly, there are clear mental benefits for campers. Various studies have shown that after camp, campers have more confidence, less anxiety and depression and better social skills.

These effects can be attributed to many different parts of the camp experience, but I would like to pair it down to a few reasons.

The nature, the freedom, the friendships, the fun and, most importantly, the escape. Picture this: you’re having a bad day. You are tired, but the sun is shining and the cool breeze feels so inviting on your walk to breakfast. You are sad, but you can do literally anything you want for the next hour. You are stressed, but you can’t stop laughing with your best friends. You are bored, but you just jumped off the high dive. This is the escape. This beautiful mixture of nature, freedom, friendship, and fun blend together in an environment that feels complete and separate from the real world.

Environmental historian Michael B. Smith explained this idea of the escape in his article, “The Ego of the Good Camper.” Here, he detailed how summer camps were originally designed to act as a refuge to protect children’s mental welfare. They hoped to provide children with a means of escape from the hardships of the “real world.”

In the 21st century, this is more critical than ever. With college admissions getting more and more competitive, children and teens are becoming wrapped up in a race of academic rigor and prestige. This becomes especially true during their summer breaks. 

In the article, “I send my kids to sleep-away camp to give them a competitive advantage in life,” parent Laura Clydesdale defends her decision to send her kids to summer camp year after year. She claims that summer camp benefits her children by building their creativity, enhancing life skills and giving them independence. Still, she notes how her children are “missing out” on resume-building summers filled with summer classes, standardized test prep and college essay help.

Additionally, in “Summer fun takes a back seat to college resume-building,” Beth Teitell explains how one highschooler was criticized for trying to simply take a summer to hang out with friends. Another wished she was able to just relax on the beach instead of doing a summer internship at a hospital.

Even Harvard’s dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons, has found himself concerned with how teens are spending their summers that he has begged families to “bring summer back” through an “old-fashioned job” or simply more “down-time.”

While my peers were writing their college essays, I was getting shaving cream pied on my face. While my peers were taking summer classes, I was jumping in a lake fully clothed. While my peers were doing internships, I was chasing campers pretending to be a dinosaur. 

I don’t regret it at all. College applications are engulfing teens’ lives, and they deserve to have a summer escape. 

Every single one of those 1512 hours was worth it, and I wish for every other teen to experience the same joy I felt during “the best nine weeks of my life.”