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Like most things these days, the cost of overnight camping is on the rise.
But the staggering $15,000 price tag for some elite summer camps doesn’t include the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars parents shell out in advance to prepare and pack for their children, according to a new study. Wall Street Journal report.
Some families are choosing to outsource tedious tasks like checking their kids’ packing lists before camp or sorting their laundry after, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.
These days, camping costs start piling up long before kids even set foot in a canoe, with many campgrounds providing detailed packing lists, some containing more than 100 items that parents are encouraged to provide for their campers, the outlet reported.
Last year, a mother of two wrote to Business Insider about her summer camp packing list, which she said cost nearly $5,000 to buy: the recommended 15 pairs of shorts, 15 shirts, 16 pairs of socks and underwear, multiple pairs of shoes, several towels and swimsuits, an assortment of jackets, and two sets of sheets for each child.
Some camps have gone a step further, suggesting that kids bring branded camp chairs, decorative pillows and costumes with multiple color options for a “Color Wars” at the end of camp, according to the Journal.
Oh, and everything a kid brings to camp in 2024 will have to be labeled or monogrammed. Duh, duh.
For many families with disposable income, outsourcing is the solution
Beth Leffel, a mother from Boca Raton, told the Journal that the first summer she sent her daughter to camp, she turned to Denny’s, a children’s clothing boutique with locations in New York, New Jersey and Florida.
The boutique boasts personal shoppers who work one-on-one with families to go through each packing list item and stock up on the essentials. Spencer Klein, whose family owns the store, told the outlet that the average first-time camper spends between $1,500 and $2,000 at Denny’s.
After spending about $2,000 at Denny’s and $250 at Party City in her first year, Leffel told the outlet she now looks for bargains and fakes on more expensive items.
Thomas Berwick/Getty Images
“It’s just a sad story,” said his mother, Natalie Liberman, of Boca Raton. New York Post She said she spent nearly $5,000 last year outfitting her 7-year-old daughter with rainbow gear and monogrammed clothing before summer camp.
Personalized camping gear is the new status symbol, and influencers and online retailers are quickly capitalizing on the new trend, the outlet reported in June 2023.
Jodi Geller, a mother of two from Florida, launched an online store in 2018 to customize camping gear, including $86 pillows and $38 water bottles. She told The Washington Post that she frequently gets orders for more than $1,000.
Our services don’t end there
Once they have gathered the necessary items, some parents call in professional organizers to end the packing woes.
Dara Grandis, a Manhattan mother of three, told The Wall Street Journal that she hired professional organizer Meryl Basch to help her kids get their belongings ready for seven weeks of summer camp.
According to the Post, Bash offers a variety of camping-related services, including making sure you get everything on your packing list, sorting through last year’s clothes that no longer fit, and providing packing tape, storage cubes and bags. Bash charges $125 per hour on packing day and $100 per hour for each additional packer, the Post reported.
When summer ends and young campers return home, some families choose to outsource post-camp laundry as well, turning to companies like First Class Laundry Services of West Palm Beach, Fla.
According to the Wall Street Journal, for $225 per trunk, the laundry company will pick up campers’ luggage, wash and fold everything inside, and then return the clean luggage to their parents’ doorstep.
Are you sending your kids to summer camp this year? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the costs and the process. Contact reporter Erin Snodgrass at esnodgrass@insider.com with your story.