Island Camp is where Miles of Music began—and where musicians of all ages and experience levels continue to gather. Since 2011, we’ve been welcoming old friends and new faces alike into a creative village built on curiosity, generosity, and shared discovery.

Island Camp is not a conference, a competition, or a traditional music school. Instead, it’s a weeklong village of about 120 people—part of a much larger community—where learning happens through collaboration rather than comparison, and where campers are both students and teachers.

It’s also a deliberately low-tech experience. Life on the island invites you to unplug from the outside world and reconnect—with your instrument, your creativity, and the people around you. Meaningful human connection is not a side effect here; it’s the point.

Days are filled with workshops, jams, songwriting sessions, ensemble playing, yoga, visual art, long conversations, quiet moments, and nightly concerts. There’s structure, but no rigid curriculum—the shape of each week is guided by the people who are there.

We invite an extraordinary group of instructors who collaborate with us on a schedule rich with possibility, balanced by time for rest, nature, and connection. Island Camp intentionally holds space for newcomers, with roughly one-third of spots reserved for first-time campers.

If you’re wondering whether you belong, the answer is yes.

Island Camp takes place on Three Mile Island, an Appalachian Mountain Club facility located on a private, 43-acre rocky woodland island about three miles from a dock south of Meredith, New Hampshire. Like much of New England, this land is on unceded Wabanaki Territory. As a modest effort toward reparations with the Indigenous communities from whom this land was taken, we offer financial support for musicians of Wabanaki descent who are interested in attending Island Camp.

We put a great deal of care into creating the class schedule, but we believe it’s equally important to leave room for rest and time in nature. Campers are encouraged to take afternoons off—or skip class entirely—to wander the island’s walking trails, canoe or kayak along the shoreline, try sailing, or simply spend time on the dock.

Everyone on the island—from campers to instructors, cooks to dishwashers, boat drivers to organizers—is part of the community, with something to learn and something to teach. We look forward to including you.

Lodging
Most campers stay in a cabin with one roommate. In certain circumstances, cabins can accommodate three people with the addition of a cot (this works especially well for kids). If you’re applying on your own and don’t have a roommate in mind, we’ll thoughtfully match you with someone. A limited number of private cabins are available at a fixed $2700 tuition price.

Typical cabins are 16 feet square and include two single beds, a table and chairs, a closet, a laundry line, and a rocking chair on a front porch overlooking the lake. All cabins are right on the water. While the island does have electricity in shared community spaces, sleeping cabins do not. We recommend bringing a flashlight for nighttime walks and a solar-powered lantern for interior lighting (more details will be included in the camper packing list).

Programming & Activities
Camp tuition includes open access to all classes, workshops, jams, and events, with occasional opportunities to sign up for private lessons (see past schedules below). Evenings feature nightly concerts, dances, and informal jams.

You’ll also have access to canoes, kayaks, sailboats, and walking trails throughout the island. Fishing, tennis, and volleyball are available if you bring your own equipment. Safety guidelines for all activities will be covered during orientation.

Meals & Coffee
Three delicious, nourishing meals are served daily, with four meal plan options available:

• Omnivore (meat or fish at most meals; lunch is vegetarian for all campers)

• Vegetarian

• Gluten-Free

• Vegetarian & Gluten-Free

We’re proud of the food at Miles of Music—it’s a true step above the typical “camp kitchen.” Most meals are made from scratch, with high-quality seasonal produce and regional, hormone-free meats sourced through Maine’s North Center Foods. Breakfast and lunch are served buffet-style, and dinner is served family-style, with homemade desserts each night.

The kitchen does its best to accommodate food allergies, with substitutions available when necessary. However, personalized menus are not possible, so campers with specific dietary needs are encouraged to bring non-perishable snacks.

Self-serve coffee, tea, and water are available 24 hours a day. The Camp Café in the camp store features baristas serving craft coffee beverages for purchase.

All humans ages 4 and up are welcome. We’ve hosted campers as young as 4 and as old as 83, with skill levels ranging from total beginners to seasoned professionals and everyone in between. While we’re talking about age, please note that we are not a kids’ sleepaway camp. We love having kids in our midst — and we provide several classes geared for the young ones — but kids are equally welcome in the all-ages classes if they’re up for it, and parents are ultimately responsible for their own kids at all times. Again, see those sample class schedules to get a sense of what we mean.

At Miles of Music, we value and are actively working on an environment of inclusivity. This includes, but is not limited to, creating a safe and welcoming space for people from a range of backgrounds and perspectives in terms of race/ethnicity, ability, class, gender, sexual orientation, learning style, and country of origin.

Because we value accessibility, we want to be up front about how our island is and isn’t accessible. The first place you arrive on the island is a large wooden dock where there’s an ADA-compliant ramp to enter the Rec. Hall (where we hold all nightly events and many daytime classes). Four other important common spaces are also accessible via a ramp: the Main House (dining area and classroom), the Camp Store / Coffee Shop (where we often hold jams), the main bathroom facility (composting toilets!), and one of the camper cabins (located at the end of a lovely boardwalk near the dock). The journey from the dock to the Main House, however, involves a fairly steep incline on a path that’s wide and smooth, but gently graveled, and about 120 yards long on a fairly steep incline. There are four lesser-used classroom spaces which would not be considered accessible. And nearly all of the camper cabins are accessed by rustic dirt trails where rocks and roots are an unavoidable part of the terrain.

The only way to get to the island is by boat. We have boat drivers on staff who can take anyone to shore immediately in case of emergency, but the boat trip itself takes about 10 minutes and the nearest hospital is about a 20 minute drive from the dock. We usually have a nurse or doctor attending camp (as a camper), and they will often volunteer to provide basic First Aid. But Miles of Music cannot provide professional medical or psychiatric services on the island as part of our program. 

