Finding the right children’s summer camps is brutal. So, I built a tool to organize Charlotte’s 6,000+ camp sessions

If you are a working parent and have had the misfortune of trying to arrange a full time 10-week summer camp schedule for your children, you know why we needed a better planning tool.

Finding quality camps that don’t eat up your entire paycheck can feel like a full-time job itself. Here’s the typical process…

• Step 1: Panic when a friend asks, “So what are your kids doing for camps this year?”
• Step 2: Spend countless lunch hours at your desk searching for options.
• Step 3: After digging through directories and camp websites you try to make sense of the possibilities by laying them out in a chart.
• Step 4: Become overwhelmed, give up and just register your kid for general day camp at the place down the street.
• Step 5: Worry that your kid is going to fall behind because they’re not improving soccer skills, developing their acting talent, or building their college resume in STEM camp.

So, I’ve set out to fix this and decided to start a digital summer camp planning guide, SummerCampGuru.com. Right now, this is just a labor of love, although I find myself spending about 40 hours each week on the project.

In Charlotte, their are about 400 summer camp providers doing around 6,000 sessions.

The average weekly session costs is about $195.

Here’s a breakdown of Charlotte’s session types based on my summer camp data:

• Half day sessions: 3,500 // at an average of $175/wk
• Full day sessions: 1,700 // at an average of $230
• 3/4 day sessions: 400 // at an average of $265
• Other: 100+ // at an average of $145

Here’s the percentage of camps based on breakdown of camp session types:

• Sports: 1900+ available session // about  34% of total sessions
• Arts: 1050+ available session // about 19% of total sessions
• STEM: 900+ available session // about 16% of total sessions
• General Day Camp: 650+ available session // about 12% of total sessions
• Other Theme: 300+ available session // about 6% of total sessions
• Other Academic: 300+ available session // about 5% of total sessions

• Nature & Outdoors: 200+ available session // about 4% of total sessions
• Culinary: 100+ available session // about 2% of total sessions
• Games: 50+ available session // about 1% of total sessions
• Special Needs: 50+available session // about 1% of total sessions

I’ve learned a ton building SummerCampGuru.com. Here are some insights:

• Full day sessions often run from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., necessitating extra fees for extended care, which could be an extra $100/week.
• The cost curve is not linear because full day camps encompass more of the lower cost general day camps offered by the Y and Parks & Rec, etc. 3/4 and 1/2 day sessions are specialty camps like Robotics or Swimming.
• Weekly costs range from $75 for a city-sponsored camp to $450 for a horseback riding camp.
• A decent full-day program at a private school will run $400 with extended care. Two half-day programs at the Y can be over $300/week. A $10 babysitter for $500/week is therefore cheaper for two kids.
• A LOT of camps offer financial aid. This is why I have a ‘scholarship’ flag on the site and parents can search for camps with this option.
• For camp providers, there’s a big opportunity in offering sessions the last 2 weeks of summer break – very little competition.

Happy camp session hunting!

Cover image via Facebook