Ages 5–12 · San Mateo, Burlingame, Hillsborough, Foster City, Belmont
Camps, classes, sports, shows and playgrounds within about 15 minutes of San Mateo, with the hours, prices and sign-up dates each provider publishes. Every fact links to where it came from.
Month by month from today. Where a card says "last year", the date is a pattern from the previous season, not a confirmed date. Cards with an exact date have buttons to put it in your own calendar, with a reminder.
For a family that needs pickup at 5 pm or later. Base price plus the afternoon extended care needed to reach that pickup time, using each camp's published rates.
| Camp | Day covered | Week, with late pickup | What that includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camp Mateo (City of San Mateo) | 8:00–5:30 | $475 | No add-on needed. 2026 price, from a directory listing. |
| BAPA Jr. (College of San Mateo) | 9:00–5:00 | $525 | Half of a $750 two-week session plus $150 extended care. Ages 7–10 only. 2026. |
| Steve & Kate's (San Mateo, Belmont) | 8:00–6:00 | $570–$645 | Five day passes at $129, or $114 each when you buy 15 or more. Lunch and snacks included. 2026. |
| Galileo (San Mateo) | 9:00–6:00 | $615–$705 | $520–$610 for grades K–5 plus $95 afternoon care. $50 a week off if you enroll by Feb 28. 2027. |
| Camp CuriOdyssey | 9:00–5:00 | $935 | $885 plus $50 post-camp care, grades 1–4. Membership required on top. 2026. |
| Avid4 Adventure (Burlingame) | 8:30–6:00 | Not posted | 2027 price due this fall, plus $115 a week for pickup until 6 pm. |
| Peninsula Family YMCA | 8:00–5:30 | Not posted | Extended care is free. Weekly price only appears inside registration. |
Camps list the grade a child is entering in the fall. As a rough guide, entering kindergarten is age 5 and entering 5th grade is age 10.
Free public playgrounds in the same five cities, highest rated first, with any that are closed at the end. A New badge means the playground opened or was rebuilt in the past year. Ratings come from public review sites and cover the whole park, so read them as a rough guide. Playgrounds with no rating we could source are listed after the rated ones.
Know a playground we missed, or think a rating is wrong? Tell me. Hillsborough has no playground listed yet because we found no town page for one.
I'm a father of two young children: a 10-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. Every time school lets out, we find ourselves scrambling at the last minute to find things for the kids to do while we're working.
We have a good friend who is always on top of this. She keeps a spreadsheet of every camp her children have been to. For the rest of us, things are scattered everywhere, and sometimes they are very hard to find.
I hope this guide helps last-minute families like ours find camps for their children more easily, all in one place. I'm here in beautiful San Mateo, so I'm starting here first.
I hope it helps busy families find fun things for their kids when school is off.
Nok / San Mateo
A camp or class we're missing, a fact that's out of date, a question, or just hello. I'd love to hear from you.
Write to me