About our editors.
Who writes the Summer Camp Planner guides, how we verify camp information, and what we accept (and refuse) in terms of advertising.
Justin Leader
Parent of three kids — Noah, Miles, and Elliot — ages 6, 10, and 13 as of 2026. Los Angeles-based product builder who spent four consecutive summers painfully hand-coordinating our family's camp schedule across spreadsheets, calendars, browser bookmarks, and email threads. Summer Camp Planner is the tool I built for myself after the fourth summer of missing a registration deadline because the info lived in five places at once.
The editorial work here — pillar guides, pricing analysis, the decision framework — comes from those four summers plus conversations with 40+ camp directors across the 2024 and 2025 seasons. I don't claim expertise in child development or clinical care. I claim expertise in how it actually feels to plan a summer for multiple kids with different interests, readiness levels, and schedules.
Contact: Feedback form (I read every one).
Data sourcing + verification
Where the catalog comes from
19,500+ active camp listings sourced from camp operator websites, published directories (ACA, KidsOutAndAbout, Mommy Poppins, LA Parent, and city parks departments), and parent submissions via our feedback form. New metros added through an ingest pipeline that normalizes camp names, categories, ages, and pricing.
How pricing is tracked
The pricing report pulls percentiles nightly from our full active catalog — 10,000+ camps with published 2026 weekly prices. Scraper-sentinel values ($1, $2) are filtered out. We don't adjust for add-ons (registration fees, extended-care surcharges, supply fees) unless the camp publishes a bundled rate.
Corrections
Every camp listing has a "Report listing" link that routes to our feedback form. Corrections are reviewed within 72 hours; mistaken deactivations are restored same-day. We don't charge for corrections or list removal.
What we do + don't accept
We accept sponsored placements on directory pages and the /guides sidebar, labeled as such. Sponsorship does NOT influence:
- Editorial rankings in pillar guides
- Camp scores or sorting in directory listings
- Whether a camp is included in the catalog
- Content of comparison pages
- The pricing report's methodology or percentile calculations
All 19 sponsored-placement slots currently use placeholder `example.com` URLs. No real sponsors are live as of 2026-04-18. When real sponsors land, they'll be distinctly labeled as "Sponsored" per FTC guidelines.
We do NOT accept payment in exchange for favorable mention in the pillar guides, for positioning in comparison pages, or for rank boosts in search or filter results. If you've seen otherwise, please tell us.
What you can expect from our guides
- Data over vibes. Every claim with a number has a source. Pricing percentiles come from our nightly refresh; counts come from the live D1 catalog.
- Specific over generic. "9 questions to ask a camp" beats "make sure they're reputable." We aim for extractable, concrete guidance.
- Parent-first language. We write for how parents actually decide, not how marketers describe decisions. Readiness signals over sticker age ranges.
- Named limitations. Every pillar has a "Methodology" section that says what we counted, what we excluded, and our bias.
- Linked sources. We cite outward — ACA, CDC, AAP, peer-reviewed research when relevant. Linking to sources doesn't cost rankings; it builds them.
- Updated dates visible. Every pillar shows its updated date at the top. If the content looks stale, tell us via feedback.