Camp America

[kaster]

Hey hey
I'm doing the Camp America programme this year and I've got to decide between two camps that I'm interested in, they both seem equally good, one is in Conneticuit and the other Virginia. I've only ever been to Florida in the USA so was wondering if anyone could offer opinion on which is the "better" state. Weather? Interesting landmarks? National Parks?
Just any input would be brilliant
Thanksss

[biisme]

Connecticut is a pretty small state. So, it probably has lett interesting landmarks and National Parks due to this, and the fact that I can't think of anythign really cool in Connecticut and I've lived about 20-30 min away from it all my life.

I'd say the best thing Connecticut has going for it is that it's probably more liberal than Virginia. It is one of the only two states with gay marriage. It's between New York and Massachusetts (two very liberal states). Also, Massachusetts and New York have several things to do there, so if it's possible for you to "explore", "go byond Connecticut" or "tale trips", there a lot of things to see.

Is this during the summer? If so, then I don't think there's a huge weather difference. Although Virginia is farther south, Connecticut gets quite hot in the sumer as well.

I'm positive there's a ton of awesome stuff about Virginia...but I don't know it...because I live in the North. I'll let someone who lives near there tell you good stuff about Virginia.

[kaster]

thanks!
the camp Id be going to in Conneticuit is quite proper, like no strappy tops and all that which I found weird. So the camp in Virginia is actually more liberal and has later curfews for staff and stuff. But the lady from the conneticuit one said that yoiu had to be accepting of all people of religion race and sexual orientation, which I thought was a good thing to point out.
I dunno, I'll have to get back to them soon though.
I'm going tavelling about after for about a month so hopefully I'll get to visit loads of cool places, maybe go over West too, hit California, and I want to go up to Chicago and Detroit aswell..
Anyone recommend any good places to check out? Also are the trains over there quite good? Cause flying everywhere would cost a bomb.

[Jeimuzu]

Ooh, I did summer camp, 2008, doing it again this year! I'd not think about the location for the whole thingy with the landmarks and all of that... the location of your camp isn't really important, since you'll spend most of your time at camp itself. =] I went to one in New York state and I spent two days in those two months in the actual city itself. And I was only 40 miles away.

You do most of your sightseeing afterwards. Go to the camp you're most comfortable with. Anyways, a lot of those rules go out the window later on, I remember at my camp there were all sorts of rules that didn't really get listened to.

If you're nervy about anything, feel free to get in touch since I've already done it myself, although I used CCUSA =]

[sdc91]

Originally Posted by kaster

I'm going tavelling about after for about a month so hopefully I'll get to visit loads of cool places, maybe go over West too, hit California, and I want to go up to Chicago and Detroit aswell..
Anyone recommend any good places to check out? Also are the trains over there quite good? Cause flying everywhere would cost a bomb.

Connecticut doesn't have much, and neither does Virginia. However, CT is close to Massachusetts (Boston) and New York (NYC). Virginia... depends on where you are. Either close to D.C. if you're up north, or nothing much if you're in the south.

Detroit has nothing... Chicago's cool. What're you're planning to do sounds really expensive, though. America is all one country, yes. But it's a big one, and visiting Chicago in the center and California on the west coast after doing a camp on the east coast pretty much the (distance-wise) equivalent of starting in Azerbaijan, then deciding to hit up Poland then Portugal. Also, the rail here sucks. That's why everyone has cars. You can rent a car and drive thousands of miles ($ for rental and $ for gas), or you can fly, but that would cost a thousand bucks or two from east-central-west-east.

[Jeimuzu]

For what it's worth, I got a high-quality flight with Virgin America from New York to San Francisco for $338, return. You can get a hostel for the night for around $30-$40 in peak times. San Francisco will get you better value for hostels than New York, but regardless I'd recommend the Central Park Hostel in New York, and the USA Hostel and the Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco. Can't tell you about any others, I'm afraid.

