Is Camp America Worth It? An Honest Answer

Let’s get the preamble out of the way: yes. But the honest answer is slightly more complicated than that, and the people who get the most from it understand why.

What You’re Actually Signing Up For

Camp America (and the equivalent programmes through Camp Leaders and BUNAC) places you at an American summer camp for roughly two to three months. You live there. You work there. You are responsible for children ranging from about six to sixteen years old. Your accommodation and meals are covered. You receive a stipend — what Camp America calls “pocket money” — that is low but functional. At the end of the placement, you have a travel window to see America before flying home.

That’s the structure. Whether it’s “worth it” depends entirely on what you’re comparing it to.

The Case For

The experience is genuinely unlike anything else. Three months living in a completely different country, immersed in a completely different culture, responsible for children, building friendships at speed — this is not a holiday and it’s not a gap year filler. It’s a genuinely formative experience and an unusual one. Very few people come back and say it was fine but forgettable. Most people say it was the best summer of their lives. Andrew said it was the best summer of his life, went back for a second one, and then wrote two books about it.

The friendships are real. The combination of shared intensity and physical proximity creates bonds quickly. The people you meet at camp are different from the people you meet in normal contexts — you’re stripped of most of your usual social scaffolding and forced to be present in a way that everyday life doesn’t demand. The friendships that come from that tend to last.

It resets your perspective. Particularly if you go straight from university or school into the standard trajectory of graduate jobs and adult life — camp is a full stop. A break. A reminder that the world is large and that you’re capable of more than your daily context usually requires of you.

The CV value is real. Three months managing groups of children in a high-responsibility environment, in a foreign country, with demonstrable outcomes — employers in most fields respond to this well. It signals independence, adaptability, and a willingness to do difficult things.

The Honest Downsides

The pay is low. The hours are long. You will be tired in a way that you haven’t been tired before by about week four. You will have moments — particularly in the first two weeks — where you wonder what you’ve done. You are a long way from home and you can’t easily leave if it gets hard.

None of these are reasons not to go. But going in clear-eyed about them means you handle the hard weeks better than someone who expected three months of American sunshine and found reality more complicated.

So: Is It Worth It?

For almost everyone who goes with the right attitude — yes, unambiguously. The people for whom it doesn’t work out are almost always people who treated it as a holiday with a job attached, rather than an experience to throw themselves into.

Go. Throw yourself in. Come back and bore everyone with the stories.

The full story of Andrew’s two summers is in the books — probably the most detailed honest answer to this question that exists in written form.

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp on Amazon

 

Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans