Journal

Crater Lake National Park

Oregon

The five of us that make up team CoolWorks have all had our lives changed by taking a chance on the road less traveled. Since 1995, legions of adventurers have used our site to find their new path. And as a part of that journey, they often discover new courage, new passion, new love, new family, a new home – a fork in the road to a future that they never expected as the result of a seasonal job.

We’ve created these journals with the belief that storytelling cheers, emboldens and encourages us to tell and create our own stories. We built this venue in the hopes that learning about other people’s experiences might help some dreamers work up the courage to take the plunge themselves. Has a seasonal job changed your life? We would love to hear about it!

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Jacob

I longed for wilderness, for mountains, for wide open spaces – just to feel the solace and the oneness with nature. I needed to get away from the obstacles that held me back at home. I needed to get back out on my own, and meet new people, people…

Kristian

I had already had my reckoning with the “real world.” I had invested tons of time and energy into graduating near the top of my class in one of the hardest majors at a top tier school. I was so burnt out, I couldn’t fathom jumping straight into the…

Alyssa

Four years ago, CoolWorks changed my life with my very first seasonal job, so much that here I am still in love with working seasonal jobs in the National Parks, and I never want to go back to the life that I had before. These experiences have given me…

Nick

I’m sure lots of people will point to the amazing travels they’ve experienced because of seasonal work. I can absolutely agree with that. But it goes a little deeper for me. I, too, have traveled to amazing places and seen a lot of beautiful things. But the thing that’s…

Lynn

I gained so much more from this job than I could have ever hoped to when I applied. I could never have anticipated the ways these experiences would change me. I so enjoyed meeting the people I worked with, exploring the Park and learning about how to function in…

Mike

I was living the so called “normal” life.  The one that society has programmed us to believe; that you race to reach life milestones and accumulate material and monetary wealth faster than your counterparts.  Before I went seasonal I was living in Seattle, with a career job and a…

Tim

I am a firm believer that we as humans were not meant to live in the same place for our whole lives. I believe it is in our very makeup to be nomads. Think of the most enlightened people you know. I guarantee that they have done some traveling in…

Craig

“Great!”, I thought. This is just the change I need, I will do this for a few years or so, get fulfilled and then back to a so-called normal life. Well, going on eighteen years later I am still at it.

Emily

And that was it. That was the very last sentence in a book about my old life that I don’t read anymore. I applied for just one job, thinking foolish things that dreamers do, “If I get this job, this is meant to happen.”
A few days later, I got…