Kickball was just getting started at Woodward PA, an action sports camp in Centre County. A counselor took a swig of Gatorade.
“This Gatorade is good,” she said. “I wish it had some vodka in it.”
Some of the silver-haired campers around her chuckled. Each wore highlighter yellow wristbands: “NO KIDS ALLOWED.”
It was a remarkable but increasingly common scene, as more and more people with mortgages and retirement funds take off from work to rough it at adult summer camp.
“When we were kids, it was easy,” said Julie Nafe, who is in her second year running weekend-long camps for adult equestrians in South Pottstown. “You show up, you run around all day, you have a good time and you’re not worried about anything. That’s how I really want my camps to be.”
While the Lehigh Valley doesn’t have any adult camps of its own, there are several within a reasonable driving distance taking reservations for next summer. They cater to health enthusiasts, horse riders, skateboarders, and girls who just want to have fun, among others. But proximity isn’t stopping campers — people from as far away as Europe and Australia are trekking to Penn’s Woods for the chance to feel like a kid again.
Haley Maruschak didn’t have to travel that far. The 32-year-old Bethlehem resident drove solo about two hours to the northernmost reaches of Wayne County for a three-day weekend at Camp Social. The $849, women-only camp has received outsized attention from establishment media and influencers alike.
Maruschak said she heard about Camp Social through an Instagram ad last year, and it was an “instant follow.”
“Their account has promo reels from the first weekend that was hosted, with sprinkled references to ‘The Parent Trap,’ ‘Princess Diaries,’ etc., all movies I loved as a tween and a time I miss dearly for the simpler days,” she said. So Maruschak added her name to the reportedly 60,000-person-plus waitlist.
The youth camp veteran said her goals for the weekend were to “seriously connect with other women: no phones, no boys, no bras, all good times and good vibes.”
While there were quite a few male staff on-site (Camp Social requested The Morning Call to send a female reporter) and many women had phones (the reception was terrible), Maruschak said the camp “exceeded every expectation,” and she was grateful she had her phone on hand to “capture so many great moments.”
“To do some activities I haven’t done in 15-plus years was what made me excited about the weekend and part of the charm of connecting within your inner girlhood,” she said. “When and where else can I sit on the green, watching ‘The Parent Trap’ with literally hundreds of other women, as we clap and cheer to our favorite scenes?”
The camp itself is highly curated — and awash in sponsorships. A custom-branded Dunkin’ truck, buckets of La Croix, Bombas socks dropped from a helicopter. The attention to detail was reminiscent of a wedding.
“Anything I love will be at camp,” said Liv Schreiber, a New York City marketing professional and the camp’s founder. “Anything I don’t love, I do not allow.”
As Schreiber walked the Camp Social grounds, she made frequent stops to speak to campers. She complimented the Camp Social merch they sported (“Loving the hat, obsessed!”), or remarked on shared experiences between them (“Your dance moves last night … iconic.”).
“Um, excuse me? You guys in PILATES?” Schreiber asked a gaggle of campers, receiving a chorus of laughter. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, maybe at the cold plunge.”
Eric Brown, the camp director at Woodward PA in Centre County, likewise hyped up his campers as he watched them land tricks.
Like Camp Social, Woodward has a robust events schedule, but it is loosely followed. The campers are largely in their 30s and 40s.
“We don’t try,” Brown said about corralling campers. The only mandatory event is orientation.
This year is the first that Woodward has really leaned into its campiness, Brown said. Think morning announcements, kickball, slip-and-slide with ramps (“zany [stuff],” Brown called it, using a more profane term).
“I think it brought in folks who were maybe intimidated,” by an action sports camp, he said. “Adding stuff like that tells people we don’t care.”
The camp, which starts at $499 for four days, attracts skaters, BMX riders, roller bladers and scooter riders from newbie to Olympian.
“My goal before I leave here is to relearn sweepers and tail taps,” said skateboarder Jon Nicholson, 52, of Brooklyn, New York. “If I can do an invert below the coping, I’ll be satisfied.”
Lyn-z Pastrana, a three-time X Games gold medalist who also sends her daughters to Woodward’s children’s camps, said it was “pretty neat seeing all the people progress, no matter the discipline.”
“There’s a few tricks I used to do in my younger years that I’m now like, ‘OK, I know I can do this, but I’m mentally nervous,’” said Pastrana, 35. “Being able to utilize so many different sizes of ramps here has been great for me.”
While many adult camps have a strong female bias, Woodward is about 10%-15% women, reflective of gender disparities in action sports. It also gets its fair share of influencers.
Those still looking to be active at camp, but who don’t have an affinity for any particular sport, may find it in Camp Runabout in Lackawaxen Township, Pike County. The twice-annual Poconos camp was founded by runner and marketing professional Bill Reifsnyder after he saw an early adult summer camp pitched on “Shark Tank.”
“We have a lot of people who aren’t runners, and they have just as much fun as the people who are runners,” Reifsnyder said. The morning runs, he said, can be “a war of attrition” over the three days because people stay up late — there’s also an open bar.
“It’s just about being a kid again, with the benefit of having an adult beverage in your hand in the evenings,” he said.
Much of the three-night camp, which starts at $699, is aimed at keeping campers active. Besides the morning runs, there is yoga, Zumba, camp Olympics and keynotes from sports nutritionists and psychologists. There is a siesta built into the schedule, too. Massages are an extra fee.
“People go from kind of, like, deer in the headlights walking up to the registration table on Day 1 to, by the end of it, people are lifelong friends,” Reifsnyder said. One frequent camper even got a tattoo.
Camp Runabout is prepping for its ninth season, but Jump Coop Farm in South Pottstown is getting ready for its third. While not a sleepaway camp like the others due to a lack of lodging — campers may bring a tent on-property or stay at a local hotel — one camper said bonding is just as easy.
“Horse people, we could talk horses all day long,” said Julia Damiano, 40, of Springfield.
Julie Nafe, the farm’s owner, offers two camps: a fox hunt camp — none harmed — where riders chase foxes on horseback, and a horse swim camp that brings horses through a lake at a nearby state park and the Chesapeake Bay. The former, which is faster paced, has 12 slots and costs $450 with your own horse, $650 otherwise. The swim camp takes six and costs $350 with your own horse or $500 to rent.
While she avoids accepting novice equestrians, Nafe said riders have used her camps to gain confidence.
“Everything is completely flexible, so if there’s anything you don’t want to do, you do not have to do it,” she said.
While the camp is decidedly horse-focused, its activities are sometimes infused with camp favorites.
“When we were kids, we had a spoon and an egg, and you ride your horse and not drop the egg,” she said. “We do the adult version, and we give you a wine glass and fill it with some wine. Whoever has wine left at the end is the winner.”
While it is open to both men and women, Jump Coop camps tend to attract the latter. Nafe referred to her clients generally as “ladies” until being asked about it by The Morning Call.
“I think the gentlemen would make out pretty well with all the horse ladies around if they wanted to,” she said.
Damiano, who went to both the hunt and swim camps this year, said the camps were like “transferring the fun” from a weeklong sleepaway camp into something one could do over the weekend. She is herself a youth summer camp alumna.
“The further you get away from childhood, the more nostalgic you become,” Damiano said. “For me, life is short, so why not do something that makes you happy?”
Trebor Maitin and Elisabeth Seidel are freelance writers.
