She pays $96 a month to live in Yellowstone National Park: ‘Being here has changed my life’

She pays $96 a month to live in Yellowstone National Park: 'Being here has changed my life'. De La Paz, 26, lives in Mammoth Village in Yellowstone National Park, where she works as a seamstress for the uniform department of Xanterra Parks & Resorts, a concessionaire that operates hotels, lodges, restaurants and other businesses in the national park.

What happened

"Staying in Yellowstone can be just as expensive as traveling internationally, and I'm really grateful that I get to stay for pennies and dimes, essentially, to live inside of the park. Skip NavigationRelated StoriesWork26-year-old quit her corporate job to become a seamstress at YellowstoneLifeBrides are bringing back the one-night-only bachelorette partyWorkShe saved $24,000 to launch a craft festival in an old Joann store: 'This is my dream come true'Side HustlesNASA engineer spent $200 to start side hustle from closet—it brings in $32K/moMillennial Money32-year-old doctor works in the hospital where she was a teenage janitorThis story is part of CNBC Make It's Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

Zoe De La Paz works as a seamstress in Yellowstone National Park. Zoe De La Paz works for the uniform department at Xanterra Parks & Resorts, which operates hotels, lodges, restaurants and other businesses in Yellowstone National Park. De La Paz's colleagues have a range of life experiences: Her direct manager is a 73-year-old retired educator who's been working in the park system since 2023; one colleague is a grad school student there for the summer, and another is a former hairstylist who took on the park job to see more of the world.

Lucas Mullikin | CNBC Make It"Even though the national parks are land for the people to come visit, there is just a geographical distance and then a financial distance for people to be able to come and visit and stay in the park," De La Paz says. De La Paz has a cat, Pepperjack, back in Chicago and pays her former roommate $200 per month to help care for her; she also bought cat food online and had it delivered home.

The wider picture

De La Paz says witnessing the park's natural beauty, plus the freedom her friend had through his seasonal job there, planted the seed for her to quit her 9-to-5 desk job and move there one day. By June, she was headed to the national park for her next chapter. Life in Yellowstone: 'You're in nature's territory'De La Paz has spent the majority of her life in the Midwest, growing up outside Peoria, Illinois, before attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and making her way to Chicago after graduation.

Living in the mountains of the national park is unlike any other experience she's had. Zoe De La Paz quit her corporate job in Chicago and in June moved to Yellowstone to work as a seamstress. Zoe De La Paz shares a bedroom with a woman she met just a few months ago. " She's also living what she considers a dream life and working a job she truly loves. In 2024 she thought she found one during a trip to visit a friend working at Yellowstone.

What has been reported

"It was what made me realize that life was too short and that I was very unhappy at my corporate job," she tells CNBC Make It. From there, De La Paz knew she wanted to make the leap back into her creative passion and saw a possibility of making a full-time career out of it. In early 2026, she began researching her options for a more hands-on, creative sewing gig and found one while checking for jobs at Yellowstone, as she'd done periodically since her trip.

"From a young age, I had been told that work must be work and play must be play, and that there isn't necessarily a world that allows both to coexist with one another," De La Paz says. "Behind the machineDe La Paz starts her workdays by hopping on the 6:45 a. m. employee shuttle to make the 15-minute drive from her dorm in Mammoth Village in Wyoming, on the north side of Yellowstone, just across state lines to her work facilities in Gardiner, Montana.

She enjoys helping the park's employees, many of them public-facing, to "work comfortably in their uniform" while looking their best, De La Paz says. Beyond mending and tailoring, De La Paz's team works on upcycling projects, like turning old employer-issued backpacks into fanny packs after a clear-backpack policy went into effect in the park. Despite earning less today than at her desk job in Chicago, "the trade-off is really worth it to me because I get to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world," De La Paz says.

What happens next

She adds that her living and food costs are lower in the park than back in the city, and says the easy access to nature is priceless. Another employee perk: Visiting friends and family members can stay in a room in the park for just $5 a night. "How she spends her moneyHere's how De La Paz spent her money in July 2026. Christina Locopo | CNBC Make ItDiscretionary: $1,162 for gifts, entertainment, household items, pet careFood: $742, including her meal stipend and eating off-campusSavings and investments: $586Rent: $96Subscriptions: $34 for The New York Times, Rocket Money and to host her freelancing websitePhone: $20De La Paz has $96 deducted from her paycheck every month for her employee lodging, which covers her bed in a dorm room she shares with up to two roommates, as well as Wi-Fi and utilities.

She also has about $359 deducted from her paychecks each month to cover a meal stipend for food at Xanterra's six employee dining rooms. Zoe De La Paz grew up in Illinois and says living among the mountains of Yellowstone is unlike anything she's experienced before. She treated herself a new bag, bought a new sewing machine and hosted several groups of family members and friends, meaning extra expenses on dinners out and activities like cruises around Yellowstone Lake.