RV park, man camp, or hotel?
Three real options for working a Permian Basin job away from home, and each one trades something different. A man camp trades control for convenience, a hotel trades money for flexibility, and your own rig in a monthly park trades the cost of owning a rig for a place that stays yours.
Man camp
A man camp is lodging built for the patch: a bed, usually meals, usually laundry, run as a facility. Its strength is that you show up with a bag and the housing problem is solved the same day. For a company placing people on a short-notice job, that is worth a great deal.
What it trades away is control. You are in shared facilities on somebody else’s schedule, you do not choose the unit, and you generally do not choose when it ends — the arrangement is tied to the employer’s contract rather than to you. When the job moves or the contract closes, the housing goes with it. None of that is a criticism of man camps. It is simply the trade: convenience now, in exchange for the arrangement not being yours.
Hotel
A hotel is the most flexible option there is and the easiest to arrange, and for a week it is often the right answer. The problem is structural rather than about any particular hotel: a hotel prices by the night, and a night is the wrong unit for a job measured in months. The number does not flatten out the longer you stay — it just keeps accruing.
There is a second cost that does not show on the folio. A hotel room is not set up for living: no real kitchen, nowhere to put tools or gear, and nothing that makes the place yours after a fourteen-hour day. Somewhere past a few weeks most people stop doing the arithmetic on the room rate and start doing it on the rest of it.
Your own rig in a monthly park
This is where we sit, so this is the column where we have actual numbers. You bring your own rig, we rent you the space and the hookups under it, and you live in your own home on a job you happened to take near Midland. A space is $400 a month at 30 amp or $450 at 50 amp, with water, electric, and sewer included in the rate rather than metered on top of it.
The structural difference is whose the arrangement is. The space is rented in your name, by the month, and your home is the thing you towed in — so when the job changes, your housing does not have to. There are 24 spaces here and it is fenced and gated, with no weekend traffic cycling through, because this park takes monthly stays only.
A company can be invoiced directly for a crew here, with a 30-day minimum and yearly terms available — so the employer-arranged version of this option exists too.
What a space costs and what is in it →
Which one fits
The honest version, including the part that sends some readers elsewhere.
If you do not own a rig, this is not your option. We rent spaces, not units and not rooms. Buying a rig to take one job rarely pencils out, so a man camp bed or a room is the realistic choice and we would rather say so than take an inquiry we cannot fill.
If the job is a few weeks, a room is probably simpler. We have a 30-day minimum for employee housing and no nightly or weekly stays at all, so a short job is not something this park serves.
If you own a rig and the job runs for months, a monthly space is usually the one that wins, on cost and on the part that does not price — sleeping in your own bed, keeping your own food, and not having your housing end when a contract does.
Questions people ask before choosing
Is an RV park cheaper than a hotel for a long stay?
For a stay measured in months it usually is, because a hotel prices by the night and never stops. We cannot quote you a hotel, but the arithmetic is worth doing before you book one for a six-month job.
Do I need to own an RV to stay here?
Yes. This is a park for your own rig — we rent the space, the hookups, and the ground under it, not a room or a trailer. If you do not have a rig, this is not your option.
How long can I stay?
As long as you like, by the month. A1 RV Park is long-term only: monthly stays, no nightly or weekend stays, and a yearly term if you want one.
Can my employer arrange it?
Yes. A company can be invoiced directly for the spaces its crew is in, with a 30-day minimum and yearly terms available.
What is the real difference between a man camp and an RV park?
A man camp houses you in somebody else’s unit on somebody else’s terms, usually tied to your employer’s contract. An RV park rents you a space to put your own home on, and it stays yours when the job changes.
What happens to my housing if I change jobs?
If the housing came with the job, it usually leaves with the job. A space you rent in your own name does not, which is the practical reason some hands prefer a rig even when the company offers a bed.
If you are housing a crew and weighing these against each other, call and we will tell you plainly what we can and cannot cover.
Weighing options for a crew?
Tell us the headcount and the dates. We'll tell you what's open and what it costs, so you have a real number to compare against.
