Dont Know Anything About Traveling - starting from scratch

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I have begun researching but a little background about myself - From the south, have had my license for almost 13 months and technically worked off orientation and on my own since Novemember 09 but was hired in Sept 09 so I dont know what they count as my experience? time i had my license or out of orientation? My experience is on a neuro floor but we are pretty much med surg and monitor other floors tele's etc. do i generally have to have one or two years experience? any advice you wish you would have had starting out? are the places they send you generally safe living environments? is it really likely you and another friend could get nursing jobs around each other? i have applied to certain online websites - american mobile is one and i dont see good posts from other nurses on here about that company. what are some of the negatives to travel nursing? thanks for more information :nurse:

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Specializes in Paramedic,ER, House Supervisor, OR, CVOR.

IMHO, you need to feel that you are a resource person in your current staff position. A person that new staff comes to when they have questions. Nursing care is nearly the same where ever you go but the paperwork, location of supplies and lots of other stuff is different. If you are very comfortable with the way you provide care to your patients then it's much easier to manage the other stuff. As a Travel Nurse, you are expected to hit the floor running, take a full assignment and often will be given the more difficult patient of the day. I have met several travel nurses who travel with friends. It may be more difficult getting two jobs in the same place, but not impossible.

Rod

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Thanks for the reply. Yeah I do feel like I am a resource person. I have been put in charge several times and work at a very good hospital that is serious about education and always holding mandatory classes etc to learn more. I have been a nurse for a little over a year..is that typical for travel nurses or do you find that more difficult and usually they want nurses who have worked for at least two years or more? I think my patient care is great and I have good time management etc. I think the floor I work on I have had good experience and we get almost everything (to an extent). Again thanks

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Specializes in OB.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I do feel like I am a resource person. I have been put in charge several times and work at a very good hospital that is serious about education and always holding mandatory classes etc to learn more. I have been a nurse for a little over a year..is that typical for travel nurses or do you find that more difficult and usually they want nurses who have worked for at least two years or more? I think my patient care is great and I have good time management etc. I think the floor I work on I have had good experience and we get almost everything (to an extent). Again thanks

This is from someone who has been traveling for 14 years now:

Many hospitals are looking for someone with a minimum of 2 years in their specialty. Those which are willing to take anyone with minimal experience tend to be disasters waiting to happen.

Ask yourself realistically if you are able to walk into a completely strange environment and be able to function with at most 1-2 shifts of "orientation" consisting of "this is the storage room, this is our charting system, here's the list of numbers" and if you are lucky - "here's the staff restroom". After that you are on your own with a full load of patients. Note that this orientation assumes you know how to perform ALL nursing functions.

This is actually a "best case" scenario. I've ended up in situations where 1 1/2 HOURS after walking into the hospital for the first time I was in a crash c/section and a full neonatal code.

I understand that you would like to begin traveling immediately, but my suggestion would be to remain where you are to get more experience while saving money (traveling is very uncertain right now - you need 3-6 months of expenses saved minimum) and researching various travel companies to see which ones suit your needs the best.

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I agree with the above post. Well said. Get your 2yrs minimum experience under your belt and then start traveling.

I am currently getting ready to start an assignment in Texas and my best friend and I are actually going together. So yes, its likely that you could travel with a friend. Tough to find but likely. We got lucky b/c the hospital was looking for a handful of travelers. We got on it quickly. We are both taking the monthly stipend that the agency is giving us and putting our money together for a furnished apartment out there. Pretty sweet deal.

You can't go wrong with travel nursing, but you can go wrong if you don't have enough experience before beginning. Us travel nurses need to have tough skin b/c we are definitely the most "hated" kind by regular staff nurses. You will get a lot of gripe and nasty nurses who just don't want to help you for some odd reason. The good part is, you only have to deal with it for a few months or weeks and thats it! Never see those faces again : )

Hope that helps.

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Yeah really does help alot. I have thought about waiting at least for two years and I am pretty much settled on that. The expenses would be saved; however alot of people (me included) kinda thought that travel nursing was a good way to "save" money...meaning I really thought they paid almost all your living expenses except for of course extra things you do, groceries, etc. I always thought the majority of the companies paid your rent at the minimum. Maybe this is all wrong in general but that is what I kept seeing on other sites.

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Travel nursing is indeed a great way to save but you do need money saved up to start of course. It all depends on which travel company you choose and how great the pay of the assignment is. But sometimes the travel reimbursement they give you is not that great to get to your destination, sometimes it is. Or like in my case, I'm shipping my car to my destination this time so thats gonna cost me out of pocket. Some companies reimburse you for it, some don't. My company paid for my plane ticket. I drove last year to my destination and they gave me a set amount of reimbursement AFTER I got there. Also, if you choose to take their housing of course you dont get the monthly stipend so you simply depend on the hourly pay. But in my case I chose to opt out of taking the housing and went and found my own housing. (way more cost effective that way but definitely more of a headache) That way I get to still pocket at least half of the stipend they give me. The money doesn't start rolling in of course until much later after u start your assignment so just be prepared to pay for expenses up front. : ) Good luck!

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Specializes in OB.
Yeah really does help alot. I have thought about waiting at least for two years and I am pretty much settled on that. The expenses would be saved; however alot of people (me included) kinda thought that travel nursing was a good way to "save" money...meaning I really thought they paid almost all your living expenses except for of course extra things you do, groceries, etc. I always thought the majority of the companies paid your rent at the minimum. Maybe this is all wrong in general but that is what I kept seeing on other sites.

A lot of people have this impression. Here's a little reality:

Travel nursing no longer pays significantly more than staff nursing unless you come from a really low paying part of the country to a really high paying part (for ex: from a small town in the south to NYC).

In order to receive the tax free housing, travel, M&I you must have a qualifying tax home - involving a lot of things but particularly significant expense to maintain the home. Otherwise everything you receive is taxable income.

When you are off work you have no pay - no sick leave, no vacation pay, no pay for the time between assignments. Many contracts also deduct from your pay the cost of housing prorated for any days you call off. (Reasonable, really - they don't get paid if you don't work and they've already paid for the apartment)

If your contract is cut short for any reason you receive no compensation and in fact, depending on your contract, may still owe your agency considerable money for the remaining portion of the housing costs for the length of the contract.

Despite all of the above you can still make a reasonable living as a traveler but money is definitely NOT the main reason to take up traveling.

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I really appreciate all the posts. Yeah money was never a reason to start. I never did nursing for the money, and traveling would be for the experience of course - i just didnt want to spend my whole savings on a job lol. Again all this has really helped!!!

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How is your travel experience going with your best friend so far? Are you rooming together? Do you work at the same hospital? I am looking into traveling with a coworker in the near furture and wanted to know how it was working out for you? I'm hoping that we would enjoy each other's company rather than wish we were miles apart! I'm thinking it might be better for us to work at the same hospital but have different living arrangements. Still having mixed feeling. Any information would be helpful! Thank you.

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