You can stroll past the A Nightmare on Elm Street house. You can take a picture of yourself dead at the bottom of the stairs from The Exorcist. And you can even shop inside the actual mall from the original Dawn of the Dead. But what Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Hardwick Township, New Jersey offers is something far more immersive. Their in-house tourism branch Crystal Lake Tours allows horror fans to actually camp at the real Camp Crystal Lake.

An active Boy Scouts camp to this very day, Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco was the filming location for Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th, the real campground playing the role of the fictional Camp Crystal Lake for the original 1980 horror classic. It’s a fact that the camp shunned up until around 2011, when they finally decided to embrace their role in horror history and give fans the opportunity to actually step inside one of the greatest slasher movies of all time.

For the past 13 years, Crystal Lake Tours has been offering up filming location tours as well as overnight stays at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, and these special events (often on Friday the 13ths) are the ONLY way for horror fans to hang out at the real Camp Crystal Lake. Situated deep in the woods at the end of a long, long, long road, it’s a location you better not find yourself at unless you’ve been invited and you’ve got a high-priced ticket tucked away in your backpack.

It’s a costly experience, there’s no denying that – tickets for this past Friday the 13th weekend’s overnight stay were over $800 each, while standard tour tickets range from $99 to $170 – but to call Crystal Lake Tours a tourism company hardly feels fitting. It’s got all the hallmarks of a tourist trap, including a robust merchandise booth that’s loaded with everything from hats and t-shirts to shot glasses, pens made of actual reclaimed wood from the camp’s cabins and even a massive steel fire pit with the words ‘Crystal Lake Tours’ etched into each side, but you will find zero capitalistic cynicism during your stay. Because every dollar you pump into our “Camp Crystal Lake” is funneled directly back into their Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco.

As one of our highly knowledgeable guides pointed out as we ventured down the path to Alice’s Cabin from Friday the 13th, “there’s no movie without this camp and there’s no camp without the movie.” He went on to explain that all the money made from the various Crystal Lake Tours events over the years has ensured that Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco continues to thrive for all the children who pass through its gates every year, with horror fans quite literally helping the camp to renovate, rebuild, and keep Camp No-Be alive. Not only is every dollar funneled back into the camp but No-Be also donates money and supplies to other adjacent campgrounds, allowing both sick children and inner-city kids to have life-changing experiences at summer camp. “It’s all about the kids” is something you’ll often hear the tour guides say.

“This is where….” is the beginning of another sentence that commonly emerges from their lips, but diehard fans of the original horror classic would hardly even need a tour guide to point out iconic locations like Camp Crystal Lake or the bathroom cabin where Marci got an axe to the face. That’s because the Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco of 2024 looks remarkably similar to the Camp Crystal Lake of 1980, with most of the main filming locations still standing and appearing to have been trapped in time by Cunningham and his film crew all those decades ago. The sprawling campground is packed with recognizable filming locations, with the real “Crystal Lake” serving as the stunning central point for the various movie-used cabins. The massive Catfish Mountain, also seen throughout the movie, looms over the proceedings.

So what exactly do you get to see during the average Crystal Lake Tours event? You’ll be able to step inside Alice’s Cabin, Brenda’s Cabin (where Kevin Bacon got an arrow through the throat), and what the team refers to as the Main Cabin, the location used for Friday the 13th‘s strip Monopoly scene. You’ll also be shown the exact spot where young Jason Voorhees emerged from Crystal Lake and pulled Alice underwater, as well as the archery range location that was used to foreshadow Brenda’s death. Along the way, Camp No-Be’s tour guides will load you up with Friday the 13th fun facts – did you know, for example, that the camp was active with Boy Scouts while the movie was being filmed?! – while also pointing out other locations used by the filmmakers during the production, including the cabin Tom Savini and his assistant Taso Stavrakis stayed in and the building they used for their makeup effects workshop.

Other stops include the generator cabin you’ll see a couple times in the movie, as well as the storage building that was used for the film’s 1950s-set opening scene wherein Mrs. Voorhees makes her very first kills. Like all the other locations I’ve previously mentioned in this article, it’s more or less been trapped in time for the past 100+ years, looking virtually identical to the way it looked when Cunningham, Savini and Bacon were in town back in September 1979. And if you want to take your tour a step further and visit nearby filming locations like the Blairstown Diner, which remains an active diner and has been fully decorated to embrace its horror past, your tour guides will give you a map to help track down those locations as well.

All of the on-site locations can be visited during the standard tours that Crystal Lake Tours offers up, but the “Overnight VIP Tours” are something far more special. In addition to the full Camp Crystal Lake Tour, the overnight stay also includes dinner at night and breakfast the following morning, with a screening of the original Friday the 13th and an overnight stay in either a movie-used cabin or a tent on Crystal Lake taking the experience to a whole nother level. If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably seen the original Friday the 13th countless times. On VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K, on television, and probably once or twice up on the big screen. But watching Friday the 13th on the edge of the actual Crystal Lake is a whole different experience entirely. It’s precisely the kind of experience that horror fans live for, adding a whole new facet to our collective love for a movie we simply cannot get enough of.

