Tribal Wisdom Academy Day Camps
Tribal Wisdom Academy, 1 Los Gatos Farms Drive, Los Gatos, CA 95033
About
Tribal Wisdom Academy Day Camps offers hands-on activities such as blacksmithing, cold-smithing metalwork, carpentry projects, wooden projects, and wooden toys. Campers use real tools, including power drills, and take part in maker projects, bow carving, Robin Hood skills, kid-made ziplines, zip lines, tree swings, and tree-to-tree slacklines. Additional activities include digging for treasure, treehouse building, forest forts and digs, archery, BB gun safety, knife throwing, tomahawk throwing, campfires at lunch, and creating their own business ventures with Tribal Coins and other camp businesses.
• Ages: 7–18 years old
• Schedule: Ten separate 5-day camp weeks in summer 2026, with BOY'S TRIBE offered mainly during Weeks 3, 5, 7, and 9 as a mid-day activity from 11am to 2pm
Each listed camp week runs for five days, such as June 8–12, 2026, with additional weeks running through August 10–14, 2026. BOY'S TRIBE runs from 11am to 2pm during the camp day as a mid-day activity.
The program includes Big Kid Adventure Maker Camp, Graduate Camp, and Alumni Camp, with Graduate Camp as part of the Big Kid Camp featuring age-appropriate wooden projects and no farm animals or hot metal blacksmithing. Alumni have a Special Alumni Treehouse Village, a dedicated Mentor, and an outdoor wood shop where they create their own advanced projects. Alumni can work in tribal government jobs such as MIT (Mentor in Training) or Big Kid Camp Sheriff, and older Alumni have the Boy’s Tribe Adventure as a mid-day activity during their Alumni camp days. TRIBAL RANGERS is for girl Alumni ages 13 and up from any previous TWA camp years and includes a green staff shirt, and usually involves one or two older girl Alumni working and playing as project leaders in the main camp during the entire camp day. Alumni must have attended the TWA Camp in 2024 or 2025 to qualify for Alumni Village.
The camp describes its experience as a historic “analog childhood” and a treehouse village experience as a child’s forest home, with an outdoor curriculum and adventure skills in the TWA redwoods. The mission statements include “Preparing kids for any world future”, “Organic human childhood, in the woods where it all began”, “Historic organic childhood, in the forest where it all began”, and “Be prepared for any world future with the skills of tribal childhood.” Tribal Wisdom Day Camps state that they help children rediscover healthy social development with a traditional outdoor curriculum.
Adult Mentors provide safety and guidance with an 8-to-1 ratio, and the wild forest adventure park includes a large staff of adult Mentors. All Tribal Wisdom Academy staff at every level are vetted with Child Safe Training, extensive reference checks, California Department of Justice LiveScan Fingerprinting, and national F.B.I. background checks. Some of the approximately 20 adult Mentors on staff were “tribal village camp kids” from ten years ago. Parents have 24/7 parent support via text or email.
The TWA program is locally designed by Ben Walker, who has over half a century of camp program experience. Ben Jamin Walker’s half-century of global wilderness expeditions and work in environmental and tribal adventure education is described as the foundation and origin of the Los Gatos Tribal Wisdom Academy forest campus, and he has lived and survived in the deep wilderness with tribal families around the planet. This is the 12th Summer of Tribal Wisdom Academy Day Camps, and Big Kid Adventure Maker Camp and Alumni Camp are featured in 20 camp videos.
Round-trip professional “Kids Kab” transportation is included at no extra charge for 2026, and camp days are described as longer in 2026. Odd-numbered camp weeks feature blacksmithing plus student-inspired take-home projects, while even-numbered camp weeks feature five new take-home maker projects including cold-smithing metalwork. The camp program is created daily by each child, and more than half of camp kids attend only one week each summer. Parents are instructed to have children wear long pants, solid shoes, and bring a jacket all year due to cool morning weather at nearly 2000 feet elevation, and parents are asked to read the Behavior Contract with their children before they attend camp each year.
