Tyler Place Family Resort

School may be out for summer, but that doesn’t mean you have to send the kids away to camp. Instead, we asked Poshbrood founder and family travel expert Elizabeth Thorp to share some of this year’s most interesting family camp opportunities.

Break out the steamer trunk, pack the bathing suit, sunscreen and bug spray. You and your brood can do summer camp together!

Summer family camp programs are a great way to bond, learn and adventure together and save money on a traditional summer vacation.

Some take place at standard kid-only summer camps, which offer family summer camping weeks or weekends. At these kinds of camps, parents stay with their kids and are campers, sleeping in cabins, eating meals in the dining hall, making lanyards and s’mores with the whole group.

Other family camp options are family resorts, with childcare programs, activities specifically designed just for adults (like spa treatments or wine tasting) and more upscale accommodations with daily housekeeping service and private bathrooms.

Authors and network TV anchors, Lee and Bob Woodruff, take their four children to Silver Bay Association in the Adirondacks on Lake George. “It’s our family summer place and life is simple; think “Dirty Dancing!” My kids have camp in the morning and are home for lunch,” says Lee, “and we hit the beach in the afternoon with the cousins. It’s perfect.”

Most YMCA’s have some type of family summer camp program, but the following are a range of summer family camp options to suit every taste, geographic area and budget.

Medomak Camp, Maine

This traditional Maine camp is located on a 3-mile-long Washington Pond and has been offering family camps since 1995 and has a 50 percent return rate. Many campers say that their week at Medomak is a hybrid between a traditional New England summer camp and a fun filled, memory making family vacation.

Activities include archery, arts and crafts, boating, tennis, sailing, nature hikes, swimming, sailing, photography, yoga and more. Lodging is in wooden cabins with electricity and private bathrooms. Three family-style meals are served daily along with an afternoon snack.

Rates are all-inclusive so meals, (including lobster dinner!), lodging, activities, equipment, linens and towels are all covered. The only additional and completely optional costs are for massages from a licensed massage therapist.

Tyler Place Family Resort, Highgate Springs, VT

Tyler Place Family Resort has been the U.S. leader in all-inclusive family vacations for 79 years. They devote 100 percent of their time, resources, and imagination to creating the best family vacation for each family member–parents to infants. The resort has the perfect balance between nostalgia and cutting-edge facilities.

Guests speak of the “Tyler Place bubble”: a time warp that renews families, reignites marriages, and restores the natural fun and charms of childhood.  Campers will enjoy an amazing range of family activities, sports, and facilities privately with their own family–or socially with other families. Afternoons are devoted entirely to family time, so grab bikes and tricycles, take a picnic basket, hike along the secluded lakeshore, visit a Vermont farm, or trying patisserie across the border in Quebec.

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