The 7 Best Summer Camps in China (Plus Some Cheaper Options)

The Best Summer Camps in China

After reading extensive reviews, sending email inquiries, and even calling their counselors, here are the top seven choices that stand out to me. (I’m listing them in no particular order. There are several other camps that may also be good, but these just seemed extra great.)

The 7 best summer camps in China are:

1. That’s Mandarin Summer Camp (Shanghai & Beijing)
2. MandarinRocks Summer Camp (Shanghai & Beijing)
3. LTL Summer Camp (Beijing)
4. Mandarin House Summer Camp (Shanghai & Beijing)
5. RISH Summer Camp (Shanghai)
6. Hutong School Summer Camp (Beijing)
7. YK Pao School Chinese Culture Camp (Shanghai)

To help you find the best fit for your kids, I’ve compiled somes details about each of the Chinese summer camps. 

Here it goes.

1. That’s Mandarin Summer Camp

Location: Shanghai, Beijing
Type: class only (10-17 yrs old), day camp (10-17), full camp (12-17), family camp (10+)
Start Date (2024): June 17, July 01, July 15, July 29, August 12 (full camp option only available on July 01 and July 15)
Length: 2 to 4 weeks
Price: from 1,075 USD to 8,570 USD (read the price table for details)

That’s Mandarin runs one of the biggest and easiest-to-find Chinese summer camps out there, mainly thanks to their awesome online marketing skills.

Founded back in 2005 in Beijing, the private Chinese language school has branches in Shanghai and Suzhou. They’re pretty unique because they were the first school in China to mix traditional classroom teaching with online learning.

Over the years, they’ve hosted camps for kids and teens in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. This year, they’re sticking to camps in Shanghai and Beijing. According to their website, more than 3,000 campers have joined their programs since they kicked off their first summer camp in 2008.

During the summer of 2024, there are five start dates: June 17, July 1, July 15, July 29, and August 12. Full camp programs run only in July, but there are options available from June to August.

A typical day at That’s Mandarin summer camp consists of cultural activities in the morning and Mandarin classes in the afternoon. Kids aged 10-11 can choose between the day camp or just afternoon classes. Teens aged 12-17 can stay overnight in a selected hotel (in a shared room) near the school or with a Chinese host family. Plus, if parents want to join in, there’s a family camp option.

The Pros:

• Unlike other camps where kids have to lug around textbooks that are easy to misplace, That’s Mandarin uses an online learning system. This way, all the learning materials are saved, and kids can access cool multimedia features and their notes whenever they want.

The Cons:

• On the flip side, the camp can get pretty crowded. The often large number of campers, exceeding 300 each summer as advertised, can easily overwhelm the school’s facilities given its size. Additionally, their activities and tours can feel a bit less personal as they are conducted with large groups, which may bring down the overall Chinese learning experience. 

• The program tends to be somewhat pricey for what is offered compared to other camps, and prices keep going up each year.

2. MandarinRocks Summer Camp

Location: Shanghai, Beijing
Type: day camp (7-11 yrs old), full camp (12-20), family camp (7+)
Start Date (2024): June 17, July 01, July 15, July 29, August 12
Length: 2 to 8 weeks
Price: from 1,890 USD to 11,400 USD (read the price table for details)

MandarinRocks is one of the oldest summer camp operators in China, starting up back in 2005. Their Mandarin immersion program has been an industry leader in Shanghai for many years, and they launched another camp for kids in Beijing in 2018.

The school behind it was founded over 20 years ago in 2001 and has the stamp of approval from the WYSE Travel Confederation, which is a big deal in the global youth travel scene. They’re also part of NAFSA, the go-to association for international education.

MandarinRocks keeps things cozy with a small camp capacity, usually enrolling about 30 to 40 campers each year at each location. Most of the kids come from the USA, Canada, the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia, but you’ll also find campers from places like Russia, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. Some participants have Chinese roots or are Chinese living abroad.

Their summer camp offers a great mix of Mandarin lessons, activities, and travel adventures. Kids are grouped by age and dive into Mandarin classes in the morning according to their levels with small groups averaging about 3 to 4 students. Afternoons are filled with fun activities like city exploration, cultural workshops, sports, and recreational outings.

If your child is in the day camp, they’ll be there from Monday to Friday. Full campers get to explore a different city or attraction every weekend. There are also family camps for those traveling with parents, which include family accommodations and give parents the chance to take adult Chinese classes and join in on weekend trips.

