Is Work Camping Worth the Work?
Douglas, Wyoming, as a storm approached this quaint, historical town.
That is the million dollar question today. Sometimes people decide to workcamp for financial reasons such as earning an income to help fund traveling. Or they might want to stay at a campground for a time to find adventures nearby. Whatever it may be, work camping is available and sometimes you do not need to live on the campground.
Work camping has been something we flipped flopped through in our minds throughout the year. It was like, “should we?” or “should we not?” But in the end, we made the decision to try it. It was for several reasons, like the extra money, experience and somewhere to sit longer than 2 weeks. It does get expensive to keep moving around a lot!
I want to share with you the pros and cons of work camping. It is not the perfect job as some people may have you believe, but it is a job and could help with experience for future work camping jobs. It is not all “inclusive” but it is what we experienced so far and hope this will help you make an educational decision to whether or not this is the right job for you!
Pros:
A secure place to stay for a time. Yes, it is nice not to have to pack things up safely in the trailer and move somewhere else, sometimes to a place that we have never been to and hope that the road is good. When camping at a campground, mostly likely you will be on gravel, but even perhaps grass or a cement pad.
Full hookups. What are full hookups? I am so glad you asked! These are the necessities of life, things we take for granted when you live in a building, like a house. This would include electricity, water and sewer. You will plug or place in these items to get everything running into your trailer. When it is warm or even hot out, it is nice to come back to the trailer that is air conditioned (yes, we have it!) and not a breadbox without the hook ups (can we say hello 100 degrees and yes it did happen to us more than once). You do not have to worry about searching for water or a place to dump your waste. Plus can we talk garbage? Yep, campgrounds have dumpsters! 3 cheers for full hookups!
Now for the work. Yep, if you want a site to camp on, perhaps free or pay a small fee, you will have to work on the campground. Couples usually split the work: the women work in the office while the men work outside. It is a win-win for all. The office work consists of answering calls, making camping reservations for others, selling store items and dealing with complaints. The men may do yard work, escort guests to their campsites, anything to do with maintenance.
How about the pay? Some campground do offer a salary on top of a full hookup (FHU) site. The site we are on now, we get paid and a free site which is so cool! While others only offer a free site as long as you work. The hours will depend on the business of the campground and the season. Summers are the peak season for camping, so expect to be busy. Another way campgrounds compensate their employees is by paying them a salary but also charging them a fee for their site. I do not recommend this type of method unless the money does not matter and you really like the area. Some parks will do this.
No more driving to work! When you live on the campground you can walk to work. I definitely like this idea! No more traffic jams or using too much gas!
Cons:
When you get done with work, you are still sort of at work, but in your trailer. You do not leave your “job” since you are living on site. So you see the same people each day, every day. Every day. I could use some space at times, so we get away from the campground and adventure elsewhere.
Noise. As of this writing. we are camped in the front of the campground, next to the freeway. It is a busy, noisy highway. The noise gets to me at times, especially if I am outside trying to enjoy nature. How can you enjoy nature with so much noise? A lot of campgrounds are along freeways and/or have trains nearby. Egads!
This is miniscule, but how about water pressure? It varies with how many guests are staying on the campground and where you are camped at. Some days, my showers are great, with plenty of pressure and other days it feels like a trickle is coming out of the showerhead.
This is important! Internet. OMG, we have dealt with terrible, awful internet. If you are in a small town, forget internet unless you are camped right next to a cell tower. I have gone into libraries to post photos on social media, upload videos, have sanity with real internet. I was not prepared for this!
DRAMA! Yes drama. You would think that living in a place or a space for a time with incredible things to do and see, people to meet and lots of fun to be had, you would be happy. But for some people this is not the case. We have encountered drama and personally, I think it is ridiculous. I want to have fun and meet others, but when you have sourpusses around you, it can be a challenge. The reasons are various, but I think deep down these dramatic people are miserable and want to cast it on you. So, I do my best to not let it overcome me and be respectful and helpful as much as I can. I know I can just leave, but sometimes I feel committed to a place, or maybe I do not have anywhere else to go at the time.
I think work camping is worth the work, if you do not mine dealing with the public. Sometimes I have my ups and downs, just like living in a house and working outside of the house, but I feel there are more perks to working at a campground than the negative side.
What do you think? Is this something you can do or would you do this type of work?