Shopping for a summer camp for your child can be as complicated and mercilessly expensive as grocery shopping these days. The camp biz has become sophisticated, specialized and widely various in its prices. Finding which summer camp suits your child’s needs and interests – and your budget-can be a harrowing exercise in brochure shuffling and long distance phone calls.
We’ve attempted to simplify the process by providing basic information on 37 major Texas summer camps, ranging from rustic to luxurious. We’ve tried to include all the organizational camps in the area, as well as a broad range of private camps. No church camps are included because each limits its campers to its own religious affiliation.
A couple of other notes: the exclusive camps such as Longhorn, Mystic and Waldemar are sworn by by former patrons, but as you’ll see, you pay for what you get in application red tape as well as dollars. Each potential camper must submit to a personal interview and if accepted, most often must sit tight on a long waiting list. At Waldemar, for example, parents often sign up their daughters at birth to beat the competition.
At the other end of the cost spectrum, your son can enjoy a fun and enriching camping experience for one week if he is member of the Boy Scouts. Cost: $35. Registered Boy Scouts in the Dallas area, ages 11-18, attend Camp Cherokee and Camp Comanche on the Clements Scout Reservation near Athens, Texas; Camp Constantine on Possum Kingdom Lake and Camp Texoma on Lake Texoma, are used on a troop camping basis. Sessions run June 8 through August 2. For further information on Boy Scout troops in your area, contact Circle 10 Council, BSA, Box 35726, Dallas, 75235. Phone: 637-1480. (These are not included on the grid.)
Most of the exclusive camps as well as the Boy Scout camps do not carry American Camping Association accreditation. While this is usually a useful index in sizing up camps, in these cases, don’t pay any attention to the absence of ACA approval. The exclusive camps have by and large dropped it to avoid having to admit all races and faiths. Most were members until a few years ago when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare got into the picture and they dropped out of ACA and formed their own Camp Association for Mutual Progress. The Boy Scout camps have not sought ACA approval because their camps are not open to non-Boy Scout campers, and they rightfully boast of their own high facility and program standards.
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