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All camps have a 2:1 camper to staff ratio. Over half of our direct care staff hold a Masters Degree or higher.

Coastal Expedition: Our Coastal Expedition includes beach camping on Sapelo Island, where campers will explore the forested uplands, the vast salt marshes and the complex beach and dunes systems – as well as play a lot of camp games and learn to surf cast. Campers will experience a two-day paddle down the Satilla River, where they can fish for bass and sun fish, and explore the possibilities of self within the possibilities of the wild. A one-day protected inlet and tidal marsh paddle will provide opportunities for finding treasures like ancient shark teeth and shells. Our coastal expedition is a beautiful and fun setting for exploration and development of friendship, self-awareness and social emotional growth under the guidance of Aerie’s experienced and professional staff.

Paddle Camp

Campers at the Paddle Camp will explore the waters of North Georgia. The adventure starts with a day of flat-water instruction. From there, campers progress to guided white water adventures. Together we will scout the rapids, fish, sing, swim, and play while celebrating our adventures, individual strengths and new friendships. No previous paddling experience is needed or expected for this trip. This camp expedition is designed so that beginner paddlers can have high adventure in a protected, fun and loving environment.

Arts and Adventure:
Our Arts and Adventure Camp blooms in an old-growth forest on our private facility in the gorgeous North Georgia Mountains. Arts offerings feature Guest Artists partnered with Aerie Staff in the instruction of ceramics, theatre arts, folk crafts, music, and more! This camp is particularly designed for kids who enjoy and would benefit from an expressive arts environment where quirky is cool, the stars are clear, and your friends are goofy too.

Ceramics instruction will be hosted by Guest Artist Tracy Barnes, featuring an on-site kiln and Raku firing. We have a theater-arts specialist on board as well. Folk craft, leather work, woodwork, stone work, bow making, and soap making will also be offered. While focusing on expression of self and metacognition development, campers will also be building specific skills as a fundamental goal of this camp, and they will create objects of beauty and creativity in which they can be proud and feel ownership. Arts Camp is developmentally geared toward children who should have a voice and who benefit from understanding their emotions and can better modulate themselves through the arts. The environment is a child’s world where growth and learning are engaging, fun, and closely and gently guided by our all-star camp staff.

Whether your kiddo has no artistic skill or wants to further develop skills they have already discovered, Arts and Adventure Camp will have all the silliness, hugs, adventures, and fun you expect from an Aerie camp! In addition to expressive arts, this camp includes archery, adventures, campfires, slip-and-slides, making life-long friends, and lots of bad jokes. Our Arts Camp is good for kids eight and up, including teenagers, and is perfect for either boys or girls.

Animal Farm and Carnival Camp

We will camp out on nearly 100 acres at the backside of beautiful Camp Carnival’s Rescue Animal Zoo where it rains rubber chickens and the streams run-of with root beer. Your child will be caring for, nurturing, and loving some of the 400 rescue animals that include a monkey, a tortoise, alpacas, and llamas. The kiddos will also enjoy their own personal carnival adapted to their needs.

In this fun, loving, and nurturing learning environment, the young campers will learn about caring for themselves and others through their experiences caring for and receiving love from our animals. Under the guidance of Aerie’s experienced and professional staff, our kiddos will strengthen their understanding of and ability to express empathy with their peers, developing and maintaining enduring friendships.

Of course, there will be all the usual silliness you’ve come to expect from Aerie: games, primitive crafts, camp-fires & s’mores, and bad, repetitive jokes! Kiddos also go swimming, fishing, and down slip-and-slides in the sun. Qualifications for this program include being goofy, playful, and silly and the willingness and ability to get dirty and smelly while having fun. We send home happy, tired, muddy kids who have made wonderful, new friends.

SCUBA Camp
Each camper has their own individual Dive Master from our partner, Ohana Dive Company. These dive professionals will be with the students from start to finish of the water portions of this trip. No experience required or expected. This trip also includes our usual professional Aerie staff.

Spend a week taking in new sensory experiences in and out of the water. Feel the calm quiet and pressure of the water, the excitement and beauty of exploring a different world. The trip also includes Aerie’s portable tree house and playground. We will make our own soap, candles, do leather work, paddle, play, tell bad jokes and grow in a world catering to our kiddos.

This trip offers multiple opportunities for learning and practicing self-regulation through sensory input. All our participants will have the opportunity to make and maintain friendships and relationships in a nurturing and teaching environment.

Students who choose to complete the Scuba certification will have the opportunity to meet PADI requirements. We will accommodate all instruction. At the end, students will have had the opportunity to complete all requirements, and can become certified Open Water Scuba Divers.

Horse Ranch Adventure:

Our Horse Ranch Adventure happens on Cedar Creek Cattle Ranch, a working horse and cattle ranch on more than 300 acres of land on the Cumberland Plateau. On the ranch, campers will live the life of a ranch hand, residing in yurts and developing a relationship with their own individual horse. Campers will feed, brush, ride and care for the horse they will ride on the trail. Campers will also develop a sense of community through group living, adventure based counseling activities, day hikes and group games. While on the ranch, campers will visit the natural bridges and rock formations of the Cumberland Plateau. Throughout the week, campers will become the heroes of their own stories while learning new skills like primitive fire building, camp craft and outdoor cooking. No equine experience needed.


Llama Expedition:
Our Llama Trek Expedition is a lot like our Llama Adventure Base Camp, but on the go. The journey takes place in Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina under special use permits in partnership with Challenge Adventures. Campers will hike with their llamas to new camp locations throughout the week, exploring Pisgah National Forest with a new best friend by their side - their own personal llama. Campers lead, feed and care for their own llama, and the llamas, in turn, carry equipment and food, provide unconditional acceptance, and demonstrate, along with the herd, how to be part of a cooperative team/community. The llamas form a protective relationship toward their human partners, which gives participants a sense of security and invites campers to be part of the team. This expedition also includes opportunities for adventure based counseling, group games, camp craft and primitive skills for those who want to learn.

Financial Assistance Available

Scholarships are available.

We accommodate most diets including GFCF.

Our summer camps are designed to offer wilderness and outdoor camp experiences to the “nontraditional” camper. Campers will spend eight days and seven nights exploring the south east’s scenic wilderness and their own infinite potentials. Ideal candidates for this program are children, ages 8-17, navigating:

•Learning Disabilities

•High Functioning Autism

• Neurobiological Disorders

• Aspergers

• Pervasive Developmental Delays

• Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

• ADHD



Socially and emotionally, children who come to Aerie programs are developing at a different pace than their peers. While they are smart and interesting, they may be a little quirky. They may not get invited to the neighborhood sleepovers or will often get picked last for group games and activities. Through adventure-based counseling activities, close cohort living and interdependence, our campers have the opportunity to:

•Discover individual strengths

•Identify and practice effective communication habits

•Build friendships

•Build community

•Improve ability to function within a group

• Enhance group trust levels



A 2:1 student-to-staff ratio ensures the safety, individual attention and accommodation needed to provide for a meaningful and memorable experience. Our strength-based, prescriptive program is designed and sequenced to build confidence and competence through challenge and accomplishment. Our goal is to ready participants for life’s transitions and challenges such as schooling and preparing for college, as well as help them manage everyday stressors such as socializing and networking. This course is intended to:

•Be Fun

•Encourage independence

•Coach self-advocacy

•Instill a sense of responsibility

•Develop self-reliance

•Solidify and expand identity development

•Provide opportunity for role testing