Where I grew up, seasonal work meant “6 months of hell at the local Six Flags.” It was a last-resort type job reserved only for those high school kids with no work experience, and adults who one-way-or-another ended up as career ride operators for half of the year. The biggest drawback being that at the end of the season you have to go through yet another job search…and god forbid you go 2 weeks without a paycheck… I never thought that one day I’d spend the most amazing years of my life traveling from seasonal job to seasonal job.
Spending a year in Asia opened my eyes to how little I’d seen of my own country. Upon returning to NY, we packed our stuff and made an epic road trip to Oregon where we’d planned on settling in for a while. Long story short 3 months later we landed our first CoolWorks jobs, and 2 weeks after that we were in beautiful Skagway, Alaska. For 3 months we’d been struggling to make ends meet, find decent jobs, or even a landlord who would rent to us. Suddenly, we had 5 guaranteed months of employment, housing, and more than enough time to plan our next moves.
We felt like renegades. We soon came to realize that there were so many hidden benefits to working seasonal jobs. Moving from seasonal job to seasonal job could allow us to live in and experience some of the most amazing places in the world in a way we never could on a vacation. From Skagway, AK to Grand Canyon, AZ seasonal jobs have allowed us access to some of the most unique local communities and cultures whose surfaces are barely scratched by the casual traveler.
Seasonal work has allowed us to let our dreams run wild! When Gabby decided that she wanted to catch-and-gut a salmon, we moved to Alaska. When we decided that we wanted to take up skiing, we moved to Colorado. It wasn’t until we saw the sun rise over the Grand Canyon that we decided to apply for jobs at the South Rim. Life is full of incredible possibilities, you just have to be open to seize opportunity!
