Category: Campground Host Experiences

Myakka River So Far

February 12, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Myakka River so far has been a great experience. The weather has been pretty volatile with cold days, wet days, wet and cold days as well a bright sunny days too. There are a lot of campground host volunteers here during the winter months of January to March. Most are from up north with some of those as far as Canada. This is a very social occasion for these volunteers and they have pot luck dinners, movie nights and bomb fire game nights. Most of these people have been volunteering at this park for years. Being as they have so many volunteers quite a lot can and does get done during these months for the park rangers. There is cleaning of the huge park including all the public restrooms; campground cleaning; volunteers manning the main entrance taking money from new comers and the north entrance on weekends; working in the visitors centers; bird watching teachers; as well as mowing and clear cutting of the surrounding woods to prepare for the annual controlled burn and all the special events. This year the volunteers have agreed to host a weekly morning social hour with coffee, tea, juice and assorting snacks being available for just a $1 donation per person. It is a great chance for our fellow campers to get to know each other, meet the campground hosts and some of the ranger who drop by and listen to some music from some very talented volunteers. This is such a large park with so many things going on that they really need all these volunteers to keep things moving.

St Joseph Peninsula State Park WrapUp

January 30, 2014September 15, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

Now that I finally have help with our craft business I should be able to get some articles posted to my various blogs and will try to start posting to Our Great Adventure every week. There is so much to report to you guys that we will start with a wrap-up of St. Josephs Peninsula, then the wrap-up with Dade Battlefield and then an update on our current assignment here at Myakka River State Park. I will be trying to get the movies made for the State Park Reviews and uploaded to YouTube as soon as I can. We have very limited internet service here and will probably have to go down to the Myakka Outpost and use their wireless service to upload the videos once I get them done.

Campground Host Experiences, Florida State Parks, Park Info, RV and Campers, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping

One Month Down and One to Go

July 31, 2013September 15, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

We have been here at TH Stone Memorial St. Josephs Peninsula State Park as campground hosts for 1 month. It has been rainy, hot, stormy as well as nice breezes off of the Gulf of Mexico. The work is sometime hard but mostly due to the heat. We get up early in the morning before the sun rises to clean two bath houses. This can take us sometimes 2 to 3 hours to do depending on how bad they are and how many interruptions we get. We have been assigned to the Gulf Breezes campground area. Originally, we were assigned to the Shady Pines campground which is on the St. Joe Bay side of the peninsula underneath pine trees and in between the palmetto bushes. Due to the shortage of campground host volunteers during this time of year we were reassigned to the Gulf Breezes side and are responsible for the entire campground 5 days a week. The Volunteer Coordinator is Ron and he seems nice but the manager of the park, Mark, does have some unrealistic goals for the campground hosts.

Campground Host Experiences, Florida State Parks, Lessons in Camping, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping

Adams Tract WrapUp

June 22, 2013September 15, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

We are starting to wrap-up here at Adams Tract River Camp. It’s funny but we will miss this place. But we also miss being on the road. We have passed the 9 months full-time RVing mark and are looking forward to the next 18 months we have scheduled so far. The hardest part about being here is that we really don’t have the extra money to get out and explore. That was the reason we accepted all these campground hosting assignments in the first place was to be able to save a little money and go exploring more. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case. We will have to work on bringing in an income while we are traveling as well as the retirement payments we have been living on the past couple of months. It makes all the difference if you can bring in some extra income while you are traveling so that you can enjoy those trips to local parks, eat out in a local restaurant every now and then or just be able to have extra gas money to explore the areas when you are not doing your campground hosting duties.

Report From Adams Tract River Camp

June 12, 2013September 14, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

We have Solar Lights Now! Our time here at Adams Tract River Camp is coming to a close. We have about 2 weeks left before we move onto St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park. We can only hope that they people who work there will be as nice as the ones we have working here at the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail Office as well as the great guys at Troy Springs State Park who have been keeping us in supplies and helping us out with repairs and trash pick-ups. Thanks so much for all your help and we look forward to our return assignment here next summer.

Campground Host Experiences, Florida State Parks, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping

More Camphost News

May 21, 2013September 14, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

We just got confirmation on our last campground host position for next year. We are now completely booked for the next 19 months with April and September off next year! We have updated our Calendar Page with the everything we have so far. Mom, Katie and I are hoping to be able to visit some parks during those two months off on our way to the next one.

From Adams Tract to St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park beginning July 1, 2013 until August 31, 2013
From St. Joseph’s to Dade Battlefield State Park beginning September 1, 2013 until December 31, 2013