What is The Hideout?

Q: WHAT ARE SIDE QUESTS?

SIDE QUESTS are The Hideout’s half-day pop-up events in and around Berlin. Each one takes an individual activity or feeling from summer camp and gives it its own chapter during the year.

Jennifer Serrat
Aug 7
6 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

ADULT SUMMER CAMP, SIDE QUESTS, AND A DIFFERENT KIND OF TIME OFF.

Whenever I tell someone that The Hideout is a summer camp for adults, the next question is usually:

“What does that actually mean?”

Summer camp is not as familiar a concept in much of the non-English-speaking world. So, the easiest way to explain it is this:

Think of the sleepaway camps children go to during the summer—but for adults.

You leave the city, stay together somewhere in nature and spend a few days doing the kinds of things many of us have not done since we were younger. There are creative activities, outdoor games, campfires, shared meals, team challenges, lake time and enough space to do absolutely nothing for a while.

Except now, nobody is calling your parents if you stay up too late or get into a bit of mischief.

That is the full Hideout :)

Throughout the rest of the year, individual pieces of camp become half-day events in and around Berlin. We call those SIDE QUESTS.

Each SIDE QUESTS give people a smaller way to enter The Hideout world. Together, they build toward the main event: the full summer camp.

Both are based on the same idea: Adult life has become far too busy, screen-heavy and serious. We need more opportunities to play, make things, spend time outside and meet people without having to act impressively.

WHAT IS THE HIDEOUT? THE SHORT ANSWER

The Hideout is an annual summer camp for adults near Berlin, with smaller half-day events called SIDE QUESTS taking place throughout the year.

The full camp runs for several days in Brandenburg and includes accommodation, creative workshops, outdoor activities, games, shared meals and plenty of unstructured time.

Side Quests take individual elements of camp and turn them into standalone experiences:

Camp Olympics
Archery
Laser Tag
Silent disco
Team games
Creative workshops
Painting Chaos, and
Anything else we come up with!

The best part is that you can come alone, we put you into teams, and curate it in a way that you immediately make friends!

SO WHAT DOES ADULT SUMMER CAMP LOOK LIKE?

The summer camp is where the whole Hideout world comes together.

For a few days, a small group leaves Berlin and regular life behind and stays together somewhere in nature. There is a schedule, but it is not packed from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.

There might be a creative workshop, a camp game, time at the lake, or something mildly chaotic after dinner. There is also room to sleep longer, go for a walk, sit quietly or disappear with a book.

You can take part in everything or you can also skip something.

Nobody is keeping score unless we are literally playing a game with a scoreboard, in which case people tend to become alarmingly invested, ha.

The first Hideout included painting, archery, tie-dye, trivia, team challenges, lake time, a bonfire and a murder mystery dinner featuring some very questionable accents.

But the point is not to squeeze as many activities as possible into one weekend. The activities give people something to do together. They remove some of the pressure of meeting strangers and make it easier for conversations, laughter and inside jokes to develop naturally.

They also bring back something many of us miss from childhood: doing things simply because they are fun and before every moment had to be photographed, posted, improved or turned into content.

WHAT ARE SIDE QUESTS?

SIDE QUESTS are The Hideout’s half-day pop-up events in and around Berlin. Each one takes an individual activity or feeling from summer camp and gives it its own chapter during the year.

A SIDE QUEST might be:

Learning archery before competing in team challenges
Playing very unserious games at Camp Olympics
Running around during a laser-tag mission
Dancing at a silent disco
Joining a seasonal game day
Trying a creative workshop without needing any experience
Entering a room in a protective suit and creating huge canvases with explosive paint alongside a group of strangers

This last one is a little like anger management, but make it artsy ;)

Each SIDE QUEST is different, but they share the same Hideout ingredients:

A real activity.
A reason to leave the house.
A group of people who are open to trying something.
Enough structure that arriving alone does not feel strange.
And a few hours that feel different from another weekend spent running errands, looking at a screen or trying to coordinate six people across thirty-seven group-chat messages.

SIDE QUESTS are not shortened versions of the full camp. They focus on one main activity or theme. They are individual chapters of The Hideout rather than shortened versions of the full camp. Throughout the year, they bring different pieces of camp to life until we reach the main event: Summer!

They also give people a way to enter The Hideout world, meet the community and decide whether the full camp might be for them.

WHAT HAPPENS THERE?

At the full camp, the days are a mixture of:

Creative workshops
Outdoor activities
Team games and challenges
Shared meals
Lake or nature time
Campfires
Quiet mornings
Free time
Small surprises
Occasional chaos

What matters is that participation stays low-pressure. You do not need to be athletic, or need to think of yourself as creative, nor do you need to be good at talking to strangers. You also do not need to arrive in the right mood.

The outdoors is the setting, not a test. Creativity is something to try, not something to prove. Play is allowed to be completely useless, which is part of the point.

IS THE HIDEOUT A RETREAT?

No, not really.

There are things people may associate with retreats: time outside, a slower pace, fewer screens and a break from everyday routines.

But The Hideout is not built around therapy, self-improvement or transformation.

There are no forced sharing circles, no pressure to reveal anything personal, and definitely no notebooks or homework.

Nobody is going to ask you to optimize your life before breakfast.

The Hideout is not here to fix you.

It is a place to spend a few good days doing things that are easy to lose touch with as an adult: playing, making, laughing, resting and being around other people without needing a professional reason.

You might go home feeling different but that is not an assignment.

HOW THE PIECES FIT TOGETHER

Think of The Hideout as a world with different ways to enter.

Summer Camp

The main event. For now, it happens once a year in the summer. Several days outside Berlin with a small group (up to 30 people), accommodation, meals, workshops, games, free time and the chance to properly step away from regular life.

Side Quests

Half-day pop-up events throughout the year. Each one brings one individual piece of camp to life and gives people an easier first step into The Hideout world.

Stories

These are where I share field notes from camp and SIDE QUESTS, practical guides, founder updates and thoughts about adult life becoming far too serious.

And then there is the community: the people who arrive, participate, return, recommend it to friends and help shape what The Hideout becomes next.

A person might discover The Hideout through a story, attend a SIDE QUEST, join the Camp 2027 list and eventually spend several days with us in Brandenburg. Someone else might come to camp first and then return for SIDE QUESTS afterward.

There is no correct way in.

WHAT COMES NEXT

The full Hideout returns in summer 2027.

Before then, there will be more SIDE QUESTS in and around Berlin.

Each one will be another chapter: a chance to try something unusual, meet a few new people and have something better to talk about on Monday than how quickly the weekend disappeared.

The Hideout is still growing but I am still learning what it can become but the idea at the centre of it is staying the same: Adults deserve places where they can play, make things, spend time outside and stop taking everything quite so seriously.

That is The Hideout.