We started looking for a late-August camp week on a Sunday night in July, four weeks later than we should have, and every camp with a decent website was already full. The ones with open spots were smaller operations we’d never heard of, run out of a church gym or a rented field, with websites that hadn’t been updated since spring and registration forms that asked for a credit card before telling us anything about who’d actually be supervising our kid. We had four days before we needed to either book something or tell our kid there was no camp week this year.
That time pressure is exactly the situation where skipping the vetting questions feels tempting and is also exactly when they matter most. A camp we’d researched in February would have come recommended by three other families and a school newsletter. A camp we’re booking on four days’ notice comes with none of that, which means the questions we’d normally skip because “everyone said it’s great” are the only information we actually have.
Counselor-to-camper ratio is the first number worth asking for directly. Reputable camps can tell you this immediately, often with a specific number by age group, something like one counselor per eight campers for elementary-age kids and a tighter ratio for younger groups. A camp that hesitates, gives a vague answer, or says “it depends” without following up with an actual number is telling you something, even under time pressure to fill a spot before Friday.
Counselor age and training matters more than counselor enthusiasm. We asked directly how old the counselors are and what training they receive before the summer starts, specifically around basic first aid, water safety if the camp includes swimming, and behavior management. A camp with mostly 15 and 16 year old counselors isn’t automatically wrong, especially for a day camp with simple activities, but it’s a different staffing model than one built around counselors in their twenties with lifeguard certifications, and it’s worth knowing which one you’re booking before the first day rather than discovering it at drop-off.
Two-deep leadership is worth asking about even if the camp doesn’t use that exact phrase. The question underneath it is simple: is any adult ever alone with a single child, or are there always at least two adults present around kids at all times, including during bathroom breaks, changing for swim, or a one-on-one conversation about behavior. Camps with strong child protection practices usually have a clear, immediate answer to this. A camp that seems confused by the question, or says it depends on staffing that day, is worth a second look before a deposit goes down.
What happens during a medical or behavioral incident is the question we almost forgot to ask, and probably the most important one. We asked specifically: if a kid gets hurt, who’s trained to respond, is there a plan to reach a parent immediately, and what’s the actual process if a kid is having a hard emotional day rather than a physical injury. A camp with a clear, rehearsed-sounding answer to this question has almost certainly thought about it before, which matters more under time pressure than a beautiful website ever will.
We also asked what a typical day actually looks like, hour by hour, rather than trusting the marketing description. The website described “adventure activities and team building.” The actual answer, when we asked directly, was two hours of unstructured free play, a supervised swim block, and a craft period, which was a fine day for our kid but not exactly the adventure-camp picture the website had painted. Knowing the real shape of the day let us decide if it matched what our kid needed, rather than what a webpage had promised.
The camp we ended up choosing wasn’t the one with the fanciest site. It was the one that answered every question above within an hour of us emailing, with specific numbers and specific names, run by a woman who’d clearly fielded exactly these questions from other scrambling parents before us. The camp with the better-designed website took two days to respond and, when they finally did, couldn’t give us a straight ratio number. We went with the camp that answered fast and answered specifically, website design aside.
Booking late doesn’t have to mean booking blind. It just means the questions that would normally get answered by word of mouth over months need to get asked directly, in one conversation, before a deposit goes anywhere. Four days was enough time to ask five questions. It turned out to be enough time to feel good about the answer too.