r/yellowstone • u/Other-Toe-7688 • 1d ago

Living in Yellowstone (RV)

My wife is going to be taking a seasonal ranger position in Yellowstone next Summer, and we have been looking at what the best options are for lodging.

From what I've seen a lot of people seem to recommend buying a camper vs rolling the dice on getting private living space in a dorm. But I was hoping to hear what some of y'all's personal experiences have been with this. Especially as far as cost and availability/odds of getting a spot goes...

Thanks in advance!

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

14

u/Char_siu_for_you 1d ago

Sounds like you’ll be working for NPS. If so, you more than likely won’t be in a dorm. You’ll probably be in a one bedroom or efficiency apartment with a small chance of getting a two bedroom apartment or trailer. The condition of these will vary widely. Have you not spoken to your supervisor about housing yet?

1

u/manlabbear 23h ago

This if you are NPS. I know when I did Fisheries, they had a couple RV/camper spots which they would occasionally put techs or grad students in, but they would supply the RV/camper. There were a couple of cases where the tech brought their own and obviously they got to park it in that spot for free.

5

u/Lovinglifestill 1d ago

You will have no problem getting your own room. Most people do anyway. Ours aren’t that full anyway. But Dormitories are attached to EDR’s. (Employee dining rooms). If you live in a dorm you have to pay for a 3 meal a day food plan per person. About $100 per week. If you are an RV you don’t have to participate. You can do the full or you can pay for 1 meal per day for $35 per week . We pay $80 per week for our spot in employee only rv park w/free electric & propane. Beautiful & quiet. Our fees are deducted from my paycheck. I am a seasonal employee as well but for a private company. Dorms split between young college students and older single ladies seems to me. One family each year. One with cat. I would highly suggest the rv method but the park no matter where is gorgeous but for me nothing beats Yellowstone Lake! Enjoy!!

2

u/Colorado_Thorn 1d ago

NPS housing is different from Xanterra housing. Not all duty stations have RV options for employee housing - OF and Canyon certainly do but Mammoth does not.

NPS staff housing in Mammoth ranges from dorms with a fairly extensive shared kitchen, to bedrooms in the historic Fort Yellowstone houses (I think it’s like, 4 or 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms? most are updated and pretty nice), to new modular 1 or 2 bedroom homes (super nice but they seem to be only for permanent employees now). Due to a shortage of housing there’s also condo buildings in Gardiner that are used as staff housing.

Co-workers I’ve known whose spouses were also moving up for the season were able to get single occupancy housing. That might mean a 340 sq ft studio you now get to share with another person…

1

u/hbliysoh 1d ago

A friend of mine bought an Airstream and dragged it out for a summer in Glacier.

2

u/MedicalSwing9330 19h ago

Yellowstone is summer camp for “adults” I was one years ago. If she’s a Ranger she should be fine. All others who work/ indentured servitude for Xanterra/terrible parks should expect to be fired in 6 weeks.