Today’s savvy teenager won’t settle for traditional summer camp unless the destination is far from American shores.
Hiking? Sure, if it means an opportunity to wander a trail leading to Peru’s Machu Picchu.
Swimming? Cool, if that includes practicing the backstroke alongside endangered sea turtles in Costa Rica.
Pitching a tent? Then make it a memorable experience and help Habitat for Humanity build a home in Ecuador.
Influenced by an increasingly global society, teenagers are spurring a new trend in the camp industry.
“There is this big urge to travel, a big want and need to leave the country and see how others live,” says Christine Jones, 17, who spent last summer in a language-immersion program in Spain with the America’s Adventure Ventures Everywhere (AAVE) summer camp program. “A lot of teenagers aren’t happy with the war, our government’s presidency and political actions. We have a lot of discussions about what’s been happening in America, and we want to see how people in other countries and cultures live.”
These month-long trips can cost $1,100-$5,000. They are made up of small groups of students and marry the usual physical activities of camps (hiking, biking, sailing) with a community-service project.
When AAVE was founded in Denver in 1976, the program offered wilderness-oriented camping trips in the Western United States (Colorado, Arizona, Utah and California) and Canada. Back then, hiking in Yellowstone was considered exotic, says program owner and founder Abbott Wallis.
In the past decade, teenagers and their parents have pushed for more trips abroad that combine cultural immersion with high adventure. Now half the trips AAVE offers whisk youths ages 11 to 19 around the globe from Thailand’s hill country to the mountains of Switzerland.
“You can’t be a part of a generation who has lived through the Sept. 11 (terrorists attacks) and the war and not want to try to understand the world better,” says Wallis.
Demand for more hands-on learning and cultural exploration forced the North Carolina-based Broadreach camps to include an academic and service adventure division to their program two years ago, says marketing director Missy Cook.
“We are getting something out of it just to get to go there, so I think it’s important that we give something back,” says Jones, who has spent time in Colorado clearing camp sites and cutting forests, cleaning up beaches in Seattle and teaching children English in Spain.
But seeing her daughter Kelsey grow from a shy girl to a confident young woman was worth every penny, says Lori Tobin. When Kelsey was 14, she took an AAVE trip that went to Ireland, Wales and London.
“Being in a different country and not knowing who I would be spending that time with scared me,” says Kelsey, 16.
“But I see her taking more of an initiative planning things with her friends, and she has more of an outward view of life that I never had,” Tobin says.
Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-820-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.
