Workamping or Work Camping?

I saw a comment on a forum the other day about work camping...that is, staying at a campground in your RV, and putting in a few hours of work at the campground in order to get your site and services for free. And a big discussion ensued about the various forms of work camping and the remuneration involved, if any.

The term "Workamping" was actually coined by Workamper News, which (before the internet came along) was the go to monthly publication  for those wanting to find a job work camping.

Workamping News...

Workamper News is a pay site to join. And they still send out a monthly hard copy. But there are so many free online resources now that it's really unnecessary to pay any kind of a fee to find a job.

Many people ask how to find these work camping jobs, so we thought we'd put all of those resources in one place for you.

I had thought perhaps that the KOA camping franchise had come up with the term workamping because KOA has their own "Work Kampers" program.

We have done two stints of being Work Kampers with KOA. The first was in the summer of 2008 when we spent six weeks at the Cavendish KOA in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Sherman, in his campsite at the Cavendish KOA.

It wasn't hard to work at the KOA. I had to do a couple of shifts per week driving the hay wagon ride while Ruth monitored the campers on the back. A couple of hours per week at the petting zoo cleaning up and making sure kids behaved. Once a week trash duty that took about four hours or so. And serving ice cream every Sunday at the ice cream social. It was certainly not what you would call hard work. I think we put in 18 hours per week between the two of us.

And in exchange for that, we got a free campsite for six weeks.

Many work camping jobs do not include any kind of salary. You are simply working in exchange for the free site.

But if you do the math, you may not be getting very much for your effort. It's one thing entirely to be volunteering at a National Park and getting some personal satisfaction out of it. 

But if you are working cleaning toilets and raking and painting for 20 hours per week, that 80 hours per month in exchange for a $600 a month campsite means you're essentially making $7.50 an hour. You might find that you're better off paying the monthly rate at a campground and going out and getting a part time job.

The Workers on Wheels website is good resource. Mostly listings for the USA, however the occasional one for Canada does pop up.

Many work camping jobs are at government run parks. National Parks, State parks, and Provincial Parks are all great places to check out for work camping opportunities. Most involve being a Campground Host. 

For example, British Columbia Provincial Parks has a host program. BC Parks Volunteer Program

So does Alberta, and Nova Scotia.

And, the 280 campgrounds in the State of California.

In the U.S., there's a great website for volunteering at the many COE campgrounds as well as National Park, National Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campgrounds... https://www.volunteer.gov/

The Happy Vagabonds website has quite a few listings, as well as a section for Canada.

The Working Couples website always has work camping opportunities listed, as well as possibilities outside the RV'ing world. Some interesting opportunities are out there!

The RV Park Store has a pretty detailed section of help wanted ads for RV'ers.

And workampingjobs.com is pretty self explanatory!

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