Are you on the lookout for the best girls camp ideas?
Girls’ camp is more than making friends and roasting marshmallows. It’s a safe and supportive learning environment that aims to connect and empower young girls!
Well-planned activities and games — catered specifically to them — are the backbone of a positive and memorable experience.
The right blend of activities will naturally create an atmosphere of inclusivity and diversity while fostering their personal growth. A girls’ camp can be a highly empowering and fulfilling experience, where every girl feels valued and supported.
As camp organizers, youth leaders, or parents, finding creative and engaging girls’ camp ideas to shape this experience can be a challenge. Read on to discover a unique treasure trove of:
- Creative Theme Ideas
- Exciting Outdoor Activities
- Arts and Crafts for Creative Expression
- Educational and Empowerment Workshops
- Fun and Engaging Games
- Night-time activities.
Let’s get into it!
Creative Theme Ideas for Girls Camp
Themes with the potential to excite are key to creating a fun and engaging girls summer experience. Below are several themes to inspire your camp’s planning process:
- Adventure in the Wild: why not take camping for what it is and embrace the outdoors? Wilderness adventures can nurture exploration, curiosity, outdoor safety, and crucial survival skills.
Themed activities might include: sports team matches, survival skills workshops, wilderness scavenger hunts, and hut-building or tent decorating contests.
- Space Explorers: wherever you are, get inspired by simply looking up! The galaxy is a mesmerizing canvas for night-time creativity.
Themed activities might include turning tents into U-F-O’s, alien-themed treasure hunts, constellation mapping, and astronomy/astrology workshops. And once the day is over – stargazing is on!
- Enchanted Forest Mysteries: A girl’s fairy-tale favorite! If your camp is located near forestry, ignite imaginations at the doorsteps of fairies and elves.
Themed activities might include putting on popular fairy-tale plays, puppet, and potion-making workshops, and building creative houses for fairies out of natural resources (such as leaves/twigs).
- Under-the-ocean: More than 80% of the ocean has not been explored yet. If your camp is located near one, dive deep into the vast expanse of water-related activities!
Themed activities might include watersports (such as swimming, kayaking, or even snorkeling), mermaid and pirate costume creation, lost island treasure-chest hunts, building rafts, DIY paper sea animals, and seashell jewelry-making workshops.
- Superhero Squad: Discover the many forms that a superhero might appear in the real world! Costume or not, show the girls how to unlock their inner superheroes.
Themed activities might include creating superhero capes and masks, competing in obstacle courses, ‘saving the day from evil’ challenges (that promote helping each other through specific challenges), and workshops on learning their own real-life ‘superpowers’.
Exciting Outdoor Activities (Like Horseback Riding)
- Treasure Hunts: Send teams on a thrilling quest for hidden treasures around the campsite. Treasure hunts are an exciting form of teamwork and require communication and problem-solving between the girls.
Maps and objects can be themed accordingly, or you can make use of natural resources. Clues could also be written to target any relevant learning or skills.
- Nature Walks: A simple, easy, and free activity right at your feet! Exploring the local wilderness can encourage curiosity and an appreciation for natural beauty.
As a guide, you can incorporate outdoor skills and nature education along the way. You could also leave the final landmark as a mesmerizing surprise.
- Team-Building Challenge Course: Set up a series of challenges promoting teamwork, trust, coordination, and communication. Activities could include trust falls, blindfolded tasks, scavenger hunts, and escape rooms.
Games could include fan favorites such as one-team sports, relay races, egg-drop, and human-knot untangling.
- Camp Olympics: Turn the campsite into an Olympic-style event! Select a diverse range of outdoor sports to cater to every girl’s interests, and allow them to try each in a set rotation.
You could also randomize teams at each station to allow for some friendly competition.
- Horseback Riding: Let the girls experience the thrill of horseback riding while learning the basics of caring for and connecting with these gentle animals.
Begin by showing them how to brush the horses and prepare the saddles. Once everyone is comfortable, guide them on a short ride around the area or a simple trail.
This activity builds confidence, balance, and respect for animals while giving everyone a memorable outdoor adventure.
- Yoga and Mindfulness: Invite an outdoor instructor to host a simple session, or use a beginner’s infographic to teach it yourself.
Set the girls into pairs and incorporate relaxing meditation techniques to encourage mindfulness and deep breathing, particularly when faced with either camp or outside-world challenges.
Arts and Crafts for Creative Expression
- Personalized Camp T-Shirts: Unleash the girls’ inner fashionistas by giving them their own t-shirts to design and decorate!
Shirts could follow the color scheme or theme of the camp, and can also be signed by the other girls as a memento of their camp friendships.
Wearing these during the camp may foster a special sense of community and belonging among the girls. T-shirts also make for great wearable souvenirs once the girls are back home!
- Nature-inspired Art: Any artist’s greatest muse: nature! Set up art stations that use the outdoors as a canvas for self-expressionand to build confidence in one’s art skills.
Artsy activities could include rock painting, stone portraits, leaf-pressing, fairy gardens, flower collages, and DIY sun-catchers.
- DIY jewelry-making: Who doesn’t love jewelry? Take flower crowns to the next level and let the girls create their own pieces using found natural materials.
Have the girls collect nearby parts such as flowers, feathers, leaves, and seashells.
With the assistance of glue, thread, or decoration such as beads, the girls can craft their own jewelry sets from scratch.
- Vision Boards: Inspire the girls to learn more about themselves — their goals, hopes, and dreams — by channeling them onto boards.
