When Marian Barry’s mother died in 2014, the Arizona nurse knew she needed a change. For years, her life had revolved around taking care of her aging parents and working as a cardiac nurse just outside Phoenix.
A colleague suggested travel nursing — well-paid work that would let her explore the country. After three months in Alaska, Barry knew it was the life for her. She sold her house of 16 years in Mesa, bought an RV she named Myrna, and roamed the Western US, working in a slew of hospitals and meeting all sorts of people along the way.
She “absolutely loved” being a nurse and thought she’d work well into her golden years. But when the pandemic hit, that changed. Watching countless patients suffer and die without family at their bedside was agonizing. “It was hell. It was horrible being in the hospital,” Barry said.
After 30 years of nursing, she started thinking about retirement. She’d stayed in some national and state parks while travel nursing and noticed that the park employees and volunteers she’d met seemed remarkably happy. So, she applied for a seasonal volunteer gig at Diamond Lake in Oregon.
“After coming out of working the first 15 months of COVID in hospitals, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in nature. This is amazing. No mask, no PPE,'” she said.
Now, she’s a full-time so-called “work-camper,” living and volunteering in parks with other itinerant folks like her, many of them also retirees. She spends her days kayaking, biking, and orienting visitors in the parks. She’s letting her nursing license expire next year.
“I just cannot imagine going back to any kind of stressful job,” Barry, now 71, added.
Barry is part of a much bigger trend. Work-camping in America’s parks is a long-established lifestyle, particularly for older people in need of low-cost living or adventure, or both. But as Americans live longer and face rising housing costs on fixed or low incomes, it’s only becoming more attractive.
Living off Social Security
Barry made good money as a nurse, but she doesn’t have much in savings. So she lives off her monthly $2,972 Social Security checks. She’s managing for now and is even splurging on a rental car for the summer.
Living in an RV is pretty cheap. At the campgrounds, she gets a free full hook-up — including water, electricity, and sewer — in exchange for her work.
She says it’s been easy for her to live in a tiny space because she’s “never been a things kind of person.” And she spends much of her time outside.
For the past four years, Barry has spent October through April at Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, 90 miles north of Vegas, and May through August at Beaver Creek State Natural Area on the coast of central Oregon. She takes September off for vacation.
She loves the dramatic landscapes and has become a wildlife enthusiast.
“I literally live in heaven,” Barry said. “I absolutely love my life.”
She says she doesn’t get lonely because she’s made friends with her fellow volunteers and employees. And she spends her days chatting up visitors. “I like to talk to everybody,” she said.
Barry has become particularly popular in Oregon, where a beloved breed of blackberry, the marionberry, is grown. Locals and park visitors get a kick out of her name.
“Every day when I say what my name is, they’re like, ‘Oh, I’ll never forget that,'” she said. “I’m like a celebrity here.”
One group of fans brought her a marionberry pie.
Barry, who never married or had kids, hopes to keep living in the parks in Oregon and Nevada for the rest of her life. Her siblings and other family members are scattered across the country.
She jokes with one of her nieces, who lives on a farm in Indiana, that if she ever loses the ability to live independently, she’ll park her RV in a field on her property and live out her days there.
“Honestly, I have no long-term plan, that’s just a fun thing to think about,” she said.
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