Before the movie started this past Saturday the 14th, one of our tour guides took a moment to point out something pretty remarkable. He noted that the frogs that inhabit the real Crystal Lake will actually respond to the frogs heard on screen in the movie, today’s frogs and their 1970s amphibious ancestors essentially “communicating across generations.” I can assure you he wasn’t high and none of us were either – No-Be has a strict zero tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol, so don’t even try it – but it was a bit of mind-blowing insight that stuck in my head throughout the entire 95-minute viewing experience. And I’m glad I wasn’t high because there’s something about hearing something rustling around in the woods behind you, while you’re watching Mrs. Voorhees stalk around the woods on screen, that sends a particular kind of chill up and down your spine. And boy is that a cool feeling.

But back to the frog comment for a second. While some may roll their eyes at the thought of real frogs communing with long-dead movie frogs ribbiting in the background of a 1980s slasher, it was precisely the sort of insight that makes the Crystal Lake Tours experience so uniquely special. The guides are deeply informed about Friday the 13th even if they’re not horror fans themselves, and they take seriously their task of selling just how singular the experience truly is. They know it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event for every horror fan that attends and they’re constantly encouraging you to take a moment to really feel it. You can watch the movie anywhere at any time. But there’s truly only one place on Earth you can watch it with the frogs of Crystal Lake as your fellow moviegoers. I may never watch Friday the 13th on Crystal Lake again. But I’ll be thinking of those frogs every time I watch at home.

The highlight of our one-night stay at Camp Crystal Lake, however, came after the tour ended and after the movie finished playing. The fire died out – and yes, it was housed in one of those aforementioned fire pits emblazoned with the Crystal Lake Tours logo… branding is another strong suit of the Crystal Lake Tours team! – and the rest of the attendees retired to their cabins to catch a few hours of sleep before a new day began. But my girlfriend and I used that opportunity to soak in the peace and quiet of Crystal Lake at midnight. Not a person in sight. Not a cellphone glow to be seen. Just the stars filling the night sky and the nearly full moon reflected off the calm waters of Crystal Lake. Sometimes standing and staring up at the sky and other times sitting on a rock, we spent over an hour out there before tucking ourselves into our sleeping bags in the Main Cabin, soaking in the one-of-a-kind energy of the place where all those happy young actors were faux-slaughtered all those years ago.

“Visiting for the daytime tour is one thing. Staying overnight is a whole other bag,” my girlfriend explained in an Instagram post that sums it up better than any attempt I can make right now. “When we were sitting alone by the water after midnight after everyone else went to bed, just the two of us, listening to the sounds of nature without any cars, planes, or people, it was like we were on another planet. For that one hour where it felt like John and I were the only two people in the universe, that is something I will carry with me forever.”

The peaceful serenity was soon shattered by the snores of horror fans that echoed off the walls of our wood cabin, our fellow campers sounding more like bears than human beings for the precious few hours before our 6:30am wake up call, but the Crystal Lake Tours team even made sure we were prepared for that. Packed inside a provided backpack that served as our survival kit for the weekend was a pair of ear plugs. They’ve truly thought of everything.

After being woken up by the sounds of nature and loading up on coffee and a delicious homemade breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and enough candied bacon to kill us faster than a vengeful mother ever could, we were given the opportunity to say goodbye by canoeing on Crystal Lake before heading back to our normal lives. It was an opportunity I nearly passed up in the rush to start our drive back home, but one of our tour guides talked some sense into me. “No regrets. We want to make sure that there’s nothing you regret when you’re back home next week.” And with that, we canoed across the entirety of Crystal Lake with the morning sun shining bright in the sky. There were no attempts to frighten us with jump scares like the one that memorably ends the movie. It’s not that kind of place. Here you’ll find only tranquility and pleasant memories that will last a lifetime. And yes, you can take some of the actual lake water home. They’ve got little glass bottles ready for you. “We’ve got plenty to go around,” they joke.

While the Friday the 13th franchise has been mired in a legal mess for about as long as Crystal Lake Tours has been running these kinds of events, with various key figures battling over who gets what and how large their share of the pie ends up being, there’s a beautiful purity to what’s going on at the real Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco that stands in stark contrast to everything else we’ve been writing about the franchise for so many years now. Nobody here is looking to make a buck, even if the vast sea of branded merchandise may initially suggest otherwise. When you buy a ticket to a Crystal Lake Tours event, and when you load up on merchandise in their shop, there’s a distinct feeling that you’re doing something good for society. Every dollar spent is going to a great cause, making it all feel more like a donation than a purchase. And you don’t need me to tell you how rare of a feeling that is in 2024.

Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco is all about the kids, but Crystal Lake Tours is all about the fans. And together, we’re preserving heaven on Earth for all of us for generations to come.

If you’re unable to visit Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco but would like to buy some merchandise or make a donation, you can do so over on the Crystal Lake Tours official website at any time.

But if you’re ever able to make the trip to New Jersey, trust me when I say that it’s one of the coolest horror fan experiences in the world. There’s truly no other fan event quite like it.