Best Job Boards for the Outdoor Industry and Adventure Travel (2025)

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It’s tough out there for outdoor and adventure travel enthusiasts who have decided to make their passion into their career. Positions in these fields can be highly competitive, the pay rate is usually lower than other industries, and some gigs (such as trail crew) can be hard on the body. On the flip side, jobs in these industries can have very flexible schedules or offer temporary seasonal contracts allowing employees to frequently embark on their own personal adventures. The work can be especially rewarding if you’re protecting public lands or helping other people to get outside, develop an appreciation of wilderness or history, and learn to recreate responsibly.

But where to find these jobs? When searching the usual job listing websites like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, keywords like “travel” or “outdoors” bring up tons of irrelevant results. It seems like 90% of them are travel nurse jobs. For listings that are more up your alley, try searching on one of these outdoor industry job board websites instead.

Note that most of these are heavily focused on jobs based in the United States, and in some cases I’ve combined multiple job boards into one category if there are several that are quite similar.

Basecamp Outdoor Jobs, Adventure Job Board, Get Outdoor Jobs, and Malakye

Basecamp Outdoor Jobs is probably my favorite resource on this list because it covers a wide range of sectors and talents instead of simply focusing on tour guide or summer camp jobs. Those are included too, but you might also find jobs working in-office designing, fundraising, doing customer support, accounting, HR, or digital marketing for a non-profit or popular brands like Patagonia, Keen, or REI. Sometimes there are freelance photography/gear modeling gigs for ad campaigns. 

There is a weekly newsletter you can sign up for that will send outdoor job opportunities directly to your inbox; choose either the free version or the paid version with extra perks. There is also a Facebook group where members can post opportunities or requests for advice and mentorship. Don’t forget to follow them on Instagram for daily updates.

At the moment, Basecamp does not have a job board you can search; it’s just the newsletter, Facebook group, and Instagram. However, they are currently working on a new feature called Basecamp Match, a “job board and candidate matching platform” where users can input their job preferences and past experience so that Basecamp can help match you with personalized recommendations.

Similar websites that do have a searchable job board are Adventure Job Board, Get Outdoor Jobs (paid), Outdoor Industry Association, and Malayke, and a similar Facebook group is Outdoor Recreation Jobs.

Outdoor Industry Jobs

In addition to the types of jobs you might find on Basecamp such as outdoor education, guiding, apparel, or administrative work, the Outdoor Industry Jobs board also lists opportunities in the hunting, fishing, and personal fitness categories. They cast a slightly wider net. 

Outdoor Industry Jobs has done a great job of creating special information pages on their website to turn job seekers on to other available resources, such as the Adventure Travel Trade Association, American Fly Fishing Trade Association, The American Society of Travel Agents, and Archaeological Institute of America, Diving Equipment and Marketing Association, European Tourism Trade Fairs Association, Ski Tour Operators Association, International Institute for Peace Through Tourism, the World Tourism Organization, and more.

Outdoor Occupations also has listings related to tackle shops, the boat building industry, etc.

CoolWorks, BackdoorJobs, Occupation Wild, Wander Jobs, and VagaJobs

I found my job working at the Activities Desk at the Grand Canyon on CoolWorks. This website focuses mainly on seasonal jobs for outdoor enthusiasts who are looking to make money while maintaining the freedom to travel somewhere new and exciting every few months. You can search their job board by state, by season, by national park, or by categories such as “Administration,” “Driving and Transportation,” “Education Jobs,” “Cruise Ship Jobs,” “Guest Services,” and more.

These jobs are typically in national parks, campgrounds, dude ranches, summer camps, or resorts in tourist hotspots. Some of them may come with employee housing, especially if posted by a concessionaire like Xanterra or Aramark. I’d say they are typically not “career” type jobs, although they could certainly be leveraged by those looking to return for multiple seasons or transition to longer term positions.

Similar sites to CoolWorks include BackdoorJobs, Wander Jobs, and VagaJobs. Occupation Wild is a good one too; I once found a cool entry-level state park “Park Ranger Aide” position listed on Occupation Wild that was not listed on any of the other sites.

In Solidarity

In Solidarity is an outdoor industry job board dedicated to finding employers who value diversity, equity, and inclusion – “This site is a resource for job seekers from underrepresented communities looking for employment in the outdoor and travel industries.”

Similar job boards include Travel Unity and Queer Outdoors.

Conservation Job Board

For job seekers who are particularly interested in environmental justice, conservation, and protecting our wildlife and public lands, the Conservation Job Board is a great resource. Search categories include “Land Trust,” “Botany,” “Ecology,” “Wildlife,” “Outdoor Recreation,” “Policy and Law,” “Restoration,” “Sustainability,” and more.

These jobs often pay better than the listings on other sites because they require a specialized degree (some current examples include “Water Resources Engineer” and “Senior Director of Conservation Science”), but there are internships and entry-level positions too.

You can also follow them on BlueSky and Facebook for frequent updates.

Similar websites include Green Jobs, Conservation Careers, which features more international opportunities, and Society for Conservation Biology. You might also like Idealist, which focuses on non-profits and activism. You could also search directly via organizations like the American Conservation Experience. The Wildlife Science Career Network Facebook group comes highly recommended.

