What is Workamping?
According to Wikipedia, the definition of Workamping is, "a portmanteau, blending "work" and "camping" is a form of tent or RV (primarily) camping involving singles, couples or families who work part-tome or full-time. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workamping)
I don't usually use Wikipedia as an educational resource but I did find that it gave the most basic definition of the term.
To learn more about Workamping in general, this article below is a great resource and includes even more information and clears up some misconceptions about it:
https://www.workamper.com/workamper-article/what-workamping
Why we decided to start Workamping?
The number one reason is that we aren't retired yet and we want to travel the United States in our camper. Most people have heard of retiree's getting an RV and spending their retirement years traveling around and like many others, we have had this envision for our retirement years.
One day, Paul was talking to someone he used to work with and learned about Workamping and it ignited a thought about how it may be something that we could do even before retiring. After all, we are not getting any younger and who knows if we would be able to have this opportunity after retirement. Paul's job was physically demanding on his body and with other changes going on in the company, it was not looking like it would be a good possibility so we figured out that Workamping could be our answer.
How we Workamp
There are many different types of Workamping jobs and our situation may be a little different than what some others are. A lot of couples go into workamping together and a lot of campgrounds look for couples to fill positions because they get a team to split the work duties and only have to provide a site for one camper. We look for jobs that don't require couples unless they are willing to work around my work schedule. I teach online full-time and this job comes first. I will not accept any type of workamping job that would interfere with my full-time job which requires me to me online Monday-Friday from basically 8 am to 5 pm throughout the school year. There are some flexible times in there but it definitely limits my availability. Our son, Josh is old enough to work but he is still in high school so as long as it doesn't interfere with his school he can participate.
We also do not want to always have to rely on Workamping in order to travel; Paul is willing to work most anywhere and there are jobs that he is more interested in and some jobs not so much. Our goal is to just do enough workamping where we won't deplete our savings. Traveling can be expensive; just going from one place to another; the cost of gas towing a camper and of course you need to have an emergency fund for those unexpected expenses. As long as we maintain the savings and emergency fund, we shouldn't have to always workamp. Our goal is to workamp part of the year and not be tied down to anything the rest of the time.
Workamping at Adventureland:
This summer we started our full-time adventure with our first Workamping experience in Altoona, Iowa at Adventureland. I think we made the perfect choice for our first workamping job and would recommend it to anyone if they want to experience this lifestyle and try workamping. The job is easy and very flexible; the managers at the park work with your schedule and you can decide how much or how little you want to work. The campground is rather large; the spaces are decent and of course full hook ups with everything you need. The site is paid for and the park is a short distance from the campground and there is even a Trolley; Molly the Trolley; that comes around if you would rather ride over on it. The camphosts that work in the office are extremely helpful and everyone is super nice.
We signed up and interviewed (phone interview) for this position and gave them a date as to when we would be available to come. Paul could have been the only one working here but I decided to give some of my time in July once I was finished with my full-time job for the summer. I was also writing curriculum and taking an AP training course so I didn't want to tie myself down too much. I told them I could work Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays so they put me on for those days from 11am to 5pm. Paul said he could work anytime so he would work basically 40 hours a week. Since Josh wasn't doing anything else and he wanted to make some money, he also agreed to work 40 hours a week as well.
We are still new on the road but have decided this is how we plan to travel:
- Workamp: mostly Paul; I will on weekends and during the month of July only We will find jobs in areas we are interested in going.
- Monthly stays in areas to explore and play when not workamping. It is cheaper to stay monthly and it's not too much time in one place. We have what I call "gypsy blood" and love to travel and move around a lot so this time frame seems to gives us the right balance. I use Verizon for my Internet so we have to make sure we at least have a little Verizon cell signal no matter where we go; we have a weboost cell booster which will enhance the signal if needed.
- Shorter stays traveling in between places; since I require Internet for my job and my job is M-F, traveling will be mostly on weekends and breaks during the school year.
The benefits of workamping with Adventureland:
1.) Free full hook-up site at the campground (the campground has tons of amenities). Some places require you to have a camper or RV but here you can be in a van, a bus, even a tent! Here is a picture of the loop right across from us, as you can see a variety of campers including this tent and van combo; they were here even before us!
This is our site in loop P
2.) Free access to Adventureland Park anytime you are not working (except on weekends; but weekends are their busiest time and we always worked then)
3.) They have events and contests for the employees monthly
4.) Cheap food to eat at the commissary when working (like $2.50 for a complete meal). We did get tired of the food and started bringing a lunch; plus it was a long walk from the waterpark where we worked.
5.) Friends and Family can get into Adventureland for half-price. We just bought Shelby a season pass so she could go anytime.
