These Luxury Hotels Now Host Summer Camps for Kids—at No Extra Cost

This coming summer, Schloss Elmau in Germany’s Bavarian Alps will offer children over the age of six soccer clinics run by top German soccer clubs, a literary workshop that culminates in producing a bound book, and classes on artificial intelligence and coding. No, this isn’t an elite European finishing school or even a summer camp—it’s a luxury hotel.

Schloss Elmau is one in a growing set of hotels offering enriching activities for younger guests in the summer. For our family, it made sense: why shell out for a summer vacation and camp when we can book a hotel that includes daily kids programming in the nightly rate?

The Dallas-based Wisniewski family crunched the numbers and reached the same conclusion. They hosted “Camp Wisniewski 2025” for their two school age-children last summer, traveling through Italy, Germany, France, Greece, and Montenegro.

“If you think about the cost of sleepaway camp plus a parents-only trip while the kids are away, there’s usually a net increase by bringing the kids along,” says Scott Wisniewski, a wealth manager. “There can actually be savings if you skip camp altogether and spend that time traveling as a family—and the opportunities for enrichment are endless.”

At D Maris Bay resort in Turkey, I read on the beach while my son went on an educational scavenger hunt, learning about the history and culture of the Datça Peninsula. The resort’s summer programming is run by Gymy Kids, one of the top childcare centers in Istanbul.

At Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa in Texas, kids can take golf lessons while parents play the resort’s two championship courses. The Preserve Sporting Club and Resort in Richmond, Rhode Island, has a survival skill and mastery course, in addition to nerf archery and yoga, for school-age guests. At the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa, the trainee Marine biologist program gives teens the chance to work alongside experts and contribute to conservation projects, such as coral reef restoration and manta ray identification. In the summer, Kona Village, A Rosewood Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii, has weekly campfires, open-air cinema nights, and activities like jewelry-making classes, surf lessons, and a resort-wide pickleball tournament.

Like a traditional camp, many hotels offer enclosed, secure grounds. At Schloss Elmau, kids can go from jumping on the trampoline at one kids’ club to doing arts and crafts at another—without supervision. (Our five-year-old needed to be escorted around the property, but kids over the age of seven had the run of the place.)

“The best part of a family vacation is the time you spend apart from each other,” says Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, the owner of Schloss Elmau and a father of six. Mueller-Elmau explained that he aims to offer a plethora of enriching activities for kids so parents don’t feel guilty leaving their child behind while they hike to the top of a mountain or spend a leisurely afternoon in one of the hotel’s seven pools.

The Beachside, a new family-friendly hotel on Nantucket, Massachusetts, is meant to feel like luxury summer camp. “Kids have the freedom to explore between the pool, arcade, and lawn games while parents can actually unwind, whether that’s with a cocktail on the terrace or a quiet bike ride into town,” says Jason Brown, one of the hotel’s founders. Beachside has movies under the stars, art sessions, puppet shows, and swim lessons.

At the Beau-Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, kids bounce between Le Monde De Bori, the hotel’s play center that has an indoor tree house and acres of gardens with a life-size chess board. In the afternoon, activities are more instructional: archery, painting, and pastry making, which come at an additional cost.

Last summer, my family finished the season with a stay that, to me, felt like camp: Pridwin Hotel and Cottages on Shelter Island. The property’s inviting communal settings fostered instant social connections. Three hours after arriving, my daughter had befriended a four-year-old to swim with. Staff often calls the hotel “Camp Pridwin,” which I found unsurprising, given the boat rides on the Peconic Bay, Wednesday night hotel-wide BBQs, and cottages that feel like luxe camp cabins.