The Pros:

• Their Shanghai camp (in Jing’an) and Beijing camp (in Dongcheng) are both right in the city center, making it easy to arrange accommodation and plan logistics whether you’re sending your kids to day camp or traveling with them.

• Group sizes are small enough to create a personal experience but still big enough for a good social vibe. Kids can make friends without feeling lost in a big crowd.

The Cons:

• Since the camp size is on the smaller side, spots tend to fill up quickly. You may need to book well ahead of time.

3. LTL Summer Camp

Location: Beijing
Type: class only (7-17 yrs old), day camp (7-17), full camp (11-17)
Start Date (2024): June 10, June 17, June 24, July 01, July 08, July 15, July 22, July 29, August 05
Length: 1 to 8 weeks
Price: from 530 USD to 10,520 USD (read the price table for details)

LTL is relatively new to the summer camp scene compared to schools like That’s Mandarin and MandarinRocks. Their program is pretty similar to those camps, but with a unique twist.

What’s interesting is that LTL school was founded by a German guy living in Beijing in 2007 and is run by an international crew. Their Shanghai school was born in 2016.

Even though they haven’t been around that long, they’ve won some cool awards, like the 2019 Excellence Award from languagecourse.net and the Exceptional Language School award from languagebooking.com. They are also a trusted member of IALC, the world’s oldest and largest international private language school association.

Most of the kids who join their summer camps come from Germany, the USA, Italy, and Russia. A day at the LTL camp is typically longer than other camps – with Mandarin lessons split into morning and afternoon sessions, and activities wrap up around 6:30 pm. You’ll get 20 hours of lessons and 5 fun activities each week.

The whole camp experience is all-inclusive, aside from flights, insurance, and visa costs. Kids can choose to stay in a student residence with fellow campers or go for a Chinese homestay, which is usually about a 45-minute commute to school. They also have day trips on Saturdays. 

The Pros:

• LTL has an international management team that speaks a bunch of languages (German, English, Italian, Russian, etc.), so it makes it easier for parents and kids from certain backgrounds to communicate and sort out any issues.

• Their prices are lower than other schools.

The Cons:

• Unlike other schools that have their own buildings or campuses to offer a more genuine camp environment, kids essentially go camping in their office filled with adult learners. (Both LTL schools in Shanghai and Beijing are located in office buildings.)

• They’ve prepared overwhelming paperwork for the enrollment process – lots of legal technicalities for you to read through and sign! 

4. Mandarin House Summer Camp

Location: Shanghai, Beijing
Type: class only (7-19 yrs old), day camp (7-19), full camp (15-19)
Start Date (2020): June 22, July 06, July 20, August 03
Length: 1 to 8 weeks
Note: no summer camp by Mandarin House in 2024

Mandarin House is one of the most reputable Chinese language schools in China. They’ve got the official thumbs up from the Ministry of Education of China as an HSK (Chinese proficiency) test center and even snagged the “World Language Provider Star Award” from the renowned Study Travel Magazine a couple of times back in the old days. 

Used to be a really big deal with over 10 branches all over China, but these days they’ve scaled down to just two locations in Shanghai and Beijing. Despite that, they’ve been running summer camps since 2004 and have tons of experience under their belt. According to their website, more than 1,000 kids have joined their programs!

Their summer camp is pretty typical – half-day Chinese lessons, half-day fun activities, and weekend outings. What sets them apart is that campers all stay with local Chinese families instead of in hotels or apartments. This way, kids get a real chance to dive into the Chinese language and soak up everyday life and culture with a Chinese family.

5. RISH Summer Camp

Location: Shanghai
Type: full camp (8-18 yrs old)
Start Date (2024): June 30, July 05, July 19, July 21, July 24
Length: 12 to 31 days
Price: from 2,845 USD to 5,830 USD (read the price table for details)

Unlike many other summer camp operators, RISH is not a language school – it’s an education travel service. They work with some top universities in Shanghai and host summer camps on their campuses.

Think of their summer camp as a study tour. During the first two weeks, the kids dive into intensive Mandarin lessons and activities on campus, and then depending on the session you choose, they get to explore a different city like Hangzhou, Suzhou, or Zhouzhuang on a multi-day tour at the end of the program. 

There are two major differences between the RISH Summer Camp and others.

1. RISH campers live on campus (in hotels/dormitories owned by the universities that are only open to teachers, students, and parents) while campers at private language schools usually need to travel between their apartments or homestays and school every day.

