Summer Camp at St Gilgen International School, Austria

The summer camp at St Gilgen International School takes place on the campus of an international boarding school in the Salzkammergut, the lake district east of Salzburg. It is a residential programme for children and teenagers aged ten to fifteen, sold in two-week sessions, and it pairs structured language teaching with a full outdoor and cultural programme. Mornings belong to the classroom. Campers take three hours of lessons a day, fifteen hours a week, in either English or German. Teaching is communicative and interactive rather than textbook-driven, and classes run from beginner through intermediate levels, so a camper with no previous German can sit alongside one who already reads comfortably in the language. Groups are small and are set by level after arrival. Afternoons and evenings move outside. The programme rotates through hiking, climbing, biking, archery, sailing, windsurfing and horse trekking so that every camper gets to try each activity rather than specialising from day one; towards the end of a session there are choice days when campers return to whatever they liked most. Cultural excursions take the group into Salzburg, down into the Dachstein ice caves and the historic salt mines, and out to the Mozart family sites and the Attersee lake country associated with Klimt. Campers who want to go deeper into one thing can take a focused strand alongside the core programme. The sailing strand puts extra hours on the water, with the option for stronger sailors to prepare for the BFA Binnen exam. The golf strand is based at a club at Mondsee, where a professional coach works with beginners and experienced players using TrackMan and SAM PuttLab, and campers may have the chance to earn their Platzreife. There is also a horse riding strand with the option of working towards official riding badges, a digital music production strand that takes campers from first idea to finished track, and a sustainability, artificial intelligence and STEM strand that replaces the language lessons with robotics, coding and engineering projects for those who would rather build than conjugate. Accommodation is in the school boarding houses on campus. Rooms are en-suite doubles or triples, grouped by age and gender, with boarding staff living alongside the campers. All meals are included and eaten buffet-style around a shared table in the house, with a few meals out in village restaurants during each session. Collection from Salzburg airport or the train station at the start of the session and the return at the end are provided at no extra charge, which simplifies travel for families flying in. Each session is capped at forty international participants and staffed at a ratio of one adult to two campers, and the staff are qualified and first-aid trained. For families weighing up international boarding school later on, a session here also works as a low-stakes introduction to what that life feels like. Availability, dates and prices can change quickly, so confirm the details before making travel arrangements.