Rent These Villas And A Private Kids’ Summer Camp Is Included

Parents faced with long shutdowns, closed schools and suspended summer camps due to COVID-19 may be looking for ways to keep their children occupied this summer. To fill that need, companies that specialize in private villa rentals and travel planning are adding custom camp-like experiences to visitors’ options.

The members only vacation club Exclusive Resorts just announced a program Summer Camp, Exclusively Yours available in their properties in 75 destinations from Jackson Hole to Lake Como to Costa Rica. Katie Duven, a member of the company’s Private Travel Team and a former camp counselor, creates individual itineraries for each family that are overseen by staff on site. Possible activities include surfing lessons and horseback riding in beach destinations and guided rafting, hiking, fly fishing and mountain biking in mountain destinations. The age range that can be accommodated is 6 to 18.

“Camps are often summer highlights—both for children and parents,” explains James Henderson, the company’s CEO.  “With the majority of day and sleep away camps closed for the summer, we wanted to provide our members and their kids the opportunity to uphold beloved camp traditions and experience a “normal” summer. Exclusive Resorts Members are accustomed to enjoying custom itineraries on every vacation, so extending this opportunity to their children with skill- and age-appropriate activities was a natural extension of something we’ve been doing for nearly 20 years. Our camp programs and excursions are vetted by our expert team to ensure kids not only enjoy camp-like experiences but stay safe doing so.”

Elite travel organizer Jack Ezon’s company Embark Beyond has also crafted a program Camp Embark to create camp experiences for families renting properties in the U.S., Mexico and Caribbean such as Lake Kora in New York’s Adirondacks, Dunton Hot Springs and River Camp in Colorado and Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. (The country opened its borders to international travelers on July 1^st. To encourage tourism, the resort is also offering a 50% discount on private 3-5 bedroom villas and a completely private experience from check in to household staff.)

The company’s camp director Lynda Levy has ten years of experience creating camp programs and will design an individual one for each family based on a pre-arrival consultation. Activities range based on destination from go-karts, sailing lessons, ziplining, canoeing, scavenger hunts, hiking and others. Each family has its own private counselor, leaving parents free to do their own activities or just, after this long stretch, to relax.