To us, Seasonal Work is working a Summer or Winter contract, and living in employee housing (or your own RV). There are ‘Seasonal Jobs’ like; Christmas Tree Lots, UPS Seasonal Help, etc.. But we are focused on the lifestyle of being a Seasonal Worker. My wife and I have been doing Seasonal Work for what seems like a lifetime. I will never go back to the real world after discovering the Seasonal Work lifestyle.
Seasons typically run; Winter – November to April, Summer – May to October. Hiring for Winter Seasonal jobs begins around July, and for Summer Seasonal jobs they generally do the first round starting in November and then finish the rosters after the holidays. I bounced around for years, working in almost all of the major tourist destinations in the US, packing up everything and moving every 6 months, it was mentally and physically exhausting. Before semi-retiring, I had become a Returner, meaning I went back to the same places season after season, Winters in Colorado, and Summers in Montana. I got to the point that my employers let me store my gear when I left for the season so I didn’t have to travel with it, this set up is the holy grail of seasonal work.
Seasonal Work can be found all over the US at anytime of the year. We use websites like CoolWorks or Indeed to find posted jobs, or we pick a tourist area and find the companies directly who are operating in the area. After you have a few seasons under your belt you will also have a good network of seasonal work friends to recommend you to new places. It seriously happens all of the time, someone you worked with in Yellowstone will end up as a front desk manager in Mammoth and will basically give you a job with housing if they need people. To make a seasonal work a lifestyle you have to finish your contracts, and you have to plan your life out 6-12 months ahead of time. The big employers like; Xanterra, Delaware North, and Pursuit are all cool with you job hopping, as long as you finish your contracts. If you don’t finish your contract you will get DNR’d (Do Not Rehire). Not only can you not come back to the location you left early, you also can’t work anywhere else that your employer operates, with Xanterra that could mean closing the door on getting a job with them anywhere in the US. The nice thing is, you are usually only in 6 month contracts so if you end up in a situation that sucks, you just have to tough it out for a few months until you can leave.
Seasonal Work will change your life. I remember my old life in the city, going through the motions to pay the mortgage. I was with the same hotel group for almost 20 years, I had tons of banked vacation time, and I was denied a vacation that I was giving them months of notice for. From that moment on I knew something had to change. Seasonal Work is like getting paid to be on vacation, sure the work can be hard and tourists can suck sometimes, but getting to live in the places we get to live is something that normal people don’t get to do. Getting to live and work with people from all over the world is life changing and you’ll become more appreciative of the world around you. The friendships you’ll make are different than work relationships in a city, it’s more like meeting a best friend at summer camp and staying in touch for the rest of your life.
To start this journey you have to be ready to leave everything behind and hit the road. You need to get your Paperwork in order; social security card, valid picture ID, and a real birth certificate. If you can get a passport you should do that as well. Next is figuring out what to do with your stuff. I recommend that for your first season, get rid of as much as you can and put the important items in storage. This way if Seasonal Work isn’t for you, go home get your stuff and get back to the city life. If you end up loving Seasonal Work, then you go deal with your stuff and find a more permanent storage solution for a few years so you can hit the road. You’re also going to be responsible for traveling to your job, this can be expensive – you’re probably going to need a few thousand dollars to make it to your first job. Once you have a plan in place of how you can leave your current situation the adventure begins.
When picking your first Seasonal Job I suggest finding a spot where you can still do your hobbies or that offers activities that you’ve always wanted to try. Then, pick the climate you love. My passion is fly fishing, I ended up working all over the Rocky Mountains so I could fish when I wasn’t working. If you hate the cold, working at a ski resort is going to be a miserable experience for you. Pick your spots wisely so you don’t get stuck in a bad situation.
On this site we’ve laid our information out by season or by state. Because of spam we host our forum on reddit, we actively monitor it and will answer any questions you have. Please, just post your question there, no questions are dumb, if you’re asking it I’m sure someone else looking into Seasonal Work is looking for an answer too. Browse around our site and you’ll get a good introduction of where you can go start your Seasonal Work journey.
