It’s every enthu­si­ast’s dream, to get paid to do what we pay to do. Park rangers, advo­ca­cy direc­tors, con­ser­van­cy plan­ners, brand mar­keters, and on and on. The out­door indus­try rep­re­sents a mas­sive amount of employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties if you know where to look for them. To get your dream job, you’ve got to go where the dreams live. Below is a list of the best places in the coun­try for out­door indus­try jobs.

Col­orado
There are maybe eight peo­ple in the entire state of Col­orado that don’t work on some facet of the out­door indus­try. On Out­side mag­a­zine’s Top 100 Best Places to Work list, 19 of the employ­ers had offices in Col­orado. The mas­sive open spaces, eco-con­scious pop­u­lous and diver­si­ty of ter­rain make Col­orado the best place to move if you want a job work­ing in the out­doors. While Boul­der is prob­a­bly the most fer­tile place for employ­ment, you’ll find jobs all over the state.

 

 

Cal­i­for­nia
Cal­i­for­nia is sort of a default win­ner here. Say­ing there are a lot of out­door jobs in CA is like say­ing there are a lot of fish in the ocean. The place is huge. Hav­ing said that, it does offer a stag­ger­ing amount of out­door indus­try oppor­tu­ni­ties. From the Sier­ra Nevadas down to the Pacif­ic coast, you’ll find every­thing from ranger gigs in the moun­tains to advo­ca­cy jobs in San Francisco.

 

Mon­tana
Tourism is one of the largest indus­tries in Big Sky coun­try and in Mon­tana, there is only one type of tourism: the out­doors type. Whether you’re work­ing at a lodge, lead­ing city folk on horse­back rides, tak­ing peo­ple into the back­coun­try or dri­ving fly fish­er­men to secret lakes and rivers, there’s plen­ty of work out here. If you’re look­ing for a place to start, check out Mis­soula or Big Sky.

 

 

 

 

Min­neso­ta
Min­neso­ta has lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties if you can sur­vive their frigid win­ters. For indoors work, Min­neapo­lis is the obvi­ous best bet. Beyond that, 10,000 lakes mean at least as many jobs tak­ing care of them and show­ing them off to out-of-towners.

 

 

Utah
Utah is known to many as the mec­ca of out­doors com­pa­nies. Home to heavy hit­ters like Backcountry.com and Black Dia­mond, the state is also home to the nation’s largest out­door expo­si­tion, Out­door Retail­er, held twice a year in Salt Lake City. It also has many of the same ben­e­fits of Col­orado, amaz­ing topog­ra­phy and huge tracts of nation­al parks.

 

 

 

Pacif­ic North­west (Seat­tle and Portland)
The Pacif­ic North­west is home to many out­door indus­try big wigs, like Out­door Research, The Clymb, and more. Seat­tle is a great place to head for lead­ing mar­ket­ing and tech jobs relat­ed to the out­doors, while Port­land is rapid­ly attract­ing advo­ca­cy and retail groups.