I am new to the sight but have been stalking the post for a while. The wife and I are planning to go fulltime around December. We have been planning and looking at what type of vehicle we need. There are still some details we need to work out and you all may be able to help answer one of our questions. We are planning to supplement our income by teaching martial arts, fitness classes while traveling. Are there locations that allow you to teach such classes for money or do we need to rethink our plan? Any and all advice is welcome.
Many RV parks, especially snowbird parks, have numerous activities on site. Usually, there's a trade of services for site. I would think that a major factor in any physical activity classes, especially martial arts, would be liability insurance. If you're charging for the class, the park would probably insist that you pay for any insurance.
Joe and Dakota, the wacko cat
2006 Dodge 3500 QC CTD SRW Jacobs Exhaust brake
2006 Heartland Bighorn 3600RL, MorRyde suspension, TrailAir pinbox http://happykayakers.com/blogger/
I think it depends on the campground. For example Frontier Town in Ocean City MD hires a guy to play the guitar and sing during their hay rides several times a week. He is great and gets everyone involved. He use to work at Disney. So it wouldn't hurt to call or email around to some campgrounds.
03 Ford F150 XLT
Good-bye old friend --- 01 Coleman Sante Fe Pop-up
Hello new friend --- 09 KZ Coyote 23CR Hybrid
Me ,The Wife,The Boy,Girl 1 ,Girl 2
We are Blessed.
One place I know of is Sun N Fun in Sarasota, Florida. They offer all kinds of things for the snowbirds that head for Florida in the winter. I have no idea if their leaders/instructors are local residents that are employees or if they count on travelers to conduct classes.
There are probably other CG/Resorts that offer similar things, but probably only where snowbirds gather. (Either Florida or the southwest).
You may also find that you have to be licensed to be an instructor in some states.
Retired and visiting as much of this beautiful country as I can.
Thank you all for the information. I was thinking more in the lines of self-defense. Not so much a full-blown Martial arts class. Teaching the “common man” to “Judy chop someone” could be dangerous lol. But I have time to check around. And for as for the kids running throw your camp site, I hear trip wire and booby traps work really well.
Usually as a service provider at a location there is the requirement to have $2 million in liability insurance. I needed it as a photographer and with martial arts and physical involvement of students it would be even more important.
It is not the sort of thing to count on for monthly income. I would also give some thought as to the demographics of the people you are likely to find throughout the year at various campgrounds.
Do you now operate a martial arts and fitness training business, so that you understand the business licensing, tax licensing, and insurance requirements?
I can see two ways this might work.
The first is that a resort or park operator sees this as enough of a business draw to be willing to employ you to teach, either for wages on the books, paying all required taxes, or using one of the various exchange relationships used for work camping. Most likely the classes would be offered free to residents, who are often resistant to paying extra for activities. This I've seen at RV parks, most larger parks employing two or more people in addition to the hard working owners, some employees on wages, some working to cover rental.
The second would be that your offering has sufficient demand to be profitable, after you set up your own business locally taking care of all the legalities and their costs, cutting the park or resort owner in on your receipts for use of his facilities.
Either way, I see this working better for long stays at a single location, than for someone moving around regularly.
rvninja wrote: Are there locations that allow you to teach such classes for money or do we need to rethink our plan? Any and all advice is welcome.
You will need to contact the RV parks where you wish to hold classes before you go and most of them do not allow just anyone to come in and teach or sell from their site. That is particularly true of the parks which have longer term visitors and those would also be your best market, since one session probably doesn't gain a student very much.
In all of our years of RV travels, I can't recall ever seeing a park that had a martial arts class. With the long term parks in winter being mostly retired folks, I doubt that there would be much market for that but some form of senior fitness could be very well received. My suggestion is that you contact some larger RV parks that are in heavily used Snowbird areas, such as south Texas and Arizona and discuss this possibility with them.
If extra income is vital to your fulltime travels, you need to make sure that you have a place to hold these classes as you probably will not be able to just travel about and hold classes wherever you stop.
Good travelin! ........Kirk
Professional Volunteer
Fulltimer for 11 years, URL:www.adventure.1tree.net
Before you get too far down that path I would go to four or five nearby RV campgrounds and survey at least one hundred people going down one row and then the next and ask them if they would be interested and at the dollar amount you have in mind. If 50% say it would be great it may be viable but if only a few respond with any level of interest it is likely that your extra income plan needs rethinking.
I would expect that you would also need at least $2 million in liability insurance and the RV location may require you to pay to have them mentioned as additionally insured and that is an additional fee for each location that is over and above the cost of the initial policy. Check with your local insurance agent about the costs.
You might be able to teach classes at community colleges and city recreation centers where they have adult education programs. With them the insurance is not likely to be a problem and they are likely to have facilities that will work for your classes.
Consider also taking that concept to include tai chi and similar health oriented instruction which may have broader appeal. You can ask the managers at campgrounds what they may have done in the past in this area and what generated the best response.
Offline
Online
,The Wife
,The Boy
,Girl 1 
,Girl 2 
