There’s this misguided notion that the ultimate kid’s paradise would look something like a cross between Disneyland and Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. The truth is that for a lot of kids, paradise is nothing like that. Instead, it’s sleepaway summer camp—especially a camp that lets you do crazy stupid things and get really, really dirty. In this second installment of our two-part exploration of the specialness and weirdness of camp, we present a collection of stories that capture camps and campers at their edgy extremes. There’s the kid who hitchhiked around a difficult hike, the boy who dove into a campground toilet to save a cookpot, the counselors who harvested wildlife for dinner, and the camp that staged the most epic game of capture the flag in human history. This is camp as it really happens.
