Vacation

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Hello, I am changing careers from working as an English teacher abroad. I was wondering what type of setting and the possibilities of working an 11 month a year schedule and taking one month off for travel. I like to take three or four weeks off at a time to take language courses or teach English camps. Can a career in nursing fit in with my love for travel? Any advice would be appreciated. I am planning to start Nursing school in September.

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At my hospital, new nurses get about 4 weeks off per year to use as they please. Getting 4 weeks off in a row might be a challenge though.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

In my experience, that would be very difficult to pull off as a new nurse in any type of institution. Once you have a couple of years' experience, you could possibly work Agency and choose your own schedule.

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Specializes in ICU/CCU.

It depends on the policies where you work. In any case, I wouldn't count on getting a whole month off during your first year as a newly hired (and new) nurse. If you don't need the benefits, travel nursing or per diem sound like a good fit for you, but once again you would have to put in at least a year of steady work in an acute care setting before you would be employable in those capacities.

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Whether you can get one month off a year should not be the deciding factor on whether you become a nurse or not. You have to want to be a nurse and work in the field of nursing and healthcare. If you haven't wandered this forum much you should. Nursing is extremely difficult right from the beginning. Read the pre-nursing forum and see how hard it is to get into nursing school. Read this forum and see how demanding both emotionally and physically this job can be.

What I am trying to say is you have to want to be a nurse aside from the whole vacation question.

If the answer is still yes. Then you might after working a while, decide to take a per diem or travel job like a previous poster said and get long stretches off.

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Batmik, I agree that one should not become a nurse if they don't like it. But some people know what they want in life. Travel is important to me. Thus I would not do any job no matter how much I enjoy it unless I can go abroad for one month a year. I like to take one month language courses abroad. I can speak three languages other than English.

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At my hospital, new nurses get about 4 weeks off per year to use as they please. Getting 4 weeks off in a row might be a challenge though.

That was my concern, getting four weeks off in a row.

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Depends on where you work. When I was a new nurse I had a total of 2 weeks of vacation per year.

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Specializes in Hemodialysis, Home Health.

moved to Nursing Career Advice forum :)

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I understand that it probably cannot be done during one's first year. How about after putting in a few years at a hospital.

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At some hospitals it might be considered a Leave of Absence for which you would have to apply for and meet certain criteria.

I work with people that have family in far parts of the world and at times can get 4 weeks off to visit them but not sure if management would let the same person do that every year.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

I want to travel too! The OP's life sounds lovely. But I agree, that it's probably not possible with a full-time traditional nursing gig. Nursing is usually a 24 X 7 X 365 gig - even managers are unable to take extended vacations.

There may some possibilities.

* Travel nursing - you can take time-limited assignments which would leave you with uninterrupted time off between gigs.

* Special contract arrangements - sunbelt areas may have some facilities that hire for 'peak snowbird season' (winter months) and I have heard of some hospitals that have a 'mommy contract' that coincides with the school year.

* foreign contracts - get the bost of both worlds, and take a job in another country.. There are Civilian nurses working at many military installations around the world.

* military nursing - great benefits include much more 'vacation' time and 'opportunities for travel' than us civvies

That being said, the availablity of these non-traditional types of jobs is dramatically decreasing... jobs are scarce right now.

OP - In my part of the country, many nurses who are multi-lingual and have daily opportunties to use all their skills. You don't have to travel to do it.

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