Cottage, Camp, or Cabin? It Depends Where You Grew Up.

Why a summer place in the Great Lakes might be called a cottage, while a similar place in New England is known as camp.

Imagine stopping for lunch at a little diner somewhere in inland Maine in the middle of summer. There is a man at the table next to you who mentions to the waitress that he's heading up to camp for the weekend.

If you're from Michigan, you might assume he's talking about a hunting camp, except it's the middle of summer and not prime hunting season. You hear him talking more about taking the kids swimming and spending the afternoon out on the boat. Then it clicks that what he's calling camp is what you would have called the cottage your entire life.

It's a funny little difference, especially when you consider how much the Great Lakes and New England have in common. Both have traditions of escaping to the lake for the summer, opening up seasonal homes after a long winter, and spending weekends in places that have belonged to the same families for generations.

But somewhere along the way, we developed different names for them.

Depending on where you grew up, that place might be called a cottage, a camp, a cabin, or even just the lake house. And while the words are often used interchangeably, each carries a little bit of the history and culture of the place it comes from.

Around the Great Lakes, There's the Cottage

If you grew up around the Great Lakes, particularly in Michigan or Ontario, chances are you're familiar with the cottage.

The cottage doesn't necessarily have to be small, quaint, or even old. It might be a little knotty-pine place that your grandparents purchased 50 years ago, or a beautiful lakefront home with enough bedrooms for everyone to visit over the Fourth of July.

Either way, it's still lovingly referred to as ‘the cottage’.

There's a whole culture that comes with the word, especially in Michigan, where heading up to the cottage is a summer ritual. You pack the car on Friday, make the drive north, and spend the next few days swimming, boating, grilling dinner, and doing very little else.

The word itself has much older roots, traditionally describing a small, modest dwelling. But as summer resorts and seasonal homes became more and more popular, cottage took on a new meaning, one that didn't necessarily have much to do with the size of the house.

In fact, some of the grand summer residences built along the coast of New England were historically called cottages, too, which makes this whole thing even more interesting.

Because while cottage became a familiar part of Great Lakes summer vocabulary, other northern regions developed their own lake home vocabulary.

In New England, You Might Be Heading Up to Camp

Spend enough time in inland Maine, parts of New Hampshire or Vermont, or the Adirondacks of New York, and you'll likely hear people referring to their summer places as camps. And they don't necessarily mean a tent, a campground, or a hunting lodge.

A camp might be a little wooden house beside an inland lake, with a screened-in porch, a rowboat tied to the dock, and a collection of old board games stacked in the living room. It might have electricity and running water, or it might not, depending on how rustic it is.

The distinction can even depend on where the place is located. A seasonal house along the Atlantic coast is more likely to be called a cottage, while a similar place beside an inland lake might be called camp. It's not a hard and fast rule, of course, and likely depends on what your family grew up calling it.

But the word camp has deep roots in the Northeast's outdoor traditions, when people traveled into the woods to hunt, fish, and spend time away from town. Early camps were often temporary or basic shelters, but as families began returning to the same places year after year, some of those shelters became permanent summer homes.

And perhaps that's why camp still has such an appealing sound to it. There's something about the word that suggests you've gone somewhere to leave the usual routines of life behind.

Then There's the Cabin

If cottage makes you picture a lake and camp makes you picture the woods, cabin probably brings to mind something built from logs, with a woodstove and a stack of firewood beside the door. But anyone who's spent time in the Northwoods knows that cabins come in just about every shape and size.

Across northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and beyond, cabin is another familiar name for a place in the woods or beside the water. You'll hear it used for hunting retreats, fishing getaways, and family vacation homes, sometimes in the very same communities where everyone else calls their place a cottage.

Historically, cabins were simple shelters, often built from timber and associated with life on the frontier, logging, or other work in remote places. Over time, the word became closely associated with recreation and the idea of getting away into nature.

Today, someone might proudly show you their cabin, complete with a modern kitchen, heated floors, and a beautiful view of the lake. It may be a long way from the humble log shelters that gave the word its meaning, but the name still fits.

So What's the Difference Between a Cottage, a Camp, and a Cabin?

The short answer is that there isn't one universal distinction.

A cottage generally suggests a seasonal home or vacation retreat, often near the water. A camp can mean anything from a rustic hunting shelter to a fully furnished summer house, particularly in parts of New England. And a cabin traditionally refers to a simple wooden dwelling, although today it's used for all kinds of woodland and lakeside getaways.

But geography, local traditions, and family habits often matter more than the architecture itself.

A family in Michigan might have spent generations calling their lake house the cottage; another family in Maine might have an almost identical place they call camp, and somewhere in northern Wisconsin, a family could be spending the same summer weekend at their cabin.

The names are different, but the experience is remarkably familiar.

So, we’re curious: where are you from and what do you call it?

Leave a comment and let us know.

Photo by Petr Slováček