Wisconsin Dells - Work & Travel

In the summer of 2011 I joined the Work And Travel programme with Ozman. In the state of Wisconsin, USA, I worked as a lifeguard at Kalahari Resort and as a housekeeper at Mt. Olympus. I'm writing this post to describe the state of Wisconsin, give detailed information about the town of Wisconsin Dells, give you a bit of courage, and also help you have a great experience. I hope it's useful for you.

General Information about the State of Wisconsin

Wisconsin is one of the 50 states, in the north of the United States. Its capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin is the 30th state, admitted to the United States on 29 May 1848. After these details:

Wisconsin is a state in the north of the United States. But despite being in the north, an oceanic climate dominates the region. The interesting part is that the region has an oceanic climate in summer, while in winter it comes completely under a continental climate. Differing a lot from the surrounding states in this way, Wisconsin has seen temperatures from +46 to -48 degrees Celsius. This makes Wisconsin one of the hottest and coldest states, despite being in the north of America. Almost all the people in the region are of European origin. Most of them are descended from immigrants from Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and England. Germans, at 43% of the population, dominate the region. In Dells, which ranks first among the places with the densest German population, the Irish come second at 11%.

General Information about Wisconsin Dells

The place we call Wisconsin Dells is a very cute town in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Dells is a holiday resort in every sense; the local people you'll see when you go are very few. In fact, its sign gives the population as 2,707 (2013). Most of the population in the area is made up of people who come to work from nearby towns or other countries, or Americans on holiday. It's a favourite spot for Work And Travel students, and in town you can't swing a cat without hitting a Turk. Besides that, you can see lots of WAT students from China, Taiwan, Russia and Colombia, and make great friends.

Most of the taxi drivers are Romanian, and most of them are solid, like-minded guys to chat with. They have a nice fare of around $7 for students to anywhere in town. :) There's also a nice thing here they call the kangaroo taxi, which up to 14 people can ride and split the fare between them. You could say there's no other transport in town apart from taxis; if you don't have a car, getting around here is a bit hard..

We got the chance to explore the Lake Delton and downtown (town centre) parts of this town. As you'd guess, the lovely town of Dells takes its name from the bluish, sparkling Lake Delton. This small town gets remarkably crowded in summer. Entertainment centres, huge water parks and boat tours are too many to count! I don't need to remind you that these are the best times of Work and Travel.

Working in Wisconsin Dells

As for the work, honestly, being a lifeguard at Kalahari Resort wasn't that easy. In the first days they give general training and then expect you to answer a 25-question test. This exam is held once a week, and if you fail you lose a crazy amount of time. They're very strict about this, and a friend of ours had to take this exam a full 3 times, so naturally he didn't get paid for 3 weeks. Be careful, friends!

After passing the test there's another exam of 2 days of practical knowledge, and also practical exams with a 200 m swim and a 4 m dive. If you pass these too, you start working!

When you start work they'll give you a "Schedule", a chart telling you when you start work and how many hours you'll work. At last you're a lifeguard. 😄

Where I worked, there were two kinds of lifeguard. The first was the deep lifeguard, and the second the shallow lifeguard. As a deep guard, in addition to where the shallow guards work, you can work at the wave pools, in deep areas and in special areas where shallow guards can't work. I worked as a deep lifeguard; in hourly pay, the deep lifeguard gets $0.5 more than the other.

It may look small per hour, but when you look at the total at the end of the month it makes a real difference. At water parks, to prevent distraction and sleepiness, there's a rotation every 15 or 30 minutes. At Kalahari the outdoor water park had 2 courses and the indoor one 4. And each course had 6-8 stations. As I said above, you work rotating constantly between these stations. Compared with other water parks, Kalahari having both an indoor and an outdoor water park has advantages:

• You don't have to work constantly under scorching heat or on cloudy, windy days.
• When it rains, outdoor water parks usually close temporarily and may send you home. So you get less money that day. Kalahari having both kinds of park makes you much more comfortable on this.

Overall, the working environment is very nice. The hot and cold days I mentioned aren't every day. One way or another you'll get used to this routine, and once you do, nobody will be able to stop you! However much your self-confidence soars, whatever you do, stay humble.