The benefit of living on a university campus is that the kids can have access to all the facilities there such as gym, track, tennis courts, swimming pool, library, cafeteria and school clinic.

But a downside is that the universities RISH works with are often far from downtown or anything interesting in the city, making it difficult for mature students to explore Shanghai on their own outside of class. It will likely create a feeling of “isolation”. Besides, the accommodations operated by universities usually aren’t as nice as what you’d find at private schools.

2. RISH doesn’t actually have their own Mandarin teachers. They rely on university professors for the lessons, and the materials come from BLCU (Beijing Language and Culture University), which is known for teaching Chinese as a foreign language. 

While RISH promotes this as a unique advantage, my experience at Chinese universities, especially BLCU (I spent two years there), taught me that it could go both ways. Your kids might end up with the best teachers or, unfortunately, the worst ones. I haven’t tested out on RISH, but I had both the most experienced, interesting teachers and a bunch of awful teachers at my university – they were able to get a teaching position because of personal connections rather than qualifications.

Besides, university teaching methods work for learning over the long haul, but they can be extremely dry and boring for kids. In that two-week span, it’s hard to say how much they’ll really soak up since they’ll be focused on characters and phonetics.

On the bright side, RISH does include an hour of 1-on-1 Chinese tutoring each evening in the program to give kids an extra opportunity to practice Chinese.

So, if you’re looking for a youth program in China that mixes language learning with some eye-opening trips, RISH summer camp could be the perfect choice! Most other camps just do day trips, so it stands out in that way.

6. Hutong School Summer Camp

Location: Beijing
Type: full camp (14-17 yrs old)
Start Date (2020): May 31, July 05, August 02
Length: 2 weeks
Note: Hutong School has been acquired by That’s Mandarin and will run the same summer programs in 2025.

Hutong School is another Mandarin school founded by a foreigner in Beijing (Belgian). It has a diverse international team, including members from China, Belgium, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the USA.

The school has received several awards, such as the Service Excellence Award from iStudy Global and Mandarin School of the Year from Bonapp. They have a total of seven learning centers in China and another seven abroad, but this year, the summer camps are only in Beijing.

This camp is designed only for teenagers aged 14 to 17, and students will stay in a youth hostel close to the school.

A typical day at the Hutong Summer Camp begins at 9:00 am with small group Chinese lessons that run until noon. Following the Chinese classes, students participate in a variety of cultural activities to learn more about Beijing’s local culture. These activities include trips to major historical sites (like the Great Wall and the Summer Palace), cultural workshops, and lectures.

The Pros:

• Their international team speaks multiple languages, and some of them are former students. Their personal experiences studying abroad help them support students in overcoming culture shock and homesickness.

• Medical insurance is included in the program, which is not always offered by other camps.

The Cons:

• They don’t have any programs for younger kids or day camps.

• The youth hostel accommodation isn’t the fanciest – you’ll be in bunk beds, which might not be everyone’s idea of a great stay! 

7. YK Pao School Chinese Culture Camp

Location: Shanghai
Type: Day camp (ages 5-9)
Start Date (2025): TBA
Length: 2 weeks
Price: TBA

You probably won’t find much information about the YK Pao School Chinese Culture Camp online, because they don’t do any publicity other than on their own website.

However, YK Pao is one of the most well-known International Chinese schools in Shanghai. It was founded in 2007 in honor of Sir Yue-Kong Pao, a well-known shipping magnate. Over 1,400 students from China and overseas are currently taking their year 1-12 education programs at this non-profit private institution. 

Every year, the YK Pao School runs educational summer camps for its students and kids from other schools. Their Chinese Culture Camp is perfect for kids who aren’t native Chinese speakers, giving them a chance to dive into the language and the culture of China.

The camp is all about boosting your child’s Chinese conversation skills and helping them read and write characters through activity-based, hands-on lessons. Kids will enjoy a mix of classroom learning and fun activities like calligraphy, martial arts, and community visits, making it a lively way to learn.

As of now, the school has not published the dates or prices for the 2025 summer camp. For more information, you can contact them via email at summercamp@ykpaoschool.cn or by phone at +86-21-61671999-8307.

The pros:

• There are lots of local Chinese kids around, involved in different programs like sports and music during the summer. This means plenty of chances for your kids to chat and practice their Chinese!

The cons:

• YK Pao is essentially a K-12 school, their programs are really geared towards local and expat kids living in Shanghai. If your family is located outside of Shanghai, you might run into some logistics challenges.