Phone-Free Camps

Hello, soon-to-be happy campers (and camp parents)!

This is a very incomplete list of camps that don’t allow phones. All camp names were submitted to us by readers. Some are co-ed, some are religiously affiliated. Some are day camps, most are overnight.

If you’d like to add a camp, great! Please make sure it’s one that literally takes phones and tablets from campers and stores them the whole time. No phones in the cabins! No “sometime” use. And it should be, of course, a camp you love! Email us its name, location, and whether it is for boys, girls, or co-ed: Camp@LetGrow.org . We will add them as they come in.

Note that MOST camps seem to have some sort of no-phone policy. This keeps kids in the moment and out of the cyberworld at least for some chunk of their young lives. We also like when camps resist the urge to post photos of their campers for parents to pore over. Part of the magic of camp is that it is a chrysalis where change happens. Cameras don’t belong in there.

The first thing out of parents’ mouths when they pick up their kids from an overnight camp is usually: “Look how you’ve grown!” (And not just physically.)

To be able to see that growth requires us parents NOT seeing it incrementally.

Just as kids deserve some time away from the phone world they also deserve some time when their parents are not watching their every move. So here’s to the camp world’s dedication to an old-fashioned childhood. A toast (of a marshmall0w) to you!

Adventure Treks Camp (many locations)

Camp Tamakwa (Algongquin Park, Canada)

Asto Wamah (Columbia, CT)

North Start Camp (Hayward, WI)

Camp Burgess (for boys) and Hayward (for girls) (Cape Cod, MA)

Skylake Yosemite Camp (Calif)

Nicolet (Eagle River, WI)

Lanakila (VT)

Camp Crescnet Cove (Lake Sebago, Maine)

Camp Wohelo (Waynesboro, PA)

WinShape (Georgia)

Camp Greystone (NC)

Camp Mystic (TX)

Camp Longhorn (TX)

Camp Gan Israel (Poconos, PA)

Camp Icogawan (WI)

Wolf Ridge (MN)

YMCA Camp Ihduhapi (Loretto, MN)

Camp North Woods (boys), Pleasant Valley (girls) (Wolfeboro, NH)

Trustees of Reservations Day Camps, 7 locations

SPLAT Adventures (mystery road trips)

Lure of the Wild Nature Camps (Catonsville, MD)

River Valley Ranch (overnight and day camps) (River Valley, MD)

Camp Wannaba (Edgewater, MD)

Camp Ramah (Conover, WI)

YMCA Camp Kern (Oregonia, OH)

Everwild (Los Angeles)

Eastport Maritime Museum Day Camp (Annapolis, MD)

UBC Camp (Vancouver, BC)

Eagle Lake Camp (Colorado Springs, CO)

Camp Hanover (Mechanicsville, VA)

Jaycee Camp Hope, Camp Sertoma, Camp Odyssey (Clemson Outdoor Lab, Pendleton, SC)

Camp Hochelaga (South Hero, VT)

Camp Abnaki (North Hero, VT)

Camp Tawonga (Groveland, CA)

High Peaks Camp (St Hubert’s NY)

Camp Coniston (Grantham, NH)

Camp Kesem (nationwide network of camps for children affected by a parent’s cancer)

Cedarbrook Camp of Ohio at Stony Glen (Madison, OH)

Camp Wyonegonic, for girls, and Camp Winona, for boys (Denmark, Maine)

Swift Nature Camp (Minong, WI)

Colvig SIlver Camps (Durango, CO)

BYMCamps.org (Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and Maryland)

Camp Bil o Wood (Blind River, Canada)

Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (Twin Lake, MI)

Valley View Ranch (Cloudland, GA)