Photo credit: Maura Bielinski

What is Seasonal Travel Work?

Generally, seasonal travel works by allowing you to spend three to four months working in an industry’s peak travel season, with room and board provided (or discounted), most commonly by your employer. It could be in any state, during any season, and doing any type of job—there are always opportunities and openings. Many jobs don’t require prior experience, just good recommendations.

I got started with seasonal travel work at Grand Canyon National Park, waiting tables at the mouth of Bright Angel Trail, on a gap year from college. I needed a break from a lifestyle that was not making me happy, and a year on my own and in the wilderness changed my perspective and changed me.

Over time, I had the privilege of calling many beautiful places my home and had the opportunity to challenge nearly every part of myself (and still have!). If I was afraid of something, I forced myself to do it, and that’s one of the opportunities of seasonal travel work that I appreciate most.

Seasonal travel work is how I personally ended up where I am today—just kidding! I no longer like the phrase “end up,” because I never want to end up anywhere. That’s what years of seasonal travel work has done to me. It has built an insatiable drive to see everything and know everything and know that I can’t possibly know everything about everywhere in the world, but who cares because it is the pursuit that makes it worthwhile. (I also love a good run-on sentence.)

So, Who Should Try Seasonal Travel Work?

Photo credit: Maura Bielinski

You want to get paid to travel

Instead of blowing all of your savings traveling for three months, you can instead help your bank account. When you are old and grey, you will be able to say you travelled once for a living. You also usually get to take advantage of all of the amenities and services at the place you work for free of charge, while all the tourists are paying the seasonal premiums.

You’re looking for an immersive travel experience

You get a more immersive, valuable traveling experience as a worker than as a tourist. You get to know a location and its community deeply, not just float on the surface by “visiting” it. The more you know about a place, the deeper your love for it will grow, and you’ll always remember it as a second home. 

You need a break from the norm

You become a nomad. If “reality” isn’t really cutting it, try out a nomadic lifestyle. It offers freedom and flexibility, and it’s incredibly liberating to tote around your life in the trunk of your car while moving from place to place. This might even be with friends you’ve made at the previous seasonal job, all moving on to another exciting destination and job, like spending the summer in the southern Arizona desert to a freezing winter in Alaska.

You want a fresh start

It is fresh start after fresh start. There is nothing as unnerving and exciting as packing up your entire life, striking out on your own, and driving cross-country to somewhere you’ve never been with the intention of calling it home for the next four months. It is out of most people’s comfort zone, but that’s what makes it exciting, new, and addicting. That’s one of the hooks that some veteran seasonal workers can’t step away from.

Photo credit: Maura Bielinski

You want to meet amazing people

You will meet amazing people, and learn an incredible amount from them. People of all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds will come into your life and really open your mind and heart in unexpected ways. Working alongside the most diverse and surprising group of people, you will walk away with friends from all over the country and world. It feels fateful for people of such enormously different backgrounds to be thrown together and bond closely.

You’re desiring a new perspective

It simplifies things. It provides perspective. What do you need in life and what do you not? What do you bring with you and what do you leave behind? What is important to you and what could you discard and become acclimated to living without? 

Photo credit: Maura Bielinski

You love spending time outdoors

You can live in the great outdoors. Much of seasonal work is outdoors-related, and that gives you the chance to be outdoors as much as possible, in some of the most beautiful places on earth.

You just want a cool work experience

You get a really cool work experience. When else will you have the opportunity to float the seas on a cruise ship for months visiting exotic destinations, to work around farm animals, to have a free ski pass for tons of major ski resorts, or to live on a ranch in the mountains riding horses every day? Do you know how rare that is? 

What kind of seasonal travel work is there to do?

Think: you would be a part of the backbone of the travel industry. Your choice of job depends on your mindset and your intention behind your decision to try seasonal work. Are you going for the adventure? The money? For career/industry experience? There are many no-prior-experience, minimum-wage jobs, and there is also opportunity to further your long-term career goals, if you choose carefully.

Read More: This is an awesome list of 60 cool adventure jobs.

You could work on an enormous cruise ship or a tiny fishing charter; on a home-style working ranch in Montana, or a luxury guest ranch in Wyoming. You could restore trails in Arizona state and national parks, or drive transportation for a resort in Alaska. You could take care of animals at a humane society in Moab, Utah, or be a ski bum working for Vail Resorts in Colorado, or a groundskeeper at a lodge in Yosemite. You could work at a charming seaside inn on an island of the Washington coast...at a peaceful marina in Michigan...in the swamps of Florida...in the Badlands of South Dakota! The world is at your fingertips!

The work options are hugely diverse, but each one offers a world of adventure, recreation, and fun. To be completely transparent, sometimes the work itself isn’t cool, but the place, lifestyle, local culture, and people are more than cool enough to make it worthwhile. 

FAQs About Seasonal Travel Work

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How Do I get Started?

I recommend your first stop be CoolWorks. Its tagline is “Jobs in Great Places. Where do you want to be tomorrow?” Completely free, CoolWorks is the tried-and-true, unbeatable resource that will make your mouth water and mind implode with the number and diversity of fantastic adventures to be browsed through. You’ll be thinking, “I can get paid to do this and to live there?” CoolWorks breaks down job postings by state, by season of the year, by job type, and more. It helps you narrow down your search but also opens the door to things you had not yet considered.

Would seasonal travel be a good fit for me?

The great thing is that seasonal travel work brings people together from all walks of life. Anyone in a period of transition is an ideal candidate for seasonal adventure work, and that could mean a gap year after high school, a gap semester during college, after college graduation before jumping into a career, or a summer off from a teaching career.

Maybe you are looking around for different options if you are leaving a job, looking for a fresh start, looking for a little distance from an unhealthy lifestyle, feeling “stuck” in a dead-end job or in a toxic relationship, or simply craving a challenge and opportunity to push yourself out of your comfort zone.

Can I actually make money?

It depends. Most seasonal jobs are minimum wage, but many jobs have the perk of generous tips from tourists, plus an end-of-season bonus. Additionally, if room and board are provided by your employer, that is a huge saver for you. Some jobs you may walk away with a very fat wallet and some will be much slimmer. Either way, you’re walking away with a wealth of memories and experience.

Where are these work opportunities located?

Literally every state and country has opportunities, but any place with heavy tourist attractions will have a greater number and greater variety of openings. These jobs will be located in travel destinations, where people pay to go visit. (Joke’s on them, right? You’re being paid to live there.)

When should I apply?

You should apply three to four months before the job is projected to start. Companies start hiring within four months of their season opening, and are looking to secure as many of their positions as soon as possible, in order to avoid staffing issues.

Other resources to check out:

BackdoorJobs- Good resource for adventure seasonal jobs.

WanderJobs- Another good resource to discover more seasonal work and about the lifestyle it brings.

AmeriCorps- The VISTA program for those wanting to do community service but also make a career advancing move.

Conservation Corps- Work and live in the outdoors for a few months, restoring and improving America’s natural treasures

WWOOF- For better insight into volunteering at farms, ranches, and homesteads all over the country (and world), see our write up here.

National Park Service- Great educational internships. Want to become a park ranger?

Want to work abroad?

AuPairWorld- Be a nanny for a foreign family in any country in the world!

TEFL-There is always a need for english speakers abroad!

PeaceCorps- Make the world a better place by committing two years to international community service.

WorkAway- Fantastic resource for international work and volunteer opportunities.

WWOOF- Volunteer at farms in 60 different countries all over the world.