Campground Host Hats

Campground hosts are mostly retirees who trade a few hours a week for a free site. State agencies set the terms: Idaho, Colorado and Maine ask for about 20 hours a week, Michigan 30 and Fairfax County, Virginia 32. The pay is usually a campsite with hookups, which RV Lifestyle describes as being paid indirectly with savings rather than paychecks. The job is rounds in the morning and at night, light cleaning of bathrooms, registering arrivals, selling firewood and, per a Missouri State Parks duty sheet, driving a golf cart while doing it. Quiet hours run 10pm to 8am at most campgrounds, and someone has to be the person who enforces them. Workamper is the in-group word, and California State Parks sells an official HOST cap so campers can spot the person in charge. These hats are the unofficial versions. CAMP HOST, CAMPGROUND HOST and WORKAMPER are the plain badges, and the longer designs give the host a title (Senior Vice President of Firewood), a golf cart patrol division, a quiet hours police badge, a tally where the s'mores run one ahead of the campsites, and the real benefits package: one campsite and gossip. Two designs come in a second colorway. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one on the golf cart, or give one to the host who retired to clean campground bathrooms and is thrilled about it.