The 9 Ways I Make Money as a Solo Woman RVer

There are a lot of ways to make money as an RVer. I like to joke that I do ALL of them. Seriously, I have tried a lot of different ways to make money to support my RV travel. I like trying new things, experimenting and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I wanted to share the ways I make money to finance my RV travel so you can see if any of these options might work for you.

Listen to the podcast episode below or read on for more details.

1. I Earn Money as a Campground Host

Camp hosting is the number one way I made money in 2024 to fund my RV travels. I started camp hosting as a volunteer gig for the Oregon State Parks in 2020 (photo below) and really loved it. After a few seasons of volunteering, I decided to apply for a paid camp host position.

Currently I work as a paid campground host near Mt. Hood in Oregon. The job is full time from May-October. I’ve worked two seasons at my current job and plan to return for the 2025 season. I love the job, as it’s in a beautiful location and I work with a great community of fellow hosts. The two biggest downsides to this job is because you work where you live, you’re pretty much on duty 24/7. Someone can knock on your door anytime, day or night. And because the job is location dependent, I do miss a lot of the fun gatherings that happen for RVers in the summer. But if I have to work, and I do, this is a wonderful job that allows me to combine my love for RVing, the outdoors, customer service and making community.

My current camp host job is a bit unique, as it is a full time, fully paid position that even has benefits and a 401K option. Most camp host jobs won’t come with all these perks, but there are some great jobs out there.

If you’re thinking of trying to get a camp host job, I recommend joining Workamper News, where you can find many diverse camp hosting and other jobs that align well with RV travel.

2. I am a Writer and Author

You’re reading this blog post. I had to write it. Freelance writing is one way I make a living to support my RV travels. I am the author of two books, one of which is still in print and earns me royalties twice a year. Check it out below! I wrote this book several years ago and it still earns me money, even though I’m not doing much to promote it. (Although showing up on many banned book lists has helped keep it in the public eye.) Writing books can be a great way to make money for RV travel because once the initial work is done, you can earn passive income. (Although I will say, writing a book is a lot of work!)

I also will occasionally write for business clients or for other magazines or blogs. I used to do this much more–in fact, I spent 10 years as a full-time freelance writer. These days, I write less, but I will sometimes pick up writing contracts. This can be a lucrative business, especially if you niche down and develop a good consistent group of clients.

Want to learn how to make money as a writer? I highly recommend these two courses. Scale Your Travel Blog is the course that is teaching me the steps to make money as a blogger.

Niche Sites Made Easy is also a great course, taught by Kristin Hanes who is a fellow nomad was guest on the Solo Women RV Podcast #74.

3. Selling Books on Amazon FBA

Different than writing books, re-selling used books on Amazon is a way that I make money to support my RV travel. Selling used books on Amazon is a great business for RV travel for several reasons. The first is that when you travel around, you will have access to thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales and library used book sales all over the country. As an Amazon FBA seller, you don’t have to keep the inventory in your RV or camper, you box them up and ship them to Amazon who handles all of the shipping, customer service and returns. Of course, they take a hefty percentage to provide this service. It’s Amazon, they’re in the business to make money.

As an Amazon seller, you have access to the biggest marketplace in the world. There’s a bit of a learning curve and some tools that you’ll need to get started, but I’ve found that selling on Amazon is a lot of fun and can bring in $1,000 or so per month.

There are a lot of places to learn this business. I recommend Romer the Roamer or The Bookflipper.

While selling books on Amazon was a fun side hustle for me for about four years, this year I am giving the business up. I simply don’t have the time to source books since I am working in such a remote location. I may pick it back up if I give up my camphosting job. If you can get some good sources and are willing to put in the work, you can make decent money with this great RV side hustle.

4. Customer Service for Travel Company

A lot of people have remote online jobs to support their RV travel and I do too! I work as a contract employee for an online travel company. As a contract employee, I only work when the company needs some extra help. They bring me on 3-4 times a year for a few weeks or month. I work part time answering customer emails. It took a little bit of training, but with a background in online customer service, it was a job that I could step right into.

Customer service is something that I enjoy. It’s one aspect of my work as a campground host that I really like. I just enjoying helping people out and making their day better in whatever way I can.

