For scout leaders

A troop is not an ordinary group. Your organization's supervision and tenting requirements decide how many adults come, how many tents go up, and how many vehicles you bring. Those three numbers are exactly what a campground limits. Work them out before you choose a site, and the rest of the handbook applies as written.

This page uses Scouting America's published requirements as its worked example, quoted from the organization's 2024 printing. Policies are revised; the current Guide to Safe Scouting and your council are the authority. Girl Scouts, Scouts Canada, church youth groups, and school clubs have their own requirements. If you lead one of those, read this page for the method and take the numbers from your own organization.

Start with your organization's requirements

Scouting America's adult supervision rules, as printed in 2024:

• Two registered adult leaders 21 years of age or over are required at all Scouting activities, including meetings.
• A registered female adult leader 21 or over must be present for any activity involving female youth or female adult participants.
• All adults staying overnight in connection with a Scouting activity must be currently registered as an adult volunteer or an adult program participant.
• One-on-one contact between adult leaders and youth members is prohibited.

And its tenting rules:

• Separate tenting arrangements must be provided for male and female adults as well as for male and female youth.
• Youth sharing tents must be no more than two years apart in age.
• In Scouts BSA, youth and adults tent separately.
• Spouses may share tents.

Turn the requirements into three numbers

Adults

Two qualified leaders is the floor, not the plan. If one of two leaders becomes ill or has to drive a scout home, the campout no longer meets the requirement. Bring enough registered adults that losing one leaves you compliant, and make sure the mix satisfies the female-leader rule if it applies to your unit.

The overnight registration rule matters for bookings in a specific way. A parent who drives scouts to the campground and plans to stay the night has to be registered under the 2024 guidance. Settle who is staying well ahead of the trip, because it changes your adult count and your tent count.

Tents

Do not estimate tents from headcount. Count them by group:

1. Sort youth by sex, then pair tent mates within two years of age. An odd scout out needs a tent, or a three-person tent with suitable mates.
2. Count adult tents separately, by sex, with spouses sharing if they wish.
3. Add any shared shelters: a dining fly, a gear tent.

The total is often higher than a family group of the same size would need. Now look at the site. Some group sites are tents only, which suits a troop. Some limit the number of tents or have a defined tent area. If the listing does not say, ask the campground how many tents the site holds.

Vehicles

Group sites can be strict about parking. Yosemite, for example, says up to five vehicles can park near one of its group camps, which hold 13 to 30 people. A troop that arrives with a car for every two scouts will not fit. Plan carpools to the site's vehicle limit and count the trailer, if you tow one, as something to ask about: Yosemite's regulations do not allow trailers at group campsites at all.

Match the troop to a site

• Minimum occupancy. Group sites often have a floor as well as a ceiling. A patrol-sized outing may be under it. Yosemite's group sites start at 13 people.
• Maximum occupancy. Count every adult and every youth. Ask whether parents who visit for the day count.
• Equipment. Confirm tents are allowed in the number you need and whether a troop trailer may be parked.
• Layout. You need room to place youth and adult tents apart and still supervise. Ask for a site map or photos.
• Water and toilets. Ask what is at the site and what is a walk away. It affects how you run buddy pairs after dark.

If the limits do not fit, a block of standard sites may work better than one group site. Chapter 2 covers that choice. With standard sites, check that your leaders can still supervise across them.

Booking and money for a unit

• Whose name is on the reservation. The reservation holder is responsible for the booking. Decide whether that is the scoutmaster, the outings chair, or the committee treasurer, and make sure that person, or someone the campground accepts, is on the first vehicle to arrive.
• Dropouts. Youth attendance moves until the last week. Know your cancellation line. On Recreation.gov, a group overnight facility cancelled less than 14 days before arrival forfeits the first night's fee and a $10 service fee. Set your sign-up deadline ahead of that.
• Payment. Collect through the unit's normal process and keep trip money in unit accounts, not a leader's personal one. Chapter 3 has the split methods.

Let the scouts do the planning

The site limits are an adult responsibility. Much of the rest is the troop's to run. Hand the senior patrol leader the people, tent, and vehicle limits and let the patrols produce the tent plan, the duty roster, and the menu within them. Review the result against the campground's rules and your organization's requirements, then book.

Checklist: before a troop books

The checklists on this page print cleanly, one box per line.

• Current supervision and tenting requirements read from our organization's own source
• Registered adult count meets the requirement with one adult to spare
• Female-leader requirement checked, if it applies
• Every adult staying overnight confirmed as registered
• Tents counted by group, not by headcount
• Carpools planned to the site's vehicle limit; trailer question asked
• Site minimum and maximum occupancy checked against our roster
• Reservation holder named and on the first vehicle
• Sign-up deadline set ahead of the cancellation penalty date
• Rules brief from Chapter 4 sent to families and scouts