Rocky Mountain Recreation needs people to work in national forest campgrounds to serve as camp hosts, provide maintenance or landscaping services, and even serve in management positions. Some of the Workampers also serve as attendants in day-use areas who collect money and answer questions from visitors. There are no special qualifications to work for Rocky Mountain Recreation. Workampers simply need to like working with people,be able to provide good customer service and enjoy being outdoors.
Delaware North hires Workampers to serve as cashiers, stockers, food service associates, cooks, custodians, supervisors and managers. All the jobs are paid positions with wages ranging between $15 and $19 per hour. General Manager Erin Benike explains that next year the company will experiment with a schedule where people work four days in a row with three days off each week. That will give Workampers plenty of time to explore the many features of Yellowstone.
The Everglades encompasses 1.5 million acres of wilderness at the southern tip of Florida. People from around the world visit the park to enjoy hiking, canoeing, biking, kayaking, camping and fishing among the diverse wildlife. Flamingo Adventures needs a bunch of Workampers to staff many positions including camp hosts, cashiers, waitstaff, cooks, housekeepers and front desk attendants.
Dawn and Jorge Hernandez spent three years working in food service at Dollywood amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. They also worked as camp hosts at a campground while Jorge worked in the front office and Dawn performed maintenance around the park. The job they keep returning to every year involves working at Adventureland amusement park in Des Moines, Iowa, where Dawn oversees 15 retail stores throughout the park and Jorge works at the park’s 320-site campground assigning guests to their sites and helping them feel welcome. They like working at amusement parks for the entertainment options that come with the jobs.
Dale and Margie Parker completed their first RV trip in a pop-up camper when they traveled 6,000 miles along the west coast. They have held a number of jobs over the years, including working at Dollywood amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., doing retail work at Yellowstone National Park, serving as camp hosts at a campground in South Dakota and they even spent some time in Alaska. Dale really likes jobs serving as a camp host and Margie enjoyed working food service jobs at Dollywood and retail positions at West Yellowstone. They both like the ability to meet people from around the world traveling to popular tourist destinations in America.
The Sulzers have the freedom to travel at will because they have developed several different revenue streams to support them on the road. Both Danielle and Scott are certified RV inspectors. Danielle is also a registered RV technician and Scott is a certified RV tech. Together they do what’s called retail arbitrage with Amazon. Danielle also creates digital art and sells it online. They use affiliate links on all their websites to generate extra income.
Richard Ruppel is a former truck driver and HVAC installer from Milwaukee, Wisc., who just started Workamping this summer. He had three back-to-back assignments and is really getting the hang of the RV and Workamping lifestyle. He describes some of his typical daily duties as a campground host as well as what attracted him to Workamping and volunteering at various parks. He also describes the rather unique steps he followed to research and apply for specific jobs. It all comes down to being proactive and going after jobs rather than waiting to see if something opens up.
Today I will be speaking with an employer from Iowa who is looking for volunteer Workampers for the 2022 season to work in a remote part of the state, but not too far from Des Moines. Jessica Heath is a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project at Lake Red Rock, Iowa. Nestled in central Iowa, about …
Doug Lehman and Donna Hughes had been RVing for five years by taking shorter trips when they opted to go full time once they retired. They started Workamping right away, then took three months off last winter to see what real retirement was like. Neither of them liked it and thought Workamping was a much better option to keep busy and give them a sense of purpose.
Today we are going to talk about a big what-if in Workamping. What if you’re injured, sick, need surgery or require some other type of long-term care, but you don’t have a sticks-and-bricks home to return so you can recover? What are your options? Fortunately, there is one with Escapees CARE. It’s a program developed by the Escapees Club just for full-time RVers who have no place to go if they require significant medical care. Escapees CARE is basically a campground located in Livingston, Texas, with a full-time nurse and other services to provide care to patients as they recover from an illness, accident or surgery. The million-dollar center also provides services like laundry, housekeeping, transportation to medical appointments and even meals. It includes a respite center so if an RVer has dementia, their spouse or partner can have a day off knowing that care will be provided.
Mike and Betty Gill actually started RVing in 2015 a few months after attending their first Workamper Rendezvous gathering. Prior to that, they intended to retire from the corporate world, stay home, plant a garden and raise chickens. Then, at the urging of another RVer, they attended the Rendezvous and their eyes were opened to a whole new way to retire. The Gills operate several businesses from their motorhome, including RV inspections, maintenance and a new venture doing RV detailing.
Jill and Randy Shepard are from Raleigh, N.C., which is their home base. They have been RVing for a little over a year after having started out of necessity during the COVID lockdowns. Randy is semi-retired, but Jill works in a sales position for Senior Living, a company with 120 locations around the country which provides care and housing for seasoned citizens. She is assigned to work at 14 of those locations where she remains onsite for 10 days in a row, then has four days off and repeats the cycle. The company gives her a stipend that helps pay for her RV site and food every day. She opened the company’s eyes to how cost-effective and efficient living in an RV would be for the type of work she was doing.
