Hey, Campers!

There’s a lot that can be said about summer camp, but first and foremost, you can say that camp is FUN! It’s literally designed for fun with activities, teamwork, and most of all making friends. In fact, making friends is one of the most important parts about camp!

The act of making friends at camp may sound daunting or even a little scary to some of us who may be on the shier side, but making friends at camp is actually one of the easiest parts of your summer camp stay.

As easy as it is, making friends truly is the ticket to enjoying your camp stay. Once you make friends with your cabin mates (which starts happening instantly) you have a band of people that you can talk to, laugh with, play with, and do everything else with for the remainder of your stay!

Socializing and getting to know the other kids around you naturally keeps your mind focused on your enjoyment of camp and you really don’t think about how much you miss your dog or wish you were home. It’s the best way to prevent homesickness! Sure, you still miss home, you just don’t dwell on it.

Sharpening your social skills and making friends is what summer camp’s all about! A good camp provides a world in which kids meet kids on neutral ground and respect one another. Whether it takes teamwork to finish a task or simply joining in on a mean game of Capture-the-Flag, connecting to the community of your camp will impart life lessons to you.

Socialization and friendships may be what camp is all about, but it’s also about you getting to know YOURSELF better. See, when you’re away from mom and dad, you make decisions differently. You even behave differently and may discover things about yourself that you didn’t even realize were there. Making new friends at camp is made possible by these discoveries and certainly helps fuel them too.

Thanks for reading, Campers!

- John

Hey, Backpackers!

Where would you be without your backpack? That uber convenient pack helps you carry your load to places where you could never carry it using only your hands and arms. But people have certainly been carrying large loads for thousands of years, so what did they do during ancient times?

As I touched on in the Blog post about the history of duffel bags, the predecessor of both backpacks and duffels, the rucksack has been around for thousands of years. Before there was a Kelty or JanSport to manufacture backpacks, they were made with the skin of an animal or wool if it was handy.

These carrying bags were primarily used by hunters to carry back their prey. You could carry them by hand or sling it over a shoulder. They were usually strong enough to carry a good load but didn’t have a very long lifespan or the ability to stand up to the elements of the outdoors. These bags came to be known as rucksacks—simple and rough but essentially a backpack.

Some time around 1915, more modern times and more modern methods of producing backpacks led to more efficient bags themselves as well as the official name ‘backpack’ that finally set it apart from its early beginnings as a rucksack. These backpacks were still far from examples today, but suitable as well as popular in the military.

Still, optimum comfort, quality, and convenience had yet to be discovered until the very end of the 50’s. Before that, backpacks were made using heavy material and crude design. It was Mr. Dick Kelty who set out to make a backpack that was lightweight and easier to carry (with a hip belt).

Thanks to Kelty’s vision of what backpacks could be, kids now use backpacks regularly in everyday life. Backpacks have become a handy means of transportation for carrying books to and from school, daily necessities for a sleepover at a friend’s house, or camping gear that’s good to have along on a hike!

Peruse our impressive collection of backpacks here at Everything Summer Camp on our main site to find great buys on these extremely useful bags. From basic book bag styles to the external frame packs, we’ve got backpacks to meet all your camping gear needs.

As always, thanks for reading, Campers!

- John

Hey, Campers!

Everywhere you turn in Hollywood, it seems like everybody involved in ‘show biz’ attended summer camp when they were younger. I’ve written about a decent number of them, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Today I want to tell you about Jon Favreau who (like his colleagues, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Downey Jr., and Adam Levine) went to French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in his childhood. Located on a private lake called Sand Pond in the western area of the Catskill Mountains, just outside Hancock, New York, French Woods has a blast every summer.

If you have interest in the performing arts, French Woods is a camp for you to check out. They offer programs in dance, theater, music, film, sports, and much more. Jon enjoyed his camp stay and developed some of his acting skills while he was there too.

He didn’t stop there, though. Jon has expanded his skill set to include screenwriting as well as directing and he has also dabbled in the realm of comedy and voice work. Not everyone knows that Jon directed movies, but everyone knows the movies that Jon’s directed: there’s Elf, the Iron Man trilogy, Cowboys & Aliens, as well as Zathura.

Jon got his first taste of recognition for the short role he played on the hit sitcom, ‘Friends’. He played Pete Becker, Monica Geller’s (Courteney Cox’s) millionaire boyfriend.

It was long after that that he started working alongside stars like Vince Vaughn (with whom Jon’s become great friends) as well as with Will Ferrell, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and Jack Nicholson!

Receiving so much enjoyment and passion through his career, Jon continues to make appearances on television and in the movies. His most recent work was once again with Mr. Vince Vaughn in ‘The Break-Up’ and he played the manager of a fast-food restaurant in the show ‘My Name is Earl’.

Take a good look at where summer camp took Jon Favreau. Where will it take you?

- John

Hey Camp Fans!

For today’s Throwback Thursday Blog post, we’re linking back to a post from nearly a year ago on June 12, written by Dr. Thurber about enjoying opening day at camp when you drop your kid off.

This post offers good pointers about savoring the moment of dropping your kid off at camp instead of worrying about getting it on video. The reason behind recording a video is to get it all on ‘tape’ so you’ll remember it forever. But really this just separates you from the moment. You won’t remember dropping your kid off at camp, you’ll remember peering through a video camera when you dropped your kid off at camp.

- John

Hey, Camp Preppers!

As anticipating parents, there’s so much you can do to help prevent your kid’s homesickness or even camp-related-anxiety prior to it. It can be a lot to keep in mind, but at the same time it all boils down to the same thing—painting camp in a positive light.

Last week we talked about preventing homesickness by keeping any doubts you may have as parents out of your kid’s head. Another simple key to preventing homesickness is not making the mistake of promising an early pickup. 

If your kids are voicing their concerns over their upcoming camp stay, it’s often the easiest answer to tell them that if they feel TOO homesick you’ll come back early to pick them up and take them home. Most first-time campers get a bit of a cold feet feeling as their camp stay approaches and this scenario happens more than you might think.

Lots of parents promise an early pickup and think that they handled the situation well but what they fail to realize is that in promising an early pickup, they’ve planted a seed in their camper’s head. That seed is the idea that even YOU—the camper’s parents—are not filled with absolute confidence about how the camp stay will go.

Kids typically have their own doubts. They certainly don’t need to hear a doubt from you. No matter what form it may be in (such as this seemingly helpful one), it will only have a negative effect. What you need to give kids is a positive reinforcement that they will inevitably have a GOOD TIME at summer camp and that there’s simply nothing to worry about.

Should your child pop the question to you, pointblank: “Will you come get me if I don’t like camp?” your best response is to address their concerns head-on. Say something like “Well, YOU may be worried about it by I really think you’ll love it at camp! Most kids get concerned about their camp stay, but in the end the fun overwhelms any feelings of being homesick.”

It’s also good to keep in mind that having feelings of homesickness is completely normal; we feel them because we miss the things that we love about our lives back home, teaching us to live without them.

Thanks for reading.

- John