Maybe you come to camp every summer. Or maybe it’s been years since you’ve set foot at a camp. Either way, once you become a “camp person,” you never stop being one, no matter how old you get or how far away from camp you move. Here are the top 10 ways to tell if you’re a camp person!
1. Most of the stories that you tell your friends begin with, “At camp…”
Let’s face it. Most of your best moments happen at camp, whether it’s the time you successfully made it to the top of the climbing tower or the time you fell on your face in the mud. You always have stories to share about camp!
2. You know how to make 15 different kinds of friendship bracelets, and you always start the school year with tons of them around your wrists.
Making friendship bracelets is pretty much a camp requirement. It gives your hands and fingers something to do when you sit around and talk with friends. You all share them with each other, and by the end of the week, you’ve got arms full of friendship bracelets and memories to go along with each one.
3. You’ve mastered your fear of spiders and no longer run away screaming when you see one.
Being at camp means being in nature and all of the things that come with that…like spiders. After using your flip flop to kill any of the eight-legged creatures that ventured into your tent or cabin at night, you consider yourself officially cured of your fear of spiders.
4. You know how to cook more meals on a campfire than all of your friends combined.
Making pizza in a pie iron? Check. Dutch oven brownies? Check. Tacos, barbecue chicken, pancakes, spaghetti? Check. You can do it all.
5. You know all the words to every campfire song and sometimes catch yourself singing them in the shower or in the car.
All of your friends think you’re crazy when you launch into the “Go Bananas” song at the start of your road trip, but they just don’t know what fun they’re missing!
6. Your dresser and closet are filled with camp clothes.
That red t-shirt is from the summer three years ago. The blue one is from four years ago. And all of your hoodies have the camp name across the front. Pretty much every day, you’re wearing some kind of camp apparel.
7. Some of your best friends don’t live anywhere near you…but you see them every summer at camp.
At camp, you get to meet friends from all over the place, even sometimes from other countries. While you might not go to class together during the school year, you know that you’ll come to camp the next summer and pick up your friendship right where it left off the previous year. Camp creates bonds that can’t be broken.
8. You often distinguish between camp and the “real world.”
Summer camp is an experience like no other. You are away from your cell phone, TV, and social media, and completely immersed in a world of nature, activity, teambuilding, and fun. You can’t wait to get there, and when you do, you dread your return to the “real world.” Why can’t every day be like summer camp?
9. You have a specific storage area in your house just for camp gear.
My sleeping bag, flashlight, watershoes, caving clothes, lantern, and backpack are all here, ready for camp next summer. It’s always good to be prepared!
10. You’ve lost track of the number of summers you’ve been going to camp.
You may as well have been born at camp. It feels like it’s your second home. You can’t imagine a summer without it, and you can’t remember ever not going. Is this year number ten or eleven? Or is it twelve? Who cares! Let’s just get to camp!
