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

This 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 shares a bedroom with a woman she met just a few months ago. She doesn't have a car and hitchhikes when she needs a ride into town. She occasionally wakes up at 3 a.m. to the siren-like sound of an elk bugle, what she refers to as a "nightmare alarm clock." She's also living what she considers a dream life and working a job she truly loves.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. Zoe De La Paz works as a seamstress in Yellowstone National Park.Lucas Mullikin | CNBC Make ItUntil recently, De La Paz was splitting an apartment with a roommate in Chicago and earning about $75,000 a year as a mechanical designer for an engineering firm. But she was feeling creatively unfulfilled and was looking for a way out. In 2024 she thought she found one during a trip to visit a friend working at Yellowstone. De La Paz says witness...