I am 23 years old and am still in college trying to obtain a nursing degree! I have always dreamed of being a nurse specifically neonatal. I have about 3 years left for a BSN. Why is it taking so long you ask?! Well, life...In 2011 my 23 year old sister was diagnosed with cancer and 2weeks after she died leaving behind her 14month old daughter. My grades dropped and I had to take time off from school. I returned to school last fall and have just recently got bit by the travel bug and the itching side effect just won't go away! My family thinks that I should stay and complete my degree and then travel because I'll have something to fall back on when I return. The thing is nursing is very complicated. In order to be a travel nurse I have to work in that field for approximately 2 years. That puts me at 28 or 29 years old. What about having a family? Because I want one of those someday but definitely not now lol. My thought process was to leave and travel for 3 years and return to finish my studies. I feel like my entire 20s will be filled with blah and that I am missing out on so much that life has to offer. I desperately want to travel but I don't want to return to the US and be like a ship without a sail because I am 28 with no degree and therefore a mediocre job if a job at all! I would love outside advice from people who understand my desire to travel (my family has never traveled which equals very limited thinking). I would really love your feedback on this please ma'am and please sir....

You made your desire to travel understood. But what is your question?

If you take too much time off for play, you might find that your college courses are too old to be considered for entry into a nursing program.

What are you asking?

It sounds like you have to make a choice. Do you want to forego your opportunity to start a career that will offer you job security so that you can temporarily satisfy your craving or ignore that itch so that you can have a better future? I was like you, except my traveling adventures got cut short when I realized that, as good as the experience was to see different parts of the world, my future was bleak and there were no job prospects. So I decided to get my act together and am now waiting to hear back from nursing school. Whatever your decision is, good luck!

How do you plan to travel for 3 years with no degree/job?

As someone with the travel bug, I would say to bang out school now and travel later. You can always travel with kids- my son loves to travel! We also travel without him. However, I know that being a traveling nurse isn't really feasible with a family (which is why I won't do it). You could also, once you have a couple of years of nursing under your belt, go into the military, because you sometimes can get stationed on bases abroad (though of course you run the "risk" of deployment, not getting a duty station you choose, etc).

I know 23 feels like it's taking forever, but there are plenty of us who started our nursing paths well beyond that and are doing fine.

Finish up school, get a good job, save up money for good traveling, and start a family when you're ready. You never know when you'll meet the right person and/or decide to start a family. Part of what brought my husband and I together was a love of traveling- he was a hotel manager when we met, so lots of good discounts for travel!

Ok - just going to jump in here.

From an employment perspective, it is never a good thing to have a significant delay between obtaining your license & starting your first job. The larger the gap, the more difficult it is to land a new grad job. So I would say travel first then nursing school. Or you could split the difference & complete your pre-requisites then travel before applying to nursing school.

Keep in mind that there are few 'hard stops' in life... but one of them is having kids. Pretty much everything else can be accomplished no matter what age you are.

Travel. Travel travel. Travel. See the world. I have friends that go all over the world with a backpack and an open heart. I know it sounds impossible and out of reach. And you are asking this question on a professional board where people will tell u to stay in school.

But school will wait and how well will you do when your heart is not in it? You are young. Live.

I have been every where from swimming in a cave in surrounded by gun runners in rural Mexico to farming northern canada to building a school rural Kenya to falling in a canal in Venice. I have not regretted the experiences and friendships I have made.

Go live.