Camp Wicosuta Sleepaway Camp for Girls in New Hampshire

The camp runs an age-specific progressive programme based on each girl's current school grade. Campers who have completed the first three grades follow a set schedule that exposes them to every activity area; girls finishing the fourth grade mix pre-scheduled activities — instructional swim, tennis and waterfront — with electives; girls finishing the fifth grade and older build individual, choice-based schedules and may change them during the session. Regular programme days are designated A, B or C days and are complemented by special event days and off-camp trips. The last period of every day, called Selective, lets every camper choose her final activity. Alongside the full-length session the camp offers a two-week Explorer session for first-time campers in the youngest grades, with a sampling of traditional programme days, one or two special event days and a day-long off-camp field trip.

The camp fee is all-inclusive. It covers out-of-camp trips — both field trips and outdoor adventure trips — weekly laundry, optional phone calls home, on-site medical care, professional frame-ready bunk and individual photographs, email credits for the camp's one-way email system, coach transportation to and from the Tri-State area and Boston, and airport transfers to and from Boston Logan and Manchester airports. Baggage service to and from camp, uniform items and personal kit are additional. Optional add-on programmes are horse riding, ice skating, golf and private lessons in tennis, soccer and gymnastics.

Campers sleep in wooden cabins grouped by age, and age groups are separated by school grade, with several cabins in each group. Cabins have electricity, toilets, sinks and showers. A three-to-one ratio of campers to counsellors is kept in every cabin, and first-time campers are always bunked with at least one other girl who is at camp for her first summer. Beds and cubbies are assigned before arrival — on the first day a camper finds her bed made and her clothing unpacked. Each cabin writes its own bunk contract as a reminder of the mutual respect the camp expects, and Explorer campers are housed in one small cabin of six to eight girls within each of the younger age groups.

All meals are served buffet style in the dining hall, where the whole camp eats together at tables of six or seven campers with two staff members. Campers sit with others in their age group and table assignments change weekly, which the camp uses to build community and discourage cliques. The kitchen offers a large variety of nutritious selections with alternatives, including vegetarian options, at every meal; lunch adds two large salad bars and a deli bar, dinner a daily pasta selection. Two snacks are served each day, one in the afternoon and one before bedtime, with fresh fruit and a rotating accompaniment. The camp is nut-aware and serves no nuts or nut products, and a dedicated dietary needs chef works one-to-one with campers who have specific dietary or allergy needs. Theme dinners such as crazy hat night and sock night are part of the week.

The activity programme is deliberately broad: athletics and court and field sports, water sports on the heated pool and on Newfound Lake, outdoor adventure on the high and low ropes course and climbing wall, gymnastics, dance and fitness classes, theatre with a role for every girl who auditions, visual arts across several media, ceramics, culinary arts, archery and specialty programmes in horse riding and ice skating. Campers take two all-day field trips each session to destinations such as Canobie Lake Park, Whales Tales, Water Country, Clark's Trading Post and Hanover; the youngest campers add a day trip to Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and an overnight on the camp beach with s'mores, while older girls may sign up for hikes and overnights in the White Mountains, white-water rafting and, for experienced hikers, Mount Washington. Campers in the older grades have one or two socials a session, run outdoors by a deejay with lawn games, music and snacks.

The site covers 100 acres of wooded land on the shore of Newfound Lake and includes a heated swimming pool, a waterfront on the lake, tennis courts, outdoor basketball and volleyball courts, soccer fields, a softball field, a team handball field, gaga courts, a gymnastics pavilion, a fitness centre and a fit trail, a high and low ropes course, an archery range, a horse riding ring and stable, a visual arts studio, a ceramics studio, a cooking kitchen, a dance studio, an indoor playhouse, a library, a nature area and pond, on-site camping grounds, a dining room, a health centre and the camper cabins.

The camp has been running since 1920 and builds everything around what it calls the Three Cs — Confidence, Competence and Community. Girls come from 31 states and 15 countries, and many are the daughters and granddaughters of former campers. A dress code of camp shirts and activity clothing for the younger grades, non-designer athletic clothing for the older ones and one-piece swimsuits for everyone is used deliberately to take the pressure out of what to wear. The camp has developed a social and emotional toolkit — I-Messages, bunk contracts, assigned dining hall seating and weekly questionnaires — so that each camper has an outlet for communication and conflict resolution. Directors meet every first-time camper in person or by video call before the summer, and each new girl is paired with a Big Sister, a returning camper who writes to her beforehand and spends time with her at camp. Campers write home three times a week, parents may call once during the session, and a password-protected area of the camp website carries a daily summary and photographs.