6.) You get paid for all hours worked. Some workamping jobs do not give you a paid wage, just a free spot to stay or some will pay you for hours worked over a certain number of hours. For example they would require 20 hours worked which would pay for your site and then you will get paid a wage for any hours worked beyond the 20 hours. Adventureland doesn't do that, you get paid for all hours worked. There is no overtime though but for us, having a free site to stay at is very beneficial and it's not always about the money.
7.) Staying in an area gives us time to explore on days off. Altoona is right ouside of Des Moines, Iowa which has several interesting things to do and see. We are also not too far away from other places such as Nebraska and Minnesota; we spent days off exploring the area.
The challenges we found with workamping at Adventureland:
1.) Having to be on my feet for hours. Ok, this may have been more of a challenge for me more than others because I am not used to standing for long periods of time. The only time in the past six years in which I had to stand up was during state testing; when administrating a state test to a group of students I would have to stand up for hours but not that many hours. Also, some of the testing I did was one-on-one and I was able to sit during those. My legs suffered the most during the time I was working at Adventureland; I was more than happy to only be working 3 days a week.
2.) Having to work with annoying kids. As a teacher, this shouldn't bother me and it really didn't bother me as much as it did Paul. There were only a few kids that I felt like were way too annoying to work with and it was those who tried to question or correct what the adults were doing. The adults may not have been working at Adventureland for that long but their experience in life is way beyond those kids and they really shouldn't question or challenge decisions the adults made day to day unless it was something completely wrong that they were doing unless they were in a management position (which they weren't) Others were just silly and goofed off too much instead of taking the job seriously. That wasn't as annoying and I was able to ignore them; Paul did better when he was able to work with the kids who were more mature.
3.) The heat. Coming from Mississippi, we were used to the heat and humidity so it really wasn't that bad in Iowa. They did get hot and days in the 90's where it felt like 100's but there were only a few extremely hot days; most were manageable. However, working at an amusement park you are outside and spending that much time outside did get hot. Fans and shade did help. Paul had to work the broiler making hamburgers a lot; this was a hot place to work and the table wasn't quite tall enough so his back would hurt from bending over.
4.) Lack of consistency with the lower management. Both of us have worked in professional fields over the past twenty years so we have some pretty high expectations on what management and leadership should look like but this is seasonal work and most of the lower management were younger and haven't quite mastered good leadership skills yet; not unexpected though. It's not bad though and definitely something that can be overlooked since this is seasonal; you end up learning to accept some imperfections. We will be giving feedback on this so it could improve.
Foods, Rides, Retail, Oh my!
You can choose between Foods, Rides and Retail for Workamping. We all decided to do Foods.
Paul and I worked at the waterpark side, called Adventure Bay; Josh worked in the amusement park side.
Adventure Bay had three main food areas:
Grub Hub: This is the main place to eat in the waterpark. It serves hamburgers, chicken tenders, chicken sandwiches, fries, onion rings, snacks, drinks. I would cashier there from time to time and Paul would mostly make the burgers there.
The Parrot Perch: Serves pizzas, hot dogs, nachos, snow cones, foot longs, chips, drinks and beer. I would cashier there and the main person serving the beer since I was old enough. I loved serving the nacho cheese the best and couldn't master the art of snow cone making! Paul would occasionally work there making pizzas or serving food.
The Oasis: Serves Icees, ice cream, dole whips, wraps and some odd and end little things and other drinks. This was our favorite place to work because it was the coolest and easiest. When I worked there with Paul I would always cashier and hand out food but let him make the wraps and dole whips because he did a much better job at them than I did. Paul worked the Oasis the most and when I wasn't there, he worked with this young girl from Vietnam; although she was young, he was able to get along well with her. She didn't mind taking the trash out; I wouldn't take the trash out so he
probably liked working with her better, Lol.
Making Chicken Salad at the Oasis
Josh worked between four places in the park, The Chicken Shack, The Lemonade Stand, Rally and The Pig. I am not sure what all they served but I know Rally had corn dogs and things like that; chicken shack had of course chicken tenders and sandwiches, the Lemonade stand had frozen lemonade and pretzels, the Pig had bacon on a stick and bacon flavored popcorn. The pig was his least favorite place because of how small it is; no one liked the Pig too much and they rotated them from there the most because of that. Overall, he enjoyed his time at Adventureland; he loved spending time in the park when he wasn't working. He also really enjoyed having his own money!
To find out more about workamping with Adventureland, check out their site here:
https://www.adventurelandresort.com/employment/workamper
Our Next Adventure:
Off to Tennessee
We are going to spend a month in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area just for fun; no workamping here. I will be working my online job though.
September 26-Christmas: Mufreesboro, TN to Amazon; Paul will be working with Amazon Camperforce.
Amazon is supposed to a bit more labor intensive and something that I would definitely wouldn't want to do. Paul is going to try it this season and will see how it goes; I will write a blog about that experience in the fall.
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