In community emergency planning, parents or camp staff can drive with an injured person directly to the Redwood Estates Fire Station at 21452 Madrone Drive in a very severe emergency, and nearby medical connections listed include Sutter Urgent Care – Los Gatos Center and the Skyport Kaiser Minor Injury Clinic.
Last updated June 4, 2026.
• Ages: 7–18 years old
• Schedule: Ten separate 5-day camp weeks in summer 2026, with BOY'S TRIBE offered mainly during Weeks 3, 5, 7, and 9 as a mid-day activity from 11am to 2pm
Each listed camp week runs for five days, such as June 8–12, 2026, with additional weeks running through August 10–14, 2026. BOY'S TRIBE runs from 11am to 2pm during the camp day as a mid-day activity.
The program includes Big Kid Adventure Maker Camp, Graduate Camp, and Alumni Camp, with Graduate Camp as part of the Big Kid Camp featuring age-appropriate wooden projects and no farm animals or hot metal blacksmithing. Alumni have a Special Alumni Treehouse Village, a dedicated Mentor, and an outdoor wood shop where they create their own advanced projects. Alumni can work in tribal government jobs such as MIT (Mentor in Training) or Big Kid Camp Sheriff, and older Alumni have the Boy’s Tribe Adventure as a mid-day activity during their Alumni camp days. TRIBAL RANGERS is for girl Alumni ages 13 and up from any previous TWA camp years and includes a green staff shirt, and usually involves one or two older girl Alumni working and playing as project leaders in the main camp during the entire camp day. Alumni must have attended the TWA Camp in 2024 or 2025 to qualify for Alumni Village.
The camp describes its experience as a historic “analog childhood” and a treehouse village experience as a child’s forest home, with an outdoor curriculum and adventure skills in the TWA redwoods. The mission statements include “Preparing kids for any world future”, “Organic human childhood, in the woods where it all began”, “Historic organic childhood, in the forest where it all began”, and “Be prepared for any world future with the skills of tribal childhood.” Tribal Wisdom Day Camps state that they help children rediscover healthy social development with a traditional outdoor curriculum.
Adult Mentors provide safety and guidance with an 8-to-1 ratio, and the wild forest adventure park includes a large staff of adult Mentors. All Tribal Wisdom Academy staff at every level are vetted with Child Safe Training, extensive reference checks, California Department of Justice LiveScan Fingerprinting, and national F.B.I. background checks. Some of the approximately 20 adult Mentors on staff were “tribal village camp kids” from ten years ago. Parents have 24/7 parent support via text or email.
The TWA program is locally designed by Ben Walker, who has over half a century of camp program experience. Ben Jamin Walker’s half-century of global wilderness expeditions and work in environmental and tribal adventure education is described as the foundation and origin of the Los Gatos Tribal Wisdom Academy forest campus, and he has lived and survived in the deep wilderness with tribal families around the planet. This is the 12th Summer of Tribal Wisdom Academy Day Camps, and Big Kid Adventure Maker Camp and Alumni Camp are featured in 20 camp videos.
Round-trip professional “Kids Kab” transportation is included at no extra charge for 2026, and camp days are described as longer in 2026. Odd-numbered camp weeks feature blacksmithing plus student-inspired take-home projects, while even-numbered camp weeks feature five new take-home maker projects including cold-smithing metalwork. The camp program is created daily by each child, and more than half of camp kids attend only one week each summer. Parents are instructed to have children wear long pants, solid shoes, and bring a jacket all year due to cool morning weather at nearly 2000 feet elevation, and parents are asked to read the Behavior Contract with their children before they attend camp each year.
In community emergency planning, parents or camp staff can drive with an injured person directly to the Redwood Estates Fire Station at 21452 Madrone Drive in a very severe emergency, and nearby medical connections listed include Sutter Urgent Care – Los Gatos Center and the Skyport Kaiser Minor Injury Clinic.
Last updated June 4, 2026.
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