If you decide to start travel nursing after a year of working at home...

[xstalkrx]

Do you essentially burn your bridges at home?

I mean...lets say you start off fresh out of college as an RN and you start making 21.50 at your local hospital. Then after a year you are making like 24.50 at the local hospital.

Then you decide you want to do some travel nursing to make loads more money. So after your 13 week assignment....can you come back to your local hospital back home and make the 24.50 you were making?

[bagladyrn, RN]

Sunray - They pay people lots of money to write those lovely ads too!

Don't be "sucked" in by the hype. This is not to say you can't make a good living as a traveler - you can. I live quite comfortably on what I make, but part of the trade off is that I take contracts where I want to go, not where the "big money" is, don't work much overtime (an occasional shift to help out the unit if they are nice to me) and take lots of time off between assignments. You can certainly make more by going to the hellholes (if they offer a huge completion bonus they have to - to try to get anyone to stay), working 48-60 hours a week and taking no time off between contracts. If your need is to make money, this can be done. Just make sure (not so much you personally, but the inexperienced) that you understand exactly what you are signing up for when you go for these positions.

[loricatus]

I'm not a nursing student yet but this isn't what the agency ads I've been seeing are saying. I don't have names off the top of my head but they can be found recruiting on most nursing job boards. The example that comes to the top of my head is a 26 week assignment that pays twice the annual salary at a local teaching hospital. I've seen ads offering wages three times higher - granted that is probably max earnings that would involve putting in a lot of hours but I'm sure people with specific financial goals pull it off. As far as I understand it - they do offer benefits and housing. If you're local you get the housing allowance. So I take that to mean you can either work 26 weeks and then take a break or keep rolling to the next assignment. If you work within the same state or region I don't see why much time would be lost in between assignments unless you choose to take a break or your agency is low on work. So while I would definitely want to put an appropriate amount of time in a hospital I can see how the travel option would be attractive at least for a while.

Fed salaries, especially in later years