[devushka]

what kinds of camps are these? I'm from VA, (near DC) and there's tons to do here. There are lots of historic sights here and in neighboring states, especially if American wars are interesting to you. We have lots of civil war battlefields and historic buildings, plus Jamestown, the first permanent British settlement in America, Williamsburg (big museum--shows how life was in the colonies), etc. The mountains are gorgeous and have a lot of interesting geology, including a lot of limestone caves (there may be caving trips you can go on). West Virginia, which is not a long drive, has a lot of rapids if you like rafting or kayaking. DC's also nearby. I always tell students to come to DC for sightseeing because it's very cheap. Almost every museum is free, you can find cheap dining in some fun ethnic neighborhoods, and there are a lot of free cultural activities, such as concerts.

I'm not sure if you will run into any problems politically. It probably depends on what sort of summer camp it is and where it's located. I went to camp in the mountains of southern VA (a backpacking type thing), an area which is pretty conservative, but the people who my camp attracted were fairly liberal and mostly from mid-atlantic liberal suburbs. I sort of doubt it will be an issue. The mountains are a pretty common place for city parents to send city kids in the summer and most of the urban areas in VA are pretty liberal.

The nice thing about both CT and VA is that they're handily on the east coast. Public transportation around here is probably better than in other parts of the country. There are cheap buses from NY to DC daily and I think Amtrak is pretty handy to many east coast hubs!

[kaster]

thanks that's actually really helpful, the camps are both Girl Scout ones cause Im involved with GirlGuiding over here. So they're gonna be a bit conservative anyway. Its at the Potomac Woods and the CT one is Lake Candlewood. I was leaning more towards Potomac anyway, but that's really helpful cause on days off I'd be able to go into DC and explore.
Do you know if there are any "explorer" bus tickets or something like that that I could just go on any random bus with one ticket for a certain length of time? I'm trying not to think about money spending just take it as it comes, save up loads now so I have £££ to change to $$$ then I get pocket money from the camp too. Hopefully it'll work out.
But yeah I want to go to museums and stuff and isnt the Lincoln memorial and stuff in Washington DC? and the Whitehouse, just to get pictures of those and stuff woulf be so cool. My local newspaper does this thing where if you take a picture of you holding it in front of somewhere "far far away" or something they print the picture. Me and my friends want to see how many we can get in it. One of them took a picture with the waxwork of Samuel L Jackson and the paper thought it was real and everyone here still thinks he met SLJ hah.

I'll probably have to just stick to the eastcoast this year there's loads I want to see there, then do the West another year..

[Jeimuzu]

Originally Posted by kaster

thanks that's actually really helpful, the camps are both Girl Scout ones cause Im involved with GirlGuiding over here. So they're gonna be a bit conservative anyway. Its at the Potomac Woods and the CT one is Lake Candlewood. I was leaning more towards Potomac anyway, but that's really helpful cause on days off I'd be able to go into DC and explore.
Do you know if there are any "explorer" bus tickets or something like that that I could just go on any random bus with one ticket for a certain length of time? I'm trying not to think about money spending just take it as it comes, save up loads now so I have £££ to change to $$$ then I get pocket money from the camp too. Hopefully it'll work out.
But yeah I want to go to museums and stuff and isnt the Lincoln memorial and stuff in Washington DC? and the Whitehouse, just to get pictures of those and stuff woulf be so cool. My local newspaper does this thing where if you take a picture of you holding it in front of somewhere "far far away" or something they print the picture. Me and my friends want to see how many we can get in it. One of them took a picture with the waxwork of Samuel L Jackson and the paper thought it was real and everyone here still thinks he met SLJ hah.

I'll probably have to just stick to the eastcoast this year there's loads I want to see there, then do the West another year..

Might be worth looking at what TrekAmerica has going on in the North East. If they've got something, it'll almost certainly take in New York, Washington, Boston, Niagara and so on.

I'll have a look now. =]

EDIT:
This one looks pretty sweet. http://www.trekamerica.com/tours/ft.html You might get a discount for being Camp America, too, I know all CCUSAers get a 10% discount. =]