It can be so challenging to find summer camps for teens that they’ll actually want to attend and that help provide them with more self-confidence, connections, and life skills. As the parent of two teens myself, I’ve struggled with this same thing many times, so I want to make the process a lot easier for you!
Imagine an experience where they can challenge themselves beyond their normal capacity, experience the beauty of the natural world while unplugging from their screens and getting wild in nature, and then come home feeling stronger and more confident than they’ve ever been before.
At Guided Passages, those are the types of adventures and summer camps for teens that we offer. We’re all about creating transformational experiences for tweens, teens and young adults that will foster deeper connections with themselves, with others, and with nature.
Why Choose a backpacking adventure?
There’s nothing like packing all the gear you’ll need to survive for 5-7 days in the wilderness into your backpack and heading into the backcountry with a group of teens your age who are also ready for fun and adventure.
A backpacking adventure is definitely not your average summer camp for teens because leaving all of your comforts behind including your parents, your bedroom, and your internet connection takes a lot of courage, and it means you’re going to experience and see things that many people only dream of.
Teens these days rarely have moments to totally unplug and get away from all the stimulating noises and distractions of the city. Backpacking provides an opportunity for them to tap into their inner kid again, the one who finds joy in skipping rocks, swimming in mountain lakes, and climbing to the top of a ridge to catch an epic view they’d normally only see in photographs.
Not Your Average Backpacking Trek
These particular backpacking trips for teens aren’t the average wilderness adventure you might expect, though. The Wilderness Quests we offer at Guided Passages all have a Rites of Passage component.
A Rite of Passage is the intentional marking of transitions between one phase of life and the next. For example- marking the transition from Child to Teenager and Teenager to Adult.
Marking transitions between the different phases of life has been a pan-cultural practice across the globe for thousands of years, but it has been largely lost in western culture, and that loss has had devastating consequences for the youth of today.
At Guided Passages, one of our missions is to bring back healthy, initiatory experiences for young people, so they can learn to love and accept themselves for who they are and step fully into purposeful and meaningful lives.
So ya, it’s not your average backpacking trip, to say the least!
Rites of Passage Experiences for Teens
A Rite of Passage typically includes 3 phases: separation, challenge, and incorporation. The separation phase is all about leaving behind everything that’s known including your comforts, your familiar people, and the previous version of yourself. The challenge phase includes completing and persevering through an experience that pushes you to the limits of what you thought you were capable of, and the incorporation phase is when you incorporate everything you learned about yourself and bring it back to your life and to your community.
So in essence, a backpacking wilderness quest is more than just a summer camp for teens; it’s a life changing, transformational experience that helps teens step more fully into themselves, builds their confidence, and teaches them that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.
How to Connect Your Teen to a Summer Camp Like This
There are quite a few organizations in the US that offer Wilderness Rites of Passage overnight summer camps for youth, and a few of my favorites are listed below, starting with my own organization Guided Passages.
Guided Passages will be offering 2 Wilderness Backpacking trips for teens for the Summer of 2025:
1. 7th/8th Grade, All Genders
This wilderness adventure is for incoming or exiting 7th and 8th Graders age 12-14 who are ready for the adventure and challenge of a lifetime. This will be a 5-Day, 4-Night Backpacking trip into the Marble Mountain Wilderness of Northern California that includes 6 hours of supervised solo time. This will be a Rite of Passage trip that will help them mark the transition into their teenage years, get wild, stretch themselves, connect with themselves and others in deep and meaningful ways, and create memories that will last a lifetime.
It’s going to be a powerful and life-changing experience that will help middle schoolers move forward into the next phase of their lives with more confidence, intention, and purpose.
2. 18-24 Year Olds, All Genders
This wilderness Rites of Passage trip is for 18-24 year olds who are ready to mark their transition into adulthood. This is an 7-Day, 6-Night Backpacking trip into the Marble Mountain Wilderness of Northern California that includes 2-Days and 2-Nights of Solo time. This will be a powerful Rite of Passage journey where they will get to truly be initiated into this next phase of their lives with intention and guidance.
Who am I? What am I leaving behind from my childhood? Who do I want to become? What are my gifts? What is my calling? Why am I here?
This is their moment to sit with those deeper questions, to sit with themselves, to claim who they are, and to call in what they want in their lives and what they want to share with the world.
Here are a few other organizations that I would highly recommend (links included!):
Why It’s Important to Connect Your Teen to a Rite of Passage Experience:
When young people don’t have healthy ways to initiate into the next phase of their lives, they find ways to initiate themselves in often dangerous and risky ways.
The more that parents and communities come together to create meaningful and transformative experiences for our youth and show them that they are integral members of the community and that their voices and gifts matter, the more they will be able to step towards wholeness and step into their roles as adults and community members who have the tools to navigate the challenges they will face and be able to offer their gifts to the world.
The lack of initiation in modern society is more than a lost tradition—it’s a missed opportunity to equip young people with the tools they need to thrive. That’s why we at Guided Passages are dedicated to reintroducing Rites of Passage experiences for young people.
Through these experiences, young people can learn to love and accept themselves, step fully into adulthood, and live meaningful lives as confident, purposeful and initiated adults.
This article was all about taking summer camps for teens to the next level. It was about how we can provide rich and meaningful experiences for our young people that they’ll be able to pull from and remember for the rest of their lives.
If you’re ready to help your teen create memories and experiences like this that will last a lifetime, click here to learn more and register
Learn more on our website Guided Passages and follow us on Instagram and Facebook for updates and insights!
Written by: Jasmyne Chandler
Published on: 1/6/25
