In the midst of The Great 2008-2009 Recession, my husband and I left jobs and a comfortable home to full-time RV. Having been recreational vehicle campers for over twenty years, we pursued camp host jobs as a way to transition from working full-time to RVing.
As volunteer camp hosts at public campgrounds we lived in our fifth-wheel trailer and performed tasks such as greeting park visitors and campers, answering their questions, picking up trash from campsites, replenishing paper towels and toilet paper in the park’s toilets and intervening on the rare occasion with someone who inadvertently caused minor harm to park property. In exchange for twenty or so volunteer hours per week , we were given an RV site with hookups
Early on in our planning to be full-time RVers, we thought about such jobs as selling Christmas trees and working for Amazon. Those jobs haven’t fit into what we’d done on the road thus far but we haven’t ruled them out forever.
Nick Russell, Editor of Gypsy Journal is a good resource for learning about the types of jobs workampers might do. You can join Nick and his readers as they discuss various jobs at his Gypsy Journal website.
As we plan to continue living in our RV and traveling, it is important to me to do work that I can take with me wherever I go. I’ve decided to approach income-generating work based on an assessment of my passions. Writing, photography and art are at the top of my list of things I have always and continue to enjoy doing. My goal is to test the saying that if one does what they love doing, they can expect the money to follow.
Building on the blogging that I have done over the past four years, I am now writing articles for pay with the RVT.com blog, where you can find a new or used RV for sale. I’m publishing a book next month, “This Restless Life” based on our experiences as full-time RVers. Many copies are pre-sold. I hope I’ll sell more after the book hits the bookshelf. Most recently, I have begun marketing my photographs and original collages through ebay and Etsy. I’m off to a good start with those sales.
Lastly, I help people record stories about their lives. I launched “Capture Your History” last year. Being a personal historian requires a bit more stability than we’ve given ourselves thus far. It takes time to become known in a geographic area and to have the time to record their stories face-to-face over a period of weeks or months. I don’t know how this is going to go eventually.
My goal is to make enough money this year to pay for our camping, which is what the camp ground hosting did. If that happens, I’ll be happy. And I have to tell you that I am enjoying my “new” work a bit more than spending time with trashcans and in toilets. Our goal, as is with most RVers, is to enjoy various parts of North America. But it is a fact that we need adequate amounts of cash to make the most of the experience.
This post comes from Levonne Gaddy, an author, photographer, artist and full-time RVer who also contributes regularly to the RVT.com blog