Nationwide
Teen Tours of America makes the most of a traditional camp setting while traveling to the best backdrops America offers
Camp Snapshot
Teen Tours of America
www.teentoursofamerica.com
Cost: $3,695-$5,995
Ages: 12-17
After they’re dried off and rested from a morning of water skiing, this group of teenagers heads for the rope course, swinging, jumping, whooping and hollering. That night, their voices echo off the lake as they sing a campfire song.
Sounds a lot like your typical traditional summer camp, and in a way it is. But these teens will pack it up, load up a bus and head for their next destination.
And each destination offers some of the top outdoor settings and recreational opportunities in North America. The aforementioned scenario took place at Lake Tahoe, which has what’s regarded as one of the best rope courses in the U.S., and the skiing... well, just image it.
Setting the Standard
“The concept was to afford teens a chance to travel, and a -little freedom, so that they could make choices and grow,”
says Robert Lenner, who founded Teen Tours of America (TTA) seven years ago. “It was also important to have good supervision with quality counselors, so that it’s more of a family effort than a bunch of adults directing people what to do.”
Lenner has been in the camp scene since his youth, first as a camper, then as a counselor and later as an assistant camp director. Given that background, Lenner was adamant that Teen Tours of America, which began with one 21-day trip, would play closer to the heart of traditional camping than touring.
Lenner says that TTA is one of the few touring programs accredited by the American Camping Association (ACA). It’s important for TTA, says Lenner, because it holds TTA accountable to rigorous standards. TTA holds the standard highest for its counselors.
“Our minimum age for counselors is 23; most 21-year-olds just wants to have fun and don’t have enough direction themselves to lead teenagers,” says Ira Solomon, who joined TTA as a partner two years ago. “Bottom line is, I’m not paying for their vacation; I want them to be most concerned about our campers. Our tour leaders need to be 25 and almost all of them are teachers during the year.”
On-tour traveling demands mature leadership, say Lenner and Solomon, and once the age requirement is met TTA digs further to qualify candidates and ensure their fit with the tour.
They’re looking for a specific type of teacher who can maintain and enforce the black-and-white behavior rules while not advancing to the dictatorship level. It’s a fine line and Lenner and Solomon are always researching what makes a great teacher tick so they can translate that to their program.
“We send the kids who sign up a questionnaire and one of the questions we ask them is who their favorite teacher is,” says Lenner. “We show the responses to the counselors at orientation because we want them to see what the kids are looking for – ‘I like this teacher, because he makes it interesting by doing this.’
“Ira and I do not want a child to follow a rule simply because the adult told him or her to do it; we want kids to follow the rule because they buy into the fact that it’s the right thing to do. That happens when they respect the adult leading them.”
Red Cross-certified first aid training is a prerequisite, even before the three-day orientation and training. Pre-qualifying its candidates allows TTA to concentrate on the program and maintain the ideal atmosphere during orientation.
Crucial to that atmosphere is ultra-consistent guidelines that attempt to take out any ambiguity. Ambiguity leads to a breakdown in the family-like ties TTA is trying to create. When people are together in close quarters for three or four weeks any breakdown in the system will, at the least, create major discomfort for everyone.
“Teenagers, whatever age they are, are looking for behavioral limits. I’ve looked at kids and asked two questions... And you have to answer yes, but don’t just say yes because I’m telling you to say yes: 1. Will I get caught? Yes. 2. Will I suffer the consequences? Yes. When you truly believe this, there is no excuse for continuing the inappropriate behavior,” says Lenner. “The point I’m trying to make is that we’re very adamant about concrete lines; there is no gray area. The kids don’t have to worry about negotiating with you, and you don’t have to worry about it either. It’s all about consistency and concrete definitions.”
Staff is expected to be as active, if not more active, than the campers they’re responsible for; there should be no complaining on a long hike or any other activity. A disgruntled counselor leads to a disgruntled camper, which threatens to unravel the entire experience.
“We demand a lot out of our counselors, but they are part of a traveling family,” says Lenner. “How can I have miserable adults taking care of kids?”
The nature of the program is TTA’s silent recruiter, garnering great interest from talented teachers nationwide as they notice the locations.
“When you go water skiing at our program you go to Lake Tahoe, and when you go white water rafting, we pick the best river on the tour,” says Solomon. “We do these activities in incredible places.”
Solomon adds that beyond the Web sites that offer staff recruiting services for camp directors, universities often have free job boards. However, he says that directors should be prepared to sift through a lot of foreign applicants, which is great for those camps looking for international staff, but TTA hires only domestic counselors.
Coast to Coast
Teen Tours of America operates five programs, each with a separate geographic itinerary. One is a 21-day stint called Western Sprint that travels through California and the Southwest.
The second is Western Adventure, a 42-day program through the Canadian Rockies, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, California and the Southwest.
An Alaskan Expedition tours the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, while on the opposite side of the continent TTA runs a 21-day New England Journey.
The fifth is currently titled the Florida Swing and is a touring golf program associated with the PGA. This Teen Golf Tour plays the links of the finest courses in Florida for 21 days. All of the trips combine college dormitories, camp grounds, resorts and hotels for accommodations.
For camp ground stays TTA provides what Lenner calls the “Empire State Building of tents.” They’re 12’ x 14’, 16-foot high custom-built structures with all the amenities that Lenner says have withstood monsoon-like conditions.
Each program starts in an originating city where everyone flies to meeting places like New York, Orlando, Houston and San Francisco. TTA staff meets campers at the gates, brings them to meeting areas to round them up as a group and then they board a luxury coach.
This portion of the tour is possibly the most important part of the trip; it sets the stage for the remainder of the 21 or 42 days.
“Our first 36 hours are choreographed by the moment... How you’re sitting on the bus, who you’re rooming with, and so on, because we want to get rid of the butterflies kids may have in their stomachs,” says Solomon. “The biggest issue why kids don’t want to go to summer camp is because they don’t know anyone. That 16-year-old girl who says that she’d rather sit at home all summer, what she’s really saying is, `I don’t know anyone going to camp; I’m the new one in town.’ We identify that, and for the first 36 hours all the worries the kids could have are taken care of for them. Even if they come with friends, we separate them and make roommates for them. When they sit on the bus for the first time, we have a deck of cards that we deal and an Ace of spades will sit with an Ace of clubs, for example.”
The key here is to break up the possibility of cliques. Cliques ultimately create conflict and do not facilitate the family-like atmosphere that TTA strives for.
TTA creates a number of activities that require campers to work in larger groups together. For example, TTA hits team-building rope courses within the first 24 hours of the program on each tour.
“Peer pressure is a very big issue in the teen market; we’ve eliminated this situation because we have concrete black-and-white rules about how we treat each other; there are no gray areas,” says Lenner. “Our teachers are trained in conflict resolution and issues dealing with socialization and peer pressure.”
As you read this, the pressure is off for a group of teenagers and counselors as they soak in a Rocky Mountain sunset and reminisce over smores, looking forward to a day of whitewater rafting or rock climbing.