I think if you like to help people, have customer service experience and are relatively savvy on the computer, a remote customer service job can be a great way to earn income to travel.

Where can you find these types of jobs? I like the websites Remote Woman and FlexJobs.

5. Wonolo is one way to Make Money for RV Travel

Wonolo is an app where you can find local jobs with companies that need a little bit of help. I first heard about Wonolo from some vanlifers I follow on Instagram as a way they earned money to stay on the road. I decided to check it out.

The jobs on the app tend to be things like warehouse work, hotel cleaning, food delivery or merchandising jobs. I worked a few jobs from the app while I was still at my home base and didn’t end up ever finding any work on the road. You can read my review of my experience with Wonolo here.

6. Drive for Uber Eats

I tried out the food delivery platform Postmates–which is now called Uber Eats back in 2021 to earn a bit of extra money for my RV travels. While this was a good side hustle for me when I was home in my sticks and bricks house, it’s not something I would do on the road in my current RV because it just doesn’t get good fuel economy and it’s hard to maneuver around it tight parking spots. But if you have a smaller van or a tow vehicle you might enjoy picking up some shifts delivering food.

Driving for Uber Eats can be a great way to earn money for RV travel, especially if you are in one area for a period of time. While the app does give you turn by turn directions for pick up and delivery, it is helpful to know an area to be the most efficient. (One time I did deliver to an RV park, which was pretty cool!) That being said, there are some tricks to increase your efficiency and to garner good tips. Tips are the thing that make driving for Uber Eats worthwhile.

The few months that did drive I made around $20-$24 hour–before gas. Daytime driving earned significantly less than nights and weekends.

7. Sell on E-bay

Last year I decided to do a big house de-clutter before I hit the road. Over the years I’ve collected things like political and peace buttons, gay pride pins and t-shirts and some women’s basketball paraphernalia. I listed these on E-bay and was surprised and how much sold. I mean, I had t-shirts that were old and stained from gay pride marches in 1993 and people paid $25-35 for them! I even sold some old rusty peace buttons for $10-12 each. These were all things I kept for the sentimental value, but I decided I no longer needed them to retain the memories.

The most expensive thing I sold was a Keith Haring poster for $600. Now when I’m traveling, I hit up thrift stores to check for small things that I can sell on E-bay. One downside to this way to make money is you need to have space to store the items.

8. Secret Shop

I signed up for an app called iSecretShop from a recommendation from a friend. While this isn’t a great way to earn a lot of money, it can be a fun way to bring in a few bucks here and there. Some of the shops pay very little, like $10 to evaluate a fast food restaurant and others can pay over $100 for a more involved shop.

Thus far, I’ve completed several apartment evaluations–where you pretend to be a person looking to rent an apartment. I called, spoke to the renting agent, visited the apartment and filled out an online evaluation of the whole process. I earned $45 for less than an hour’s work. The downside to this hustle is that it seemed to take quite a while to get paid. In one case it took more than 30 days to receive my pay.

9. Blogging & Podcasting

Finally, I make money with this blog and by hosting the Solo Women RV podcast. I make money on this blog when you make a purchase of a product I recommend. I’m learning to write for SEO and have signed up to be an affiliate for some of the different products I recommend. Some people earn a pretty decent income from this strategy. If you want to support my work, one way to do that is to buy products I recommend via the links that I share.

I did a podcast episode on how to make money blogging that you can listen to here.

And while I’ve decided to take a break from podcasting, my podcast did bring in a tiny bit of money through sponsors and supporters. Every once in while, I would get someone to sponsor and episode or two and I had a handful of people who sent me a small amount of money each month.

Ultimately, I’ve decided to take a break from the podcast because it was so much work to produce each week and even though I absolutely loved it, I just couldn’t justify the amount of time it took each week for so little financial payoff.

Conclusion: The Ways I Make Money on the Road

There you have it. Those are the ways that I make money to support my RV travel. I will probably try out new and different things this year, as I always enjoy trying new things. There are a lot of ways to make money to support your RV travels.

I have friends work the sugar beet harvest, Christmas tree sales, tulip farms, become mobile RV techs and more. Don’t let earning money come in the way of following your RV dreams. If one things doesn’t work out, try something else.