There are so many reasons why travel nursing is a great gig and something we would recommend nurses to consider. Every person is different and there are so many factors that go into deciding whether or not to start travel nursing. It’s definitely not for everyone, or every life stage, but we’ve loved the time that Dan has spent as a travel nurse and the many adventures his work has brought us on. In this post I want to talk about some reasons why travel nursing might be something you should consider!

our story

First, I’ll share a bit more about what lead us to start travel nursing. We were just coming out of an incredibly overwhelming and destabilizing failed immigration experience when we decided to start travel nursing. You can read a bit more about that here. We had talked about travel nursing for years, and I had always been intrigued by the idea, but Dan wasn’t quite as sold. In general, he’s a bit more of a homebody and slightly less travel-obsessed (although that’s definitely changing). That said, after he moved to Montreal (where I was living) following our wedding and had his immigration process fall through, I think we both had the thought of “how much more crazy can travel nursing be after all that?”

The whole plan we had for the first couple of years of our marriage fell through when we had to leave Montreal. We had an incredible apartment that had become our home which we had to say goodbye to, and of course all of our friends and church family. It was tough and we were feeling ready to embrace the ever-changing lifestyle of travel nursing, but this time on our own terms. Nothing about Dan’s years long immigration process was on our terms, so while travel nursing seemed daunting and destabilizing, it didn’t seem like it would be difficult as what we were walking away from.

for the adventure

Travel nursing is the epitome of adventure. There’s a LOT of work involved too of course, but theoretically you can move to a new state, new city every three months! That’s what we did for our first year of travel nursing. We started in South Carolina, then went to Maine, then we drove across the country to Phoenix, and then back down south to North Carolina. In between and during those contracts we visited dozens of new cities and places that we may have never gone to otherwise. Travel nursing is a unique opportunity to travel while making and saving money. It’s entirely possible to embrace the adventure of travel nursing while saving for a future house, a bigger car, or whatever you want to save for.

for the financial advantages

I recently wrote a post addressing the question: Do travel nurses make more money than staff nurses? Like I said there, the most simple and obvious answer is yes, they do. That said, there are a lot of factors that go into that and make travel nursing possibly not as financially advantageous as some people seem to think. You make a lot of money as a staff nurse, often twice what you would make as a staff nurse. Once you factor in all of the different expenses and the IRS’s rule of duplicating your living expenses, you still walk away with a significant pay check. For us, this has been a great time to save while also enjoying all the travel opportunities we get while we’re on the road.

to find where you want to settle

We didn’t necessarily walk into travel nursing with this mindset, but we’ve both come to consider more where we want to settle down one day. After I moved to Montreal, I felt open to the idea of settling somewhere other than New Hampshire, where I grew up. Dan however, didn’t start to feel that way until we started travel nursing. While we’ve loved every place that we’ve been while travel nursing, we haven’t felt like they would all be the best fit for us. Phoenix was so much fun, but we quickly realized we couldn’t see ourselves living long term in that climate and that far away from family. On the other hand, after spending some time in the Carolinas, Dan and I both feel convinced that we would be happy settling down in either of those states.

You never know, we may end up staying here (we’re in Charlotte now) or coming back here one day to settle. There isn’t always an easy way to relocate your life just because you like a place, and there are so many other factors that go into a decision like that. Travel nursing offers you the opportunity to stay in a place long enough to get a pretty well informed feel for a place, without having to commit yet. It broadens your perspective, even if you don’t expect it to, when you find a place that you love. You may take a contract in a state you had never considered living in and then come to realize you never want to leave. Or, you may end up working in a state you always dreamed of visiting or living in, only to find out you like it, but don’t love it.

for meeting the biggest needs

The impetus of travel nursing is the nursing shortage in this country. The purpose is to send aid to the places that are suffering the most from not having enough staff. Part of a travel nurse’s pay is often a “crisis pay” bonus. The field of nursing has been in a crisis concerning staffing for decades, and unfortunately there’s no end in sight. Travel nursing emerged to meet a short term need in New Orleans back in the 1970s, but has mushroomed since then into a national industry.

While many nurses enter the field for more self-focused reasons (and I’m not saying that’s wrong), some do sincerely want to help the places that need it the most. When there are shortages in most other fields, people are inconvenienced or maybe more than that. But when there are shortages in health care, people suffer. The level of care they receive suffers, the healthcare workers that are there suffer from being overworked, and people may die.

Travel nursing isn’t something to write off as frivolous and selfish, though I understand why some people think of it that way. While the system is broken, it is important work. I think we all saw that during Covid as nurses from all over the country and other countries rushed in to help. So many of these nurses, and all nurses during the pandemic, risked and sacrificed so much. Travel nursing has become a band aid touted as a cure to the nursing shortage in this country. It’s broken and, in the face of economic downturn, unsustainable. Travel nursing is not the solution and there needs to be more work done to address the many problems with the healthcare system in the US, but for now this is one way to help in the short term.

Why did you decide to travel nurse or to not?