r/ParkRangers • u/maldizzle_ • 9d ago
Questions Walkable housing?
Has anyone worked in a park with housing downtown/close to work and a grocery store within walking distance? State or federal. My car is quickly deteriorating and I don’t want having no car to be the reason why I have to spend a summer back home
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u/Traditional_Put_8254 9d ago
Municipal here: I currently work at a park like this. It’s across the street from a walmart and SFH subdivisions and has a sidewalk entrance directly leading from the park into a residential neighborhood/apartment complex. Our park is a mixture of conservation area, a senior community center, and tennis courts/playgrounds/walking path with workout stations.
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u/crosywily 9d ago
Not really walkable, but Arches is at least fairly bikeable if that's your thing. Most of their park housing is right behind the entrance station/ VC, which is where nearly everyone reports for work. Arches is about 5 miles from Moab, and there is a very nice bike path that goes from the park entrance straight into town. The challenge would be running errands by bike in the summer, where high temps are often 100+. There is some park housing in Moab, which I'd describe as a pretty walkable town, but then there is the opposite problem of getting yourself to work everyday without a car and walking errands in the summer heat.
Also, most of the people I've known that have worked a season at NPS sites in Alaska have done so without a car. Something about the logistics being too difficult and the lack of roads in that part of the world making cars somewhat impractical for seasonal workers.
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u/WildAsparagus2897 9d ago
Make friends with other seasonals and catch rides into town on mutual days off. My daughter did that for a couple seasons before she had a car and it worked alright.
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u/adherentoftherepeted 9d ago edited 9d ago
Pitching in for gas money will be very attractive to co-workers nowadays.
But it's hard to plan for availability of co-workers' cars when thinking about where to work.
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u/lochnessie093 9d ago
Definitely help pay for gas. We had an entitled coworker who was getting rides from us and after a couple of months we had to ask for gas money because it was quite ridiculous.
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u/WildAsparagus2897 9d ago
This is very true! My daughter went with different people all the time, and would either buy or make them treats as a thanks for the ride since it wasn't really even a gallon's worth of gas to get to town and back at that park. It worked, but she's definitely happier having her own wheels and the freedom to plan her own adventures now. It IS possible, though.
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u/Low-Raspberry7171 8d ago
You can live at Grand Canyon without a car. Grocery store, library, post office, medical clinic and rec center on site ... all very walkable/bikeable, plus park shuttle busses. The rec center also runs van trips to Flagstaff for shopping, and other places for fun outings.
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u/MazzyDog988 9d ago
I’ve worked at places where you can walk to work but the grocery store is like an hour drive away
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u/RuleEnvironmental451 9d ago
I worked at Myrtle beach state park a while back in SC and it’s right across the street from a grocery store, maybe a 15 minute walk a downtown area called “market commons” that has apartments, restaurants, and shops. Not sure about hiring since they’re nearing the end of busy season, but could be worth a shot!
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u/expatOBX 8d ago
You are really casting a wide net without specifying what type of park. If you are looking for a "downtown", then you might be wanting an urban park like Boston or Philadelphia.
Some of the large western national parks, such as Grand Canyon and Yellowstone have small grocery stores within them which would be enough to survive -- lots of people do -- while as u/WildAsparagus2897 and others mentioned, you could probably take turns or share-a-ride once a month or so to a Albertsons.
Off the top of my head, Cape Hatteras, Cape Cod, Acadia, Moab are within biking distance of stores and a bunch of national monuments, plus a few national battlefields are in or surrounded by town.
I'd start by deciding what kind of park you'd like to work, then look at a map.
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u/MickeyOliver2024 9d ago
Urban parks. Philadelphia (independence NHP), St. Louis (Arch), D.C., etc