FlexJobs and other Remote Job Boards

For many outdoor lovers and adventure travelers, working in a field directly related to these passions isn’t as important as having a flexible or remote job that will allow you to pursue your own expeditions in your free time. Searching LinkedIn, Indeed, or ZipRecruiter for the keyword or location of “remote” annoyingly brings up a lot of positions that are not actually fully remote. You may want to search via a job board that is specifically intended for these types of roles.

I’ve written about finding remote jobs and other suitable gigs for nomads in my “Apps and Resources for Full-Time Vanlife and Car Living” and “Jobs that Allow You to Solo Travel Full-Time as a Nomad” posts, plus a few issues of my location independence newsletter. Some examples include Remote Travel Jobs, FlexJobs, Real Work From Anywhere, We Work Remotely, Remote.co, Working Nomads, JustRemote.co, and more.

For some extra cash on the side, you could always list your freelance services on Upwork or Fiverr if you’re good at something like website design or language translation. I once hired someone to help me set up my website with GA4, the new Google Analytics platform that replaced Universal Analytics. It was probably the easiest thing in the world for that freelancer to complete and maybe I could have figured it out myself, but I was having trouble and was dumb and lazy enough to prefer to just pay someone to do it for me.

GovernmentJobs, USAjobs, and AmeriCorps

If you want to become a Park Ranger or take on some other role in the National Park Service, Forest Service, or Bureau of Land Management, it’s necessary to search on USAjobs.gov. 

If interested in working for the state or county, for instance in a local Parks and Recreation department or tourism board, search on GovernmentJobs.com or your county’s official website. As an example, here is Leadville, Colorado’s Lake County job board, which currently includes a listing for a Climbing Wall Attendant and Recreation Attendant.

Government outdoor-related jobs don’t always offer a great salary, but they have great benefits and potential for upward mobility. Sometimes they include employee housing, especially in the case of national park jobs.

AmeriCorps jobs usually come with a good weekly stipend to help you stay on-location for the duration of your volunteer work project.

Volunteer.gov and Workampers

If you travel in an RV or camper, you might be on the lookout for work camping or camp host jobs. These offer a free space to park and live in exchange for volunteer work and some may also pay an hourly wage on top. Two of the best places to find these opportunities, besides potentially CoolWorks, Occupation Wild, or Basecamp Outdoor Jobs, would be Volunteer.gov and the Workampers Facebook group. When I road tripped down the Natchez Trace Parkway, I met volunteer rangers/docents at the Mount Locust stand who raved about traveling the country finding jobs on Volunteer.gov. Sometimes these listings are specifically for retired couples, though.

Workaway and Hostelworks

If you’re into having a typical roof over your head, you might prefer to do a work/housing exchange or paid receptionist/housekeeping job at a hotel or hostel near an outdoorsy hub. Hostel job ideas are listed on Hostelworks and HostelJobs, although those sites are often outdated. Workaway, WWOOF, or Worldpackers are more likely to have recent listings. I found my job at Basecamp Anchorage on Workaway.

Sometimes I just search on Google for hostels located in an adventurous place I’d like to be, because even resources like HostelWorld don’t comprehensively list every hostel in the world. I’m often surprised to find out a hostel exists near one of my favorite towns or parks that I never knew about before! Most hostel websites have a special page or blurb about employment opportunities. If they don’t, I cold email to ask about it. That’s how I found my job at The Bunkhouse in Minturn, Colorado, and I almost ended up working at a hostel along the Appalachian Trail once.

If you prefer a quaint Bed & Breakfast as opposed to a potentially rowdy hostel, check out The B&B Team wanted ads.

Outdoor Education Jobs, NOLS, and NAAEE

If you love working with kids or teaching people outdoor skills, check out the Outdoor Education Jobs Facebook group. These types of listings can also be found on many of the other job boards above, but this group has narrowed their focus to this one sector. Think Outward Bound, YMCA camps, University adventure programs, or City Kids.

Other similar job boards are NAAEE (North American Association for Environmental Education), OutdoorEd, and the Association for Experiential Education. You have to become a member of the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education to see their job board.

Don’t forget that NOLS has a job board too, and not just in an effort to hire instructors for their Wilderness First Responder courses, but to help NOLS graduates find industry jobs. There are often listings for wilderness guides, AmeriCorps, and Conservation Corps.

Mountain Careers

If you don’t necessarily need to be working in the outdoor industry or have a remote job, but you’d like to work at a company that’s physically located in a mountain community so you can be near the trails and slopes, try searching on Mountain Careers.

Packs Light Paid Travel Opportunities

Gabby Beckford runs a paid travel opportunities dashboard that will help you find ways to travel the world through grants, contests, scholarships, and jobs. Travel doesn’t have to break the bank and you can in fact be paid to travel. These are not usually outdoor industry related, but all travel can be adventure travel depending on how you plan your trip!

If scholarships and grants are up your alley, I’m aware of several that are outdoor-related and offered annually which I will write about in a separate post.

Remember that you don’t have to wait around for the perfect listing to show up on one of these feeds. If there is a company you’d love to get involved with, go directly to their website and navigate to the employment opportunities page. If they don’t have an employment page, why not email them and ask if they have any openings or will at least keep your resume on file for the future? I’ve snagged several jobs this way. I think too many people wait around and “take what they can get” instead of proactively dreaming up what their ideal situation would be and angling their movements toward that dream.

Good luck out there, and happy adventuring!

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