Northern Family Camp Popular with Southern Families
An innovative twist on the summer family vacation has been well known to residents of the mid-Atlantic and northeast for quite some time. Family camps (think grown-up friendly summer camp with comfortable beds and good food) are known for wholesome, old-fashioned fun, and are most popular with the typical overscheduled family. Parents and kids, busy going from school to soccer games to dance lessons to scout meetings to tutoring, want a chance to unwind in a pristine setting far removed from the daily grind, as has been pointed out by Family Fun magazine and a variety of other publications in recent years. Vacationing at a Family Camp is a trend highlighted by Parade, Child, Family Fun and Frommer’s Budget Travel magazines as well as The New York Times, Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun. The trend also shows real satisfaction, with camps averaging fifty percent returning families. Our Mom and Dad “campers” have been telling us for years that the main reason they come back is that they leave content and relaxed, like they just had a “real” vacation; a feeling strangely absent after their week at the beach or Disney World. As for our kid campers, their biggest complement is that they don’t want to leave camp at the end of the week.
Another trend noticed in the last couple of years has been an increasing number of families coming from states in the south and southwest, a demographic strangely absent from our registration rolls in the past. When quizzed about why they chose to come to a Family Camp in Maine, our families from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida quickly point out the cooler weather. And when asked why they overwhelmingly choose to come in June and July (months not as popular with mid-Atlantic and northeastern families, due to school ending in late June), they point out that their schools let out in May and early June , making June and July prime-time for family vacations. Late July and August are extremely busy times for most Family Camps and we always have wait-lists with families from places like Massachusetts and New York. But this demographic naturally has left vacancies for northeastern vacation spots in the beginning of the season…vacancies increasingly being filled and enjoyed by new demographic, families not usually associated with New England.
Back to Press Releases