By Bob Difley
Wanted. RVer to live on location in National Park (NP) or Monument and spend 20 hours a week helping park officials with RV park registrations, light maintenance, and other upkeep needs as necessary. No two week limit on how long you can stay.
If you now enjoy visiting our national parks and monuments this ad would attract your attention. Especially the potential of living in a national park for months where now you are limited to two weeks. And earning some supplemental income is good too.
The above situation is available now. But let me clarify first. If you were to take a regular job somewhere it is unlikely that you would be given free housing so whatever you earned, some of it would go for housing or, in the case of RVers, staying in an RV park. So to juxtapose the national park offer from one of earning money and paying for an RV park, instead you trade out your earnings for a free campsite. Same result–almost.
If you got a job making $10 – $15 an hour (most temporary or part time jobs don’t pay as well as fulltime or career jobs) and worked 20 hours in a week you would earn $200 – $300 or about $800 – $1,200 a month. After paying $20 to $25 a night (no monthly rates in national parks) you would have between $200 to $450 left over. Out of this would come fuel costs to commute to your job and taxes on the full amount earned. And if you were lucky enough to get a job near enough to a national park that you could live there, you would only be able to stay there for two weeks.
Compare to volunteering in a NP. Instead of earning money and paying for living, you trade out your labor for the campsite. You don’t use any fuel commuting to your job, you walk to it (also gaining the benefits of a little extra exercise), you get to live in a beautiful location for as long as you volunteer, you meet interesting people daily, your work is fullfilling (unlike some drone jobs you might otherwise have to take), and you don’t pay taxes on the value of the campsite/labor trade out.
What makes deals like this even more attractive is that after you work a few of these positions and have a favorable track record, you will find it much easier to get additional positions, especially at the more popular parks where positions are snatched up quickly.
As public agencies and states continue with budget shortfalls, much of the work previously covered in the budget doesn’t get done–unless by volunteers. And that is good news for RVers as more volunteer positions open and for those who use their ingenuity to suggest a volunteer position that works for the agency and gives you free living. And the best part is you can feel good about yourself in helping a job get done–and done will, have a purpose that many retired RVers find lacking, and you can travel from job to job and commit to it only as long as you like. Then play fulltime until your next job. Search online by doing a Google search for “volunteering” with the location you want to work in.
Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands (or for Kindle version), Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts (Kindle version), and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar (Kindle version).