These are extremely diverse institutions across the world. They go by many names, can in some cases remain fairly “invisible” to “outsiders” who are not familiar with them or their activities, are sometimes public, but mostly private, have affiliations with religious organizations, cultural communities, civic groups, (sometimes) public institutions and more and range from “distinctly for-profit” to “break-even or operate as a loss” (to their parent organization).
I think because it is relatively rural and beautiful (often covered with redwood forest), in my fairly small county there appear to be dozens of these. These have a wide range from religious communities where people (who may or may not affiliate with that religion) can hike, worship, gather, engage in often-family-oriented sporting activities, these can be oriented towards “corporate team building” with things like ropes courses, climbing walls, zip lining, include rather formal sporting facilities (indoor basketball, outdoor volleyball…) that might also be used by minor leagues or children/non-school sporting groups, these can be used for “conferences” (sometimes with camping / caravan areas for people to stay for days or weeks during good weather), these maybe are part of a youth/teenage “criminal diversion program” (instead of prison, they go to these and learn skills like firefighting and forestry), these maybe are a very outdoor drug counseling program “among the trees and nature” and again, are called by many, many different names. And, I’m only scratching the surface of what’s in my little California county.
Agreeing with @Fizzie41, these are distinctly “outdoor,” contain some element of “education” (maybe for profit, maybe specific sporting skills, maybe religious education, maybe for the entertainment, but also education specifically of children…) and can be called anything from a “centre” to a “conference grounds” to a “camp” (and more).
These are hugely different across cultures / regions / countries and we could endlessly try to categorize or catalog them. While I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that (some intrepid wiki-writer/s could develop some sub-keys and values, I suppose), do know that if the criteria of “outdoor” and “education” and a fairly vast tract (many hectares) of substantially rural, natural-setting outdoorsiness is extant, “you’ve got one of these.”