If you're starting work in departments other than lifeguarding, you won't be subject to any exam. The one thing common to all departments: if you want to earn a lot of money, you should do your job properly and stick to it. If you do your job well, you'll get more than your due anyway. Don't worry about that. Everything is very systematic, of course. They pay your money onto a debit card; you could call it our bank card. You can shop with it and withdraw cash too. For the general rules of the town of Dells

What to Do in Wisconsin Dells?

When you start, the first thing you need to get is the: Entertainment Card! To get this card you need to have received your first paycheck (salary). Your company may not tell you, but there's an office downtown where you get it. You'll get to know the procedure in more detail once you're there. After you get this card, about 50 entertainment centres open up to you. From a 7D cinema to 360-degree roller coasters, whatever you're looking for is here. You get the right to do the activities listed on this card once for free. Besides activities, it also gives discounts at some restaurants and shops. If you have few days off, it's not really possible to use up the card. I remember the card cost $15 in 2011.

If nothing goes wrong, your day-off days (the days you're off) will be amazing. If you want to go clothes shopping, there's the Tanger Outlet, which really has great products at amazing prices. There are stores of brands like Tommy, Hollister, Gap, Adidas and Aeropostale. There's also a huge Walmart you can use mostly for food shopping. Whatever you're looking for is inside, and very cheap too. Next to Walmart there's Dollar Tree, where everything is 1 dollar. You'll find useful bits and pieces (can opener, plates, forks/spoons, etc.) very cheaply. So, everything is right at hand.

And of course don't forget to rent a bike. I'd always wanted to have wheels; I bought a bike from Walmart and for 3 months cycled to work and back from the motel I stayed at. If you're quick, you can rent a bike for the season too. Going to work and back I pedalled 20 km in total every day.

As for what you can do in town, as I mentioned before, since it's a holiday area, the hotels, all sorts of water parks, pools and entertainment areas can be a good option. In the area there's a really huge and great water park called Noah's Ark ( Scorpion's Tail Water Slide). I highly recommend going. Inside there are all kinds of slides and attractions. The amusement park of Mt. Olympus, the biggest hotel in town, is also very good. In this park, don't you dare leave without riding Hades!

If you go in the morning, you'll find activities to spend time on until the evening. Besides these, you can take a little Wisconsin lake tour on what they call the Duck Tour, with World War 2 vehicles that go on both land and water.

As for nightlife, there aren't many nightclubs in town; the best known is Wet Night Club I think, and there's no entry for under-21s. And this place is only lively on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

In short, this is America, but it may not be the America of your dreams; it's best not to go with very high expectations. But apart from that, Wisconsin Dells is a lovely, cute and warm town in its own right. There's a lot more that could be written, but this part has got long enough, so I'd like to add a few photos. My last word: don't waste time, go, travel and see! You won't lose anything; on the contrary, you can gain a lot.

How to Get to Wisconsin Dells?

If you fly to Madison, it's easier to get to Wisconsin Dells from there. Your journey will take about 1 hour. It's very hard to find a nonstop flight. Work And Travel students usually choose to fly nonstop from Istanbul to Chicago O'Hare Airport and take a bus from there to Wisconsin Dells. The choice is yours, but the bus station in Chicago wasn't very safe. If you can't time things well, you may have to spend the night there, which I don't think you'd really want. From the airport, take the Blue Line train towards Forest Park, get off at Clinton Station and walk 5 minutes to reach Union Station. You can buy the ticket online fromwww.amtrak.com or at the ticket office in the station.

This programme has a lot to give you, friends. As long as you have an idea of why you're doing it. Speaking personally, I had an intermediate English background. It was good practice for me, but of course it could have been even better.

Also, wherever you go in America in summer, there'll be lots of Turks where you are. As soon as you get there, try to make friends and chat with people you can speak English with as much as possible. If your aim is to improve your English, it's worth putting what I've said into practice. When I think about it now, I have good friends in almost most parts of the world I can chat with. It's truly one of those feelings that's hard to describe!

The gains it brings you are too many to count. You learn to stand on your own two feet in life. Because there's nobody beside you to support you. Whatever happens to you, you have to solve the problem by yourself. You have to handle the grocery shopping, the cooking, the laundry and many more things I can't list by yourself. And when you complete the 4 months, including the travel, you come back to your country's borders as someone who knows their responsibilities in life, with high self-confidence.

That's it for my Wisconsin Dells post. If you want lots of information about Work And Travel, you can read my post What Is Work And Travel?. I wish you all a great summer in advance. I hope your programme and your holiday turn out the way you want.

With love…