Camp Rockaway is a new glamping experience at Rockaway Beach, but a different version of it existed decades ago. 

Camp Rockaway found Kent Johnson says the idea for the new glamping experience was to take turn-of-the-century beach tent colonies and make them new again.

“So, the idea is actually an old one. At the turn of the century there were big tent colonies on Rockaway Beach. I saw those photos a while back and thought that given the way things were going out here, there was kind of a renaissance underway that we’d probably find the right audience and it seemed like a great experience,” says Johnson.

Johnson says he was inspired by seeing old photographs of the tent colonies on Rockaway Beach.

“I saw those photos of the tent colonies, started looking into the history of it, found a couple of historians to talk to. And the whole spirit of it was just something that I thought was fantastic and that New Yorkers might be ready for again,” says Johnson.

Johnson says the response to Camp Rockaway has been fantastic do to its proximity to the ferry, subway or bus.