Tag Archives: work kamping

Association Island KOA in New York!

June 12, 2019 suzy 9 Comments

While working our first job in Bar Harbor, we were told often about an amazing campground on an island in Lake Ontario called Association Island. We were intrigued. Last summer, I contacted the manager there and lined up positions for this summer. After several years in the arid west, we are going to work on a beautiful island surrounded by lots of water!

The island is reached by a narrow causeway that is approximately one mile long. This was our first view of Association Island. Beautiful blue waters and crisp cold air. It was May 1, and as you can see, still winter to early spring on the island.

We were a little nervous as we are with any new adventure. Association Island has been owned by the same family for the last 20+ years. They had hired a new island manager about two years ago who has worked hard on enforcing rules and improving the island amenities. There was a lot of push back from campers who had previously done whatever they wanted to do on the island, resulting in mixed reviews on the web.

But life is about the adventure, right?

Continue reading Association Island KOA in New York! →

Camping Life

Our RV Adventures in 2018!

February 13, 2019 suzy 11 Comments

The year 2018 was all in all, a good one for us. Every year, I like to take stock of the year before, looking at both the good and the bad. As full time travelers, we get lots of questions about our life on the road. This post might answer a few of those questions as we look back on the happenings of 2018.

We get asked a lot if we will ever settle down again in a regular home. At this point in time, we have no plans for that. We have absolutely no regrets. We love our new roaming lifestyle and the fact that as we work-camp across the country, we get to actually experience each area as the locals do.

Continue reading Our RV Adventures in 2018! →

Places to Go

A Summer in Montana

September 20, 2018 suzy 5 Comments

We are currently on our way to our next destination, the sugar beet harvest in North Dakota. We committed to a few weeks of crazy work, but we are excited to take on a new adventure. I will fill you in more on this opportunity soon, but in the meantime, I would love to share a few more of the highlights of our stay in Polson, Montana.

Along with Glacier National Park, we had to visit a few other local destinations such as the National Bison Range. This huge park is a must-see if you are in the Flathead Lake area. We were told that not only would we see bison, but there were also bears, coyotes, deer, elk, and much more!

Continue reading A Summer in Montana →

Places to Go

Iowa 80- The Worlds Largest Truck Stop and more!

July 29, 2017 suzy 6 Comments

We spent the past few weeks on an unscheduled trip to Forest City, Iowa and the manufacturing facility of Winnebego. While Iowa was cool and all, we were excited to be back on the road in a fully working coach again.

After contacting our new employer at the KOA in Boston/Cape Cod, and given the go-ahead, we were on the road again heading to our end of summer job in New England.

But we had to make one final stop before we left the state of Iowa. You see, on the eastern edge of Iowa, not far from the Mississippi River, is the World’s Largest Truckstop! We had seen it featured on several travel shows and we certainly couldn’t drive right by it without checking it out!

The Iowa 80 Truckstop, established in 1964, features eight restaurants, a convenience store, gift store, Super Truck Showroom, barber shop, chiropractor, dentist, movie theater, workout room, laundry facilities, gas islands, diesel fuel center, truck service center, Truckomat truck wash, Dogomat pet wash, CAT Scale, 24- private showers, trucking museum and more!

Yep. It’s a small city in one truck stop!

The truck stop itself is set on 220 acres, which is four times larger than the average truck stop. They receive nearly 5,000 visitors daily in the main building, have parking for 900 trucks, and 150 fuel pumps.

And the store is simply Disney Land for truckers and those that love the industry! You name it, they had it.

Need a back massage? They have a Chiropractor for that! Tooth hurts? There is a Dentist on call! Doggies dirty? Step up to the Dog-O-Mat!

Need a cup that is bigger than your head? They totally have your back!

Don’t miss the chance to check out the Iowa80 Truck Stop in Walcott, Iowa. It is well worth the time. Craziness!

In Indiana and Pennsylvania, we traveled through quite a bit of Amish Country. This gentleman in the photo above was driving into work. He apparently worked at the KOA that we were staying at in Mercer/Grove City Pennsylvania!

We are huge fans of Amish cooking. It’s pretty amazing. So, of course we stocked up. Those packages of noodles? Well they were made in Middlebury, Indiana. There were several noodle factories, run by the Amish, right nearby!

Soon, our trip took us to our final destination!

This will be our spot for the next several months at the Boston/Cape Cod KOA. We will be here until just past Columbus Day weekend, as work campers.

We love our tiny spot tucked into the woods!

And finally we can add a little cash to our suffering checkbook!

Our new jobs are in housekeeping!

Dave has always done the laundry, so I used to pride myself in saying that I haven’t done laundry in 25 years. That is no longer something that I can say. LOL!

Stay tuned for lots of great photos and sights to see in the Boston Cape Cod area! We are so excited to finally make it here!

