Housing and Transportation
Summer Camp Staff Housing Options
Roughing It is a day camp and there is no on-site housing for staff. Staff often live with their family, but may choose to locate apartments/rooms to rent for the summer months. Staff are responsible for having their own transportation to get them to the camp site they work at, with some accommodations available for staff who live in San Francisco.
Transportation
Camp Site Location: Our camp site and office are in Lafayette and our swimming site is in Moraga. Program staff and many of our group counselors will need to commute to these sites
Transportation from a Roughing It Bus Stop: Roughing It provides bus transportation for our campers from San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Lamorinda, Walnut Creek, Danville, and San Ramon. Many group counselors will be assigned as a bus counselor and meet the bus at its first stop. Roughing It attempts to assign bus counselors closest to where they live but this is not guaranteed. Bus counselors should keep in mind that they will still need to commute once a week to our Lafayette office for in-person training, either Wednesday or Thursday.
San Francisco Staff: Commuting from San Francisco is not feasible, and so we will assign San Francisco staff as bus counselors. These counselors meet the Roughing It bus at its first stop in Noe Valley. We do not run buses during Staff Training week, so San Francisco staff will need to either drive themselves, carpool with other SF staff, or take BART. We can arrange a shuttle to bring staff to our training center in Lafayette from Lafayette BART.
Junior Counselors: Junior counselors have the option of either commuting to the Lafayette Reservoir or taking the bus. We do not run buses during Staff Training week, so Junior Counselors will need to arrange transportation to our camp office in Lafayette that week.
Housing Options in the Bay Area
Housing in the Bay Area is on the expensive side, but there are several options for short stay housing needs. Communities nearest Roughing It are Concord, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco.
Berkeley is about 15-25 minutes from camp, and seems to have the largest number of affordable summer housing options available due to proximity to the UC Berkeley campus. Rental costs vary. Beware of less expensive options you may discover on your own, as these “better deals” are sometimes misleading. Take the time to understand all rental agreements and costs.