The Travel Nurse Life

Caleb and I have researched, dreamed about, researched, talked to other experienced travelers, researched, and looked forward to travel nursing for many years now. We almost started this adventure a couple years ago, but Caleb was offered a job in the emergency room at the same time. He decided he would love travel nursing in the ER more than a med/surg job so we decided to stay in Colorado Springs for him to get some ER experience. He has 18 months of ER experience and now we are on the path to beginning this travel nurse experience! We are working towards Caleb starting his first travel contract in January.

Over the years, as we've mentioned Caleb wants to travel nurse someday, we often got the same responses. Either "oh I know someone who did that and they loved it!" or the other response was "what is that?!" followed by many other questions.

I would love to fill you in on our journeys as we begin this grand new adventure. Let me answer some common questions that are asked when we first say we are going to travel nurse. You can find any of these answers with a quick google search, but I'll give you our answers from my viewpoint.

Here's a brief description of travel nursing if you aren't familiar at all with the term.
We work with a travel nurse agency who has all of Caleb's information/experience and they send out applications to hospitals in the states we request. We are only looking at traveling in the US right now and not internationally. Usually each contract will be for 13 weeks (3 months). Sometimes contracts may only be 8 weeks and sometimes they may ask if you can sign a 26 week (6 month) contract. But typically 13 weeks is the most common.

Why do you travel nurse?
 - We are travel nursing because we want to live in different places around the country and see and do things that otherwise we'd have to plan a vacation or trip to see. Travel nurses are often paid more than staff nurses in a hospital and there are other tax-free benefits/reimbursements based on us meeting IRS qualifications (more on that later if you are interested). We want to use this opportunity to save money for different purposes.

Why do hospitals need travel nurses?
- well there are a lot of possible reasons for this. so it's almost too much to get into on this one post. basic answer is: hospitals have holes where a nurse is needed right away and a permanent staff nurse isn't going to fill that hole for one reason or another. Travel nurses can be used as seasonal nurses like in Florida when there is an influx of elderly living there in the winter months or like at ski resorts in CO where more nurses are needed in the winter than in the summer. Some hospitals aren't able to keep permanent staff due to the culture of the region where people are always moving in and out of the area. Travelers do not require extensive orientation in their specialty and can start working a job after only a day or two of orientation where a permanent staff person requires weeks of orientation. There's a lot more I can keep writing on this topic but we'll come back to it at a later time.

Do you take all of your stuff with you?
 - We do not take all of our furniture and household items with us. The travel agency provides us a furnished apartment or we can find our own furnished apartment for each contract and the agency will give us a stipend for it. You can often save more money by finding your own furnished housing.
- Our furniture and other stuff will be stored in a couple's finished basement here in Colorado Springs. They are sweet friends of ours from church and they will be our home base for if we need a place to go in between travel contracts.

Can you work anywhere you want?
- One key quality to being a traveler is FLEXIBILITY. We do in a sense get to pick which state Caleb wants to apply for jobs in. His RN license is accepted by 25 states right now. The other remaining states he has to apply for a license which is an online paperwork process (no testing done). Some states, will approve and send a license in a matter of a couple weeks whereas other states (like California) could take as long as 3-6 months to approve paperwork and give him a license. We do get ask our travel agency if there are any jobs in any specific state we want and if there are jobs listed then they can go ahead and apply for Caleb. Sometimes a state might not have jobs posted at the time and sometimes there will be dozens and dozens of jobs. It's all about what is needed at the time we are looking.

These are some of the first questions people ask us. In my next blog post, I can answer more questions that are often asked. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a specific question you want me to answer!

So as of right now, Caleb has been working with a travel agency that we've been in communication with for a couple years. He has some applications out in Colorado and Arizona currently. Once applications are sent out, he waits for a phone call from the hospitals for a phone interview. Sometimes jobs are offered during the phone interview and sometimes offered days later. On Monday or Tuesday this coming week, he may put out more job applications in other states. For our first assignment we are really open to moving anywhere to get started travel nursing. This has been a long process of waiting and planning and we are ready to experience this new adventure!!

Leave a comment if you have any questions and I'd love to add in the answer on my next blog post in a few days.