Camping Life

A Review of 2016 on the Road

December 31, 2016 suzy 5 Comments

We left Atlanta in April of 2015 for a life on the road. Over the past nearly 2 years, we have enjoyed lots of great sights, met lots of fun people and experienced living in a 400 square foot “tiny home” with 2 dogs and one bathroom.

And this is just the beginning!

traveling in amarillo texas — Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, TX

With the year 2017 on the horizon, I wanted to do a review of the past year on the road along with some of the trials and tribulations that went along with it.

Many ask about our financials, so I will go into that a bit, along with a few things we have learned and experienced as we traveled this year.

Total Mileage this year

We began our year working in St. Petersburg, FL at the St. Petersburg KOA. Our job ended there near the end of March. Our next job would begin around May 1 in Williams, AZ, but we needed to make an extended stop in Atlanta due to health issues with our dog, Ralph.

Our route took us to Orlando, a short pit stop in our favorite campground on Tybee Island, then onto Atlanta for a total of 633 miles.

We then traveled westward through Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and finally Williams, AZ, right near the Grand Canyon. This was a total of 1,798 miles.

Our job in Williams ended on October 31 and our job in Tucson began on November 15. We took the long way with a detour through Laughlin, NV and Lake Havasu City, AZ, adding another 520 miles.

Grand total miles on the coach for 2016 was 2,951 miles.

Click here for more!

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Camping Life

Life in Tucson

December 8, 2016 suzy 9 Comments

As full time RVers and work campers, we find ourselves moving with the seasons. Most campgrounds hire for a six month long season. You can work longer if you’d like as long as the campground is open all year. Unfortunately, in the wintertime, most of the campgrounds in the northern section of the United States close due to inclement weather.

And not to mention, our coach has issues with below freezing temperatures. In the future, we have learned that when buying a coach, you need to get what they call a “Polar Package”. This includes not only heated floors, but extra insulation and a heated undercarriage. These were things we didn’t think about at the time, and as usual, we learn the hard way.

With that said, we move to warmer weather just as the snowbirds do. In fact, I guess that makes us snowbirds too! LOL!

We find the majority of our work camping jobs on the internet and in May, we ran across an opening at the Lazy Days Tucson KOA for kitchen staff. After several seasons of working the front desk, reservations and check ins, we decided we would love to have a small break. So we applied. I figured we would either love it or hate it, but either way- we only will be there through the winter.

Why stay in Arizona? Northern Arizona was absolutely beautiful with its pine forests and high mountains. We wanted to also experience the desert of Arizona. Tucson is located in southern Arizona very near the Mexico border. Here we can experience the local desert, beautiful Saguaro forests, local Indian and Mexican influences, and much more.

We arrived here in the middle of November and enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving celebration with everyone on the campground.

Tucson KOA is a huge campground with around 500 sites. Every site is gravel, with a poured concrete patio and and a small asphalt driveway for your vehicle. And every single site has at least one fruit tree.

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Places to Go

A little break from the real world at Lake Havasu

November 30, 2016 suzy 7 Comments

Our contract at the Williams Circle Pines KOA ended on Oct 31, and our new job at the KOA in Tucson began on Nov 15. That gave us about 2 weeks to take a break as we make our way down to Tucson.

Bet you wondered what happened to us. I’m a bit behind on my posting!

Over the summer, many of our guests had come from southern Nevada, Laughlin and Lake Havasu. They had come to Williams to get a break from the heat as that area of the country sees triple digits all summer. We decided that we would check out that area of the country in a round about way to Tucson.

Our first stop was the in Laughlin, Nevada. Laughlin is located on the southernmost tip of Nevada along the Colorado river where Nevada, California and Arizona meet. The town is known as a fun casino town.

It is about a half day drive from Williams. And all down hill. We went from over 7000 feet above sea level in Williams to about 500 feet above sea level in Laughlin.

While we missed the heat of the summer, it was still nice and warm there. I enjoyed sitting under the palm trees and working on my laptop in my beautiful new back yard.

On our second day there, we took the London Bridge Jet Boat tour down the Colorado River from Laughlin to the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City.

This is a great way to see the area from the water. The trip takes about 2 hours to get to Lake Havasu City, you get a 2 hour break there to check out the bridge and grab a lunch, and then take the 2 hour ride back up the river.

And best of all, it was very affordable at about $70 a person.

We really enjoyed the boat tour and our tour guide was incredibly informative. Check out the green tint of the water behind Dave. It was really that green! Apparently from minerals in the water.

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Places to Go

Leaving Circle Pines and heading to new Adventures!

November 8, 2016 suzy 1 Comment

We have been on the road now about a year and a half. And the adventure has just begun. Selling the house and nearly everything that we owned was difficult. Leaving our friends and family behind was too. But I have to tell you that we have absolutely no regrets.

Life on the road is everything we thought it would be.

We often are asked how we can support ourselves on the road and I have to say that fortunately for us, we are able to handle most of our bills with income from my websites.

However, we do need a buffer. And that is where KOA has come in. We are doing seasonal work at various campgrounds in order to supplement our income while we see the country.