Vision boards combine self-reflection and creativity, and encourage the sharing of different pathways and possibilities for the future.
- Camp Journaling: Provide the girls with journals, or ask them to BYO beforehand.
Journals are a great way for the girls to reflect and document their time in a more private manner of self-expression. They also provide a beautiful way to look back on their experience in detail.
Educational and Empowerment Workshops to Help Build Confidence
- Confidence-building Workshops
Building confidence in oneself is crucial for successfully navigating the ups and downs of girlhood.
For younger girls with less experience, workshops could be focused on discovering the things that make them feel most confident.
Warm-up exercises could begin with self-reflection, and leaders could initiate group discussions by sharing their own experiences with gaining self-confidence.
Afterward, girls can participate in role-playing scenarios that require them to assert themselves, appreciate themselves, or step out of their comfort zones.
The girls could leave the workshop with a selection of positive affirmations, mantras, and self-talk examples, each for different contexts requiring self-confidence. For a more unique and memorable workshop, get the girls to create their own affirmations!
- Leadership Workshops:
Leadership workshops could begin with an introduction to a diverse range of female leaders around the world. These could be organized by different leadership styles and contexts.
To emphasize leadership qualities, the workshop could consist of games that specifically require decision-making, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Girls could take turns organizing and leading various activities for the other girls, or lead the design process of a new game.
- Basic Survival Skills Workshops:
To ensure preparation and safety in the outdoors, this workshop would equip girls with hands-on survival skills!
Knowing how to survive in the wilderness – particularly if alone or stranded – is crucial for feeling self-confident and safe if an emergency occurs.
Some basic skills include shelter-building, starting a fire, knot-tying, first-aid, signaling for help, and finding food and water.
Team-oriented challenges could include identifying handy natural resources and building make-shift shelters.
- Self-defense Workshops:
Teaching girls the ability to defend themselves is a great way to promote empowerment on a physical level!
This workshop could begin with threat awareness and identification, followed by beginners’ self-defense techniques.
The emphasis would be on personal safety, identifying the appropriate level of response, and verbal versus nonverbal communication. Girls can leave the workshop feeling more confident in their ability to protect themselves if needed.
Fun and Engaging Games for a Large Group
- Scavenger Hunts:
Create scavenger hunts with objects or ‘hidden treasures’ based on your camp theme.
Design the hunt to be the right level of challenge, and include themed clues, puzzles, or riddles that could simultaneously target any relevant learning/skills.
This will ensure that the hunts are unique, engaging, and as collaborative as possible.
- Talent Shows:
Let the girls showcase their talents with a campsite talent show. To give everyone a chance under the spotlight: allow them to perform in teams, pairs, or individually. Nothing beats the thrill of show-time — whether up on the stage, or watching friends from the seat!
- Themed Trivia:
Organize trivia contests to quiz the girls on various facts, with fun prizes for winning teams.
The contest could follow the camp’s theme, with categories based on the skills learned during the camp.
- Outdoor Board Games:
Classic board games (such as Twister, Checkers, and Chess) can be enlarged and played outdoors. Have the girls roleplay as board game pieces to create a uniquely supersized experience!
- Campfire Charades:
Charades serve as a classic icebreaker, especially when paired with a campfire and a sweet dessert.
Bound to cause plenty of laughter and goofiness, they’re a great way for the girls to connect and unwind toward the end of the night.
Night-Time Activities (Recipes for Fun!)
- Stargazing:
Lay out blankets and study the stars. The girls can unwind by appreciating the serene night-time beauty and spotting shooting stars.
For a more unique stargazing experience, bring along a telescope and teach them to spot the constellations and planets.
- Campfire storytelling and music:
Share stories around the campfire, whether that’s classic jokes, thrilling ghost stories, or a simple recount of everyone’s favorite event from the day.
Bring along a guitar to enjoy some tunes, or even get the girls to make up their own campfire songs!
- Glow-in-the-dark games:
Get out the glow sticks or flashlights and modify any game for later hours!
Some especially popular games have a unique night-time twist, such as spotlight hide and seek (where players use a flashlight to expose the hiders) and glow-stick tag (where players remove a glow-stick bracelet each time they are tagged).
- Night-time nature:
Explore the campsite under the moonlight!
To mix up the outdoor adventures, take the girls on a guided walk to see how different areas of nature transform under different lighting. This activity is perfect for any sleepaway camp.
- Midnight snacks:
What girl doesn’t love a sweet treat toward the end of the night? Roasting marshmallows on camp is practically a requirement for camp activities.
The staple dessert of camping is most definitely s’mores, so get the girls to find sticks and hand out graham crackers and chocolate too!
To get the creative juices flowing, have the girls design their desserts in teams with themed ingredients.
Final Words
Crafting a memorable and impactful girls’ camp is a truly rewarding experience, for both you and for them.
It requires a positive atmosphere of creativity, inclusivity, and diversity, which will naturally arise through careful understanding and planning!
As Stephanie Worlton explains in her guide to camp planning: “Get familiar with your girls. You need to know your girls, and they need to know you, before the camp.”
Be sure to understand their diverse interests and needs to keep their options as broad yet engaging as possible when it comes to girls camp ideas!
As organizers, you have the power to shape a chapter of the girls’ lives with laughter, lasting friendship, and personal growth. Allow them to leave feeling creative, confident, and empowered, even beyond the campsite.
Whether it’s through exciting games, outdoor adventures, creative expression, or empowering workshops, there are plenty of unique ideas to give your girls that little bit of magic!