No parents allowed: The rise of American-style summer camps in Britain

If you want to turn your children into lifelong travellers, there is no better start than a summer camp. They’ll grow in confidence after spending a few nights under canvas, miles away from where you’re stuck in the office. They’ll make friends outside their school circle. They’ll take on new challenges – sports, crafts, orienteering – and explore a new part of Britain. 

For years, America excelled at these back-to-nature summer solutions, but the UK now has an increasingly rich offering at reasonable prices. Here, a cub reporter evaluates a Sussex stalwart, while, below, we recommend three of Britain’s best summer camps.

Wickedly wonderful: a 10-year-old's view

Fancy going away for five days by the seaside with no parents? I’ve got just the thing for you. Wickedly Wonderful, near Chichester in Sussex, is a friendly camp with lots of nice people. There is not a single mean person there. 

First impressions were amazing: we got out of our coach and were helped to carry our bags to a huge field. At one end were tents, while at the other were a football pitch, dinner tables and hay bales where you could chill.

A standard day at Wickedly Wonderful goes like this: you wake up whenever you like, go over to the breakfast table where Katherine (the chief of staff) hands out pain au chocolat, pancakes or eggy bread (you are allowed as much as you want); then you are given the choice of five cereals; after that you start your first activity (jelly and water fight, football, crabbing). 

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After that, you come back to base and eat as many sandwiches as you like along with crisps and chocolate for lunch. Next you move on to your second activity (such as golf, bodyboarding or biking). Then you come back and have hot food for dinner. After dinner, some nights we would go to the beach and roast marshmallows, while on others we went to the forest to eat roasted bananas with chocolate inside. 

After that you head back to your tent (bring a friend to share a tent with; I shared with my friend John), get into your sleeping bag and fall asleep immediately because you are so tired.

My favourite part of the week was the kayaking. We started off by learning the basics, like how to paddle, but we quickly moved on to the games.We played “wibble wobble”, which is when you turn your kayak upside down, get in pairs, and one person gets on each end and you have to wobble the other person off. We also joined together all of the kayaks and had to run across them and jump into the water. Next we had to swap places with our partner while trying not to fall in. We all had a laugh.

Three of the best summer camps

I’m 10 years old and I wasn’t homesick at all. I pretty much forgot about home, I was having so much fun. It wouldn’t have been quite as much fun if we hadn’t been sleeping there: how else would we have had sumo sleeping-bag wars? And it was exciting, especially when there was a big storm: the clattering rain was fun and we all went through it together, so it was more enjoyable than frightening.

The only thing that wasn’t so great was the toilets. They were smelly and dark – but that’s camping! I would definitely  recommend Wickedly Wonderful to other boys and girls – and I’d go again. It’s a really good break from a busy home life and you don’t need to be good at the activities: the staff will always help you out.

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Essentials

Wickedly Wonderful (07941 231168; wickedlywonderful.com) runs five-day, four-night residential camps for children aged six to 13. Its multi-activity week and sailing week cost ￡545 each; a pony camp involving riding and stable management costs ￡645.