When considering sending a child to summer camp, it’s crucial to evaluate the specific camp in question, as not all camps offer the same experience. Camps that cater to a child’s unique interests or talents tend to provide more value than general, one-size-fits-all programs. This personalized approach fosters deeper engagement and growth. Moreover, the experience and quality of the camp staff play a pivotal role in shaping the overall experience, as knowledgeable and passionate instructors can elevate a child’s learning and adventure.
While many camps today claim to offer enriching experiences, only a few truly live up to these promises. In this landscape, inme Summer Camps stands out. With over 28 years of operation, 10 residential campsites across the country, and a wide array of programs ranging from mountain biking in Yercaud, rock climbing in Coorg, river rafting in Rishikesh, surfing and sailing in Pondicherry, scuba diving in the Andamans, skiing in Manali and much more. It has earned a reputation for delivering a thrilling blend of adventure, fun, and personal growth. Inme’s commitment to engaging children in outdoor activities while fostering skills like teamwork, leadership, and resilience has left a lasting impact on its participants. Through careful planning and dedicated staff across multiple locations, inme consistently ranks among India’s top 10 summer camps. Their ability to provide meaningful, memorable experiences sets them apart as a leader in the industry.
From Scratch
The founders of inme Summer Camps, all friends who graduated from the prestigious XLRI business school in 1992, specialized in Human Resource Development. However, instead of following conventional corporate careers, they pursued a shared vision: addressing the emerging societal challenge of the disconnect between youth and nature. Having spent their childhoods immersed in outdoor expeditions, treks, and experiences that shaped both their personal and professional lives, they saw a gap in the market as urban lifestyles rapidly evolved. This sparked their idea to create a sustainable venture centered around experiential learning and reconnecting youth with the natural world.
In 1996, when digital screens were beginning to dominate childhood experiences, they founded iDiscoveri, the precursor to inme Camps. After an extensive exploration of the Himalayan regions of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, they identified Sitlakhet, a pristine Himalayan location surrounded by snow-capped peaks, as the ideal site for their first camp. There, the inaugural inme camp launched, offering children an immersive, nature-based experience.
Today, inme Camps continues to thrive with the same core philosophy. In response to the growing impact of screen dependency, mental health issues, and the disconnect between urban youth and nature, inme’s transformative programs aim to equip young people with essential life skills, promote screen independence and mindful technology use, foster ecological awareness, and cultivate resilience.
Inme Summer Camps in a Nutshell
Inme Summer Camps offers a range of age-specific programs, each carefully designed to meet the developmental needs of different age groups while staying true to the organization’s core mission of preparing youth for life’s challenges through outdoor education. With a strong emphasis on safety and structured engagement with nature, inme’s approach is both intentional and transformative, ensuring each child’s experience is age-appropriate, challenging, and rewarding.
Age-Specific Program Design
The camps are divided into three age groups, each with its own curriculum and focus:
- Ages 9–11 (Introductory Level): For ages 9-11, our programs focus on building independence, self-confidence, self-awareness and increasing self-esteem. For many in this age group, this may be the first or second time staying away from their parents and their comfortable homes. The program encourages participants to take care of themselves and their belongings. Starting from packing their bags, keeping their tents clean, washing their dishes and sleeping with their friends in a tent for the first time – These can be experiences that one may remember for a lifetime.
- Inme gradually takes participants through individual outdoor and adventure experiences, that are carefully crafted to be exciting while slowly building skills like tying knots, climbing a boulder, navigating an obstacle 30 ft above the ground, pitching a tent, lighting a fire or preparing a meal on a camp out. As participants go through successful experiences with activities that seemed initially challenging, they slowly expand their comfort zones, overcome fear and increase their self-worth.
- At this stage, children are introduced to outdoor fundamentals in a supportive, well-equipped environment. These include bouldering, ziplining, outdoor survival, and, at select camps, an introduction to water activities like kayaking.
- Ages 12–14 (Intermediate Level) : The programming for this group introduces more moderate challenges, such as overnight backpacking expeditions where campers pitch their tents and prepare meals together. The activities ramp up to include whitewater rafting, sailing, trekking, rock climbing, and more advanced kayaking. For this age group inme focuses on social and emotional learning, carefully designed simulations that bring out elements of trust, cooperation, and collective problem-solving. Adventure activities are given a “teaming” flavour where even rock climbing becomes a collective activity with tasks like spotting, belaying, rope management becoming a part of the skill sets. Slowly through tasks like planning a trek, navigating a map, solving clues, making shelters and cooking with limited resources on an outdoor survival night out the team slowly learns to subconsciously pick up skills to collaborate and work together.
- Ages 14–17 (Advanced Level): These programs recognize the challenges of early adolescence that participants may be facing – impending board exams, transition to college, career choices and wanting to create one’s identity.
- For this age group inme focuses on goal setting, dealing with the fear of failure, overcoming challenges, working towards a plan, problem solving and understanding choice and consequences.
- Not only does inme dial up the challenge of the outdoor activities, like longer rappelling pitches or higher top challenges, they encourage participants to take initiative, set goals, deal with failure, try again and succeed. Participants learn that they have much much more in them than they give themselves credit for. Longer expeditions with multiple night outs with rotational roles and responsibilities introduce the concepts of choice and consequence and active leadership which builds resilience and grit. A deeply immersive reflective solo session, followed by an intense sharing session, helps cement the learning at an individual level, aiding the transference of key mindsets like determination, resilience and courage to the challenges back home.
Ensuring Safety and Well-Being
When asked about how inme ensures safety across all its adventure activities, Tarun ‘TC’ Chandna, one of the founders, responds, “With over three decades of experience, inme Camps has built a comprehensive safety system focused on proactive risk mitigation and thorough contingency planning. Our approach exceeds industry standards, incorporating multiple layers of safety protocols to ensure the well-being of all participants.”
He explains that preventive protocols begin with biannual audits of all equipment, ensuring it meets global safety certifications (such as UIAA and CE standards), along with pre-camp vehicle inspections for roadworthiness. Medical vetting is also critical, with health profiles collected during enrollment to ensure that allergies, chronic conditions, and medications are communicated to the on-site medical teams.
During travel and arrival, inme maintains a structured approach, with role-specific staff managing check-ins and coordinating with parents. Travel leaders—sometimes including certified physicians—monitor the journey closely, using GPS tracking for speed regulation, ensuring hygienic meal stops, and providing live location updates to central command.
On-site, inme’s risk management system includes a resident MBBS-qualified physician, a well-stocked infirmary, and Wilderness First Responder (WFR)-certified staff accompanying all expeditions. Emergency infrastructure, such as dedicated evacuation vehicles, ensures a quick response if needed. inme also adheres to strict staffing ratios, with a 1:6 instructor-to-participant ratio to ensure personalized attention, and a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, ensuring the safety and mental well-being of every participant.
Post-incident, inme follows a rigorous documentation protocol to log injuries, treatments, and behavioral issues in real-time. If a participant’s involvement needs to cease, the organization coordinates emergency repatriation in close collaboration with the family. Lastly, inme is committed to continuous improvement, integrating feedback through post-program home visits to refine safety protocols based on parent and participant insights.
TC concludes, “We view safety not just as a requirement, but as a core pillar of every experience we provide, and we constantly evolve to ensure that every child has a safe, enjoyable, and transformative time with us.”
