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"I may be a MetroCard-carrying city girl, but my favorite place in the whole world is in the middle of the woods in Algonquin Park, Ontario, where I went to camp every summer for 13 years\u2014nine as a camper and three as a counselor.\n\nNow that the weather is starting to warm up, I can't help but feel a pang for the time when my friends and I would count down the days until we packed up our trunks and duffels for Camp Tanamakoon and said goodbye to real life for a month or two. As a kid, it was pretty much a given that we would go to camp in the summer\u2014so long as you didn't throw a tantrum too big to get on the bus, of course. As we got older, however, there were more and more things competing for our time: internships, SAT prep, sports, high school boyfriends, and the pressure to get a \"real job.\"\n\nFor girls nowadays, those forces are stronger than ever\u2014plus, the idea of turning in your cell phone for a few weeks is probably a bit more daunting than it was 10 years ago (though don't get me wrong, we still put up a fight for our flip-phones back in the day).\n\nBut if you are lucky enough to go to camp, hold on to that opportunity for as long as you can. It doesn't last forever, and the real world will most definitely be there when you get back. And even if you were never a camper, being a counselor is an amazing summer job! I went to a canoe-tripping, fire-building kind of place, but there are tons of options even if that sort of thing isn't up your alley.\n\nBecause while camp is fun as a kid, it can also be so much more than that when you're a teen or young adult. It's where you learn to think on your toes, coming up with creative ways to help a new girl feel less homesick or coax a nine-year-old into a freezing cold lake. It's where you learn to deal with conflict in shared living spaces, which comes in very handy when you get assigned a random college roommate. It's also usually the first (and last, for a while at least) time you'll be responsible for keeping kids safe\u2014and don't let anyone tell you that making photocopies in an air-conditioned office is any more of a real job than that.\n\nI may not have many occasions to use my archery or paddling skills in New York City, but I know the independence and confidence I gained during those summers has made me a better student and employee. And, perhaps more importantly, the friends I made there are still some of the best people I know, and some of the few I'm sure I'll always stay in touch with. Even years later, we keep each other updated over endless Facebook threads, and when we get together it's like nothing's ever changed.\n\nIt can be hard to make good packs of pals outside of high school (and sometimes even in it), but camp is a guaranteed way to meet new people beyond the classroom bubble. You may have to share a bunk with a girl you don't like along the way, but once you find your niche, camp friends are girl groups par excellence. And after a few weeks, you'll have so many inside jokes with one another that everyone else will pretty much find you intolerable to be around (in a good way!).\n\nAs a counselor, my campers were 13- and 14-year-olds, and my heart broke a little every time one didn't come back because they had a new boyfriend or wanted to hang out with their cool city clique, because I couldn't help but feel like their best Tanamakoon years were still ahead. After all, how many opportunities do you have in life to switch off and live in a place where girls rule?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/summer-camp>