If you have any additional access or accessibility needs, questions, or concerns, please email us at milesofmusiccamp@gmailcom.

The only way to get to the island is by boat. The boats pick up passengers at the boat dock located at 31 Lovejoy Sands Rd, Meredith, NH. If you’re driving, put this in your GPS: Goodhue Boat Company, Meredith, NH 03253.

These boats are small passenger and cargo boats that can hold around 25-30 people. On the 1st day of camp. we have boat drivers on staff who shuttle campers from the dock to the island from 12-4 PM. If you’re accepted and confirmed for camp, we’ll ask you to commit to a specific arrival time.

In case of emergency, the boat drivers on staff can take anyone to shore immediately, but the boat trip itself takes about 10 minutes and the nearest hospital is about a 20 minute drive from the dock. We usually have a nurse or doctor attending camp (as a camper), and they will often volunteer to provide basic First Aid. Please note: Miles of Music cannot provide professional medical or psychiatric services on the island as part of our program. 

If you have any additional access or accessibility needs, questions, or concerns, please email us at milesofmusiccamp@gmailcom.

FLYING TO CAMP

The best airport to fly into is Boston Logan Airport. Another option is the Manchester, NH airport, but we can’t guarantee a ride to the island from there. See below about the shuttle bus that departs from the Boston airport.

SHUTTLE BUS FROM BOSTON

If you’re accepted and confirmed for camp and you are traveling from a long distance, the best option to get to the boat dock on arrival day is to take the shuttle bus we offer from the Boston Logan Airport. It’s $150 round trip ($75 each way). Once accepted, please let our operations director know that you want to take the shuttle.

Shuttle Schedule

Saturday (1st day of camp): the shuttle departs the Boston airport at 11 AM. It makes one 30 min pit-stop in New Hampshire where campers are free to go into the grocery store or liquor store to purchase any food and beverages they’d like to bring to camp. Passengers are then dropped off at the dock around 3-4 PM to catch the last ferry over to the island

Friday (Last day of camp): the shuttle departs the dock located at 31 Lovejoy Sands Rd, Meridith, NH 03253 at 11 AM and drops passengers off at the Boston Logan Airport around 1:45pm

Saturday | Arrive at camp.

Boats pick up campers at the dock at 12noon, 2pm & 4pm. Plan to arrive at the dock 1 hour before boat departure to allow for Covid-testing and unpacking. You'll leave your car for the week in the parking lot at the dock (Lovejoy Sands Road near Meredith, New Hampshire, if you want to map it).

Sunday – Thursday | Camp is in session.

Here is a conceptual outline of how our weekly schedule has looked in the past. Please note that things always change from year to year.

8:30 - 10AM | BREAKFAST & EARLY BIRD CLASSES (For example, Yoga and/or Morning Writing).

10:00 - 11:10AM | MUSICALITY CLASSES

In this block, we ask a group of teachers to think about something that they feel is so exciting or so central to the work they do that they can’t help wanting to share it. Past topics have included using “riffs” in arranging songs, expanding instrumental repertoire, playing and singing traditional ballads, songwriting methods, working with unusual time signatures or rhythms, improvisation techniques, and how to play well with other musicians. Most classes are for all instruments, so you bring whatever instrument you play. We generally offer about four “Musicality” topics, these classes are offered at various levels. That way campers can choose a level that feels right to them.

11:20-12:30PM | Learn your instrument

Pick a class to attend for the week. Now’s your chance to focus on YOUR chosen instrument at your own speed of learning. The list of instruments and styles taught will vary from year to year but will always include guitar, voice, fiddle, banjo, bass, and mandolin. Dance, percussion, keyboards, woodwinds, and cello are commonly offered as well. Please be sure to talk to us if you have a question about class availability for your instrument.

12:30PM - 1:30PM | LUNCH

1:30PM - 2:30PM | AFTERNOON BREAK

This could be a good time to jam, swim, sleep or schedule private lessons on your instrument with one of our Instructors or Guest Artists. They’ll post available teaching times at the beginning of the week. 

2:30PM - 6PM | ELECTIVE #1

A variety of one-time workshops and cumulative classes. You choose!

3:45PM - 4:45PM | Elective #2

A variety of one-time workshops and cumulative classes. You choose!

5 - 6PM | ELECTIVE #3

During this period, we’ll offer a variety of one-time workshops as well as the popular “Band in a Box” class, where campers can sign up to arrange and perform a song with a killer backing band. Workshops could include listening or jamming sessions in various traditional or modern styles, music law, Sacred Harp singing, couples dancing basics, “meet the cello” (or some other instrument you may not have tried before), or sampler versions of other popular classes.

6 - 7PM | SONG SWAPS, JAMS, COCKTAIL & MOCKTAIL HOUR, CHILL TIME

7 - 8PM | DINNER

8 - 9PM | GRAB A SWEATER OR A FLASHLIGHT FROM YOUR CABIN, GET READY FOR EVENING EVENTS

9PM - MIDNIGHT | EVENING AT THE DANCE HALL

Instructor-led bands will get us dancing most nights playing swing and old-time dance music. Dances will be a combo of called/instructed dances and a free-form party. Other evening events will include instructor performances, Live Band Costume Karaoke (pick a song and an instructor band will back you up- everyone wears costumes!), Entertain Us (campers share jokes, skits, and hidden talents), Campfire Sing-Along (with s’mores), etc. When the scheduled activities end, the music is likely to continue till the wee hours.

FRIDAY | DEPART FROM camp.

Boats depart the island between 9am and 12noon.