Camp Waziyatah: a Maine overnight camp where campers choose their own week

Campers pick their own schedule. Each week they choose their activities and, the camp says, get the ones they select. A day starts with breakfast, cabin duties and a short division meeting, then runs three activity periods before lunch and three after, with free swim time in between and a group activity in the evening. Quiet hours move later with age — earliest in The Pines, latest for the Counselors-in-Training. Age divisions are set by the grade a camper is entering after the summer, using international equivalents where needed, and the two youngest cabins skip riflery and high ropes.

Tuition covers room and board, cabin supervision, activity instruction, art materials, laundry, standard day trips and routine health-centre medical care — the riding programme included. The camp names its own extras: a trips fee and a camp-store fee required of every camper, an optional Changeover Trip for six- and eight-week campers between the two four-week sessions, and optional airport shuttles and specialised excursions such as the whitewater rafting trip. Parents may visit on the second Saturday of each four-week session. Drop-off and pick-up run between 10am and 2pm on the first and last day of a session.

Campers live in rustic cabins with six to twelve campers of similar age and grade. Cabins have electricity, bathrooms and sinks; the Pines and Grove cabins have showers in each cabin, while most cabins on the Hill use a shower house. Some cabins stand along the lake and others in the woods. Each cabin has at least two full-time counsellors and sometimes up to four, often with a junior counsellor as well, and Counselors-in-Training work with cabins without living in them. Every night the cabin holds a huddle up, where each camper gets a turn to speak. On the first day a camper's name is already on their bed.

Meals are served buffet style in the camp dining hall, with a vegetarian main course at every meal, a salad bar, fresh fruit and a hot breakfast, plus afternoon snacks. Basic food allergies such as dairy and gluten can be accommodated; the camp asks for all allergies on the medical form. Food and sweets may not be sent in care packages.

Adventure Bound: day trips, hiking, canoeing, river tubing, outdoor camping and cooking, rock climbing and whitewater rafting. Performing arts: a full musical production, acting technique, improv theatre, dance, costuming, set design, stagecraft and lighting and sound design. Visual arts: drawing, painting, pottery, sculpture, mosaics, collage, jewellery, friendship bracelets and tie dye. Athletics: archery, riflery, basketball, beach volleyball, the climbing tower, fencing, ultimate frisbee, flag football, kickball, soccer, tennis and tetherball. Waterfront on the camp's private lake: American Red Cross swim instruction, distance and free swim, canoeing, kayaking, sailing, stand-up paddleboarding, waterskiing, wakeboarding, wake surfing and The Blob. Riding: English and Western lessons, horsemanship, grooming, trail riding and jumping. Evening life carries Otter Days, musical theatre, Color Wars, game shows, block parties, campfires and cabin campouts, with off-camp outings such as bowling, mini golf and amusement parks.

The camp sits at 530 Mill Hill Road in Waterford, Maine — 130 acres of woods and field on McWain Pond, a clear, relatively shallow lake that warms quickly; the camp owns the southern portion, which has a sandy bottom and no public access. On site are tennis courts, a climbing wall and rock climbing tower, a high ropes course with a bridge and a zip line in the adventure park, an amphitheatre campfire area, horseback riding rings and trails, stables, a skate park, a gaga pit, a beach volleyball court, basketball courts, archery and riflery ranges, a baseball field and soccer fields, a gym, a theatre, an arts centre, wooded trails, the lakefront with boats and watersports equipment and The Blob, and the dining hall and camper cabins.

Waziyatah campers come mostly from across the United States — New England, New York and Florida above all — with about one in ten arriving from Europe and elsewhere, and counsellors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. The camp's own measure of itself is choice: campers pick what they do, and the week is theirs. Parents can call the director at any time, campers write home weekly on postcards the camp provides, parents email through a private system and see fifty to a hundred photographs a day. The camp was the filming location for the Disney Channel series Bug Juice, though there are no current plans to film again.