Last week we left Circle Pines KOA in Williams, AZ and I have to say that it was a sad farewell. We not only loved this surprisingly beautiful area of the country, but made a bunch of new friends in the process that we definitely will miss.

And we absolutely loved working for Bruce and Lori. They made campground work an adventure.

Our cool shady spot underneath the tall pines is now just a memory. I would have loved to stay through the winter, but our coach does not love cold weather. So it is onto to warmer regions.

We are currently at Lake Havasu for a brief vacation and then moving onto our winter job in Tucson, AZ.

But as I like to do, I’ve created a video of our memories from this beautiful campground on the high plains of Arizona.

Next week as a final chapter, I will be posting the top 10 Things to do in Williams, AZ.

Want more videos?

If you would like to see a bit about the parts of the country that we have visited so far, you can see our other videos here:

Our Season working at the St. Petersburg KOA

A Compilation Video of our Summer at Bar Harbor!

Camping Life

Autumn in Northern Arizona

November 3, 2016 suzy 4 Comments

We we planned our move to Arizona for the summer, the last thing I was expecting was to see beautiful leaves in the fall! It’s a desert, right?

Wrong.

Depending upon the altitude, Northern Arizona is a mix of tall pines and hardwoods such as Aspens. So with Fall in full bloom, we took advantage of a few days off and checked out the local foliage at the San Francisco Peaks.

A perfect way to say goodbye to this beautiful part of the country.

You see, we will be heading out of Williams this week and on to our next destination. Time flies when you are having fun, right?

And there appears to be bears in the vicinity! Who knew?

All this time we have been here, the only wildlife that we have come across besides those animals at Bearizona and the petting zoo was the occasional Abert Squirrel!

Luck was with us and we actually got photo bombed!

But seriously. It has been an amazing experience here.

Lot’s of things are happening at the Circle Pines KOA as we finish out the season. They erected a new huge sign for the entranceway. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

We spent this past week telling all of our friends and coworkers goodbye. Starting a season can be exciting, but finishing one out can be sad. We may run into some of our friends again along the road. It is a small world after all.

But part of being a seasonal worker is making new friends along the way.

So what have we been doing these past few weeks besides checking out leaves and saying goodbye to our friends?

Well, there were plumbing issues. Seems that we should have named our coach “Always Something”. Fortunately, Dave and Ralph had it handled in no time.

And speaking of Ralph. His diabetes has not been under control. About 3 months ago, he suddenly lost his vision. The local vet recommended a specialist down in Phoenix. We had to mull it over a bit as the cost was pretty high.

One of Ralph’s favorite past times is sitting in the window watching the squirrels. When his eyesight deteriorated, not only was he running into things, but his demeanor changed. He became depressed and not his normal self.

We were told that we had to get the diabetes in check before they could do anything about his eyes. So, we spent the last few months keeping him on a strict prescription diet and having his glucose levels checked weekly.

On October 5, we finally were able to get the surgery done. Ralph had two new lenses put in his eyes.

Yep. We bit the bullet and spent the money. Ralph is one of the family after all.

Recovery from the surgery takes about 6 weeks total. And for many of those weeks, we had to keep him in the “cone of shame” full time. This meant that I had to hand feed him. And he had to learn how to get around with that huge cone on his head.

A few weeks ago, we finally got to see his big brown eyes again. I think he is really enjoying the fact that he can see his old nemesis the Abert Squirrel.

He has a few more weeks of recovery, but he can already see better than I can.

So that has been our last month in Williams. Saying goodbye, fixing problems with the coach and helping Ralph recover from surgery. Oh, and I’m putting together a video of our season here. I should have it ready this week. So stay tuned.

We will be leaving the area this week and heading onto Laughlin, NV and Lake Havasu City for a short break before we go to our next job in Tucson, AZ. I have to say that we will both miss the Williams area.

And who knows, maybe we will come back one day! It totally could happen.

Camping Life

Work Camping : The good, the bad and the ugly…

July 13, 2016 suzy 27 Comments

When we originally decided that we wanted to become full time RVers, we weren’t exactly sure how to go about it financially. You see, we were both working for huge corporations in Atlanta, making good money, living in a big house with lots of big bills.

We knew what we wanted to do, but it looked like it would take years of saving to get there.

Then one day I ran across information on work camping on the internet. Apparently, you could work for a campground, making an hourly wage and even get a free spot to stay while you are there! It seemed like the answer.

With the income from my websites, and the campground supplying a spot to stay and spending money too, it made it possible for our dreams to come true even earlier than we expected.

We sold our home and most everything we owned last April and hit the road in our RV.

Our expenses at the start included a RV payment, health insurance, vehicle insurance, phone/internet bill, approximately $500 per month in overhead for my websites, and of course food and spending money.

We have been on the road for nearly a year and a half now, and we are successfully living on the income from my websites and the income from the campgrounds that we have worked at.