Camp America Jobs: What You'd Actually Be Doing (and the Football-Specific Route)
A Camp America job means being a camp counsellor first and a coach second. You live on site all summer, run one activity — soccer can be yours — and do cabin, mealtime and evening duties the rest of the time. If you want to coach football all day, there's a different route most people don't know about.
The split nobody explains
Every route falls into one of two buckets, and getting this clear puts you ahead of most applicants.
Bucket one: the placement agencies
Camp America, Camp Leaders, AmeriCamp, Camp USA. You pay a fee and they place you at a general American summer camp — cabins by a lake, canoeing, campfires. You live on site for the whole summer, and here's the bit footballers miss: you're a counsellor first and a coach second. Soccer is one activity you run; the rest of the time you're on cabin duty, mealtimes and evening activities, being a big brother or sister to a bunk of kids. Brilliant if that's what you want — but it's not coaching football all day.
Bucket two: the coaching companies
Challenger Sports and UK International Soccer (UKIS) don't charge a placement fee — because they're your employer, not a placement service. They hire British and Irish coaches to run week-long soccer camps, pay you a wage, and put you up with a local host family. You coach football: six hours a day, two three-hour sessions, Monday to Friday — then you pack your bag and move to a new town, a new family and a new set of kids the following week. A proper road trip with a whistle.
The full programme-by-programme comparison is in the book — which route suits you, and what each really pays. £14, instant PDF + ePub.
Get the book — £14How football fits at a general camp
If you go the agency route as a sports specialist, Camp America lists both "Football" and "Soccer" as teachable sports and recommends an FA Level 1 coaching qualification (or serious coaching experience) to go as a specialist. You'd coach your sport in activity blocks and carry general counsellor duties around it.
What a day actually looks like
At a general camp you're on site all week: a structured camper day of wake-up, activity blocks, meals and an evening activity, typically with a day or a day and a half off. Because you live where you work, your "off" time is still on camp unless you leave. As a touring coach it's a different rhythm entirely — you arrive in a town on the Sunday evening, coach Monday to Friday, and move to a new town and host family the following Saturday. One route gives you a deep camp community and one "home" for the summer; the other gives you a new corner of America every week. Neither is better — they're just different summers, and the honest job of the book is to help you pick the one you'd actually enjoy.
One "job" to not confuse it with
You'll also come across USA Sport Group — a real operator, but it's local, part-time, weekend coaching work based around New Jersey and New York for people already living in the States. It's not a fly-from-the-UK-for-the-summer programme. If it looks too good in a search, that's why: it's answering a different question.
Roles, pay and qualification requirements are set by each programme and change year to year. All details are for 2026 — check the official pages before you apply.
Coach or counsellor — which one's really for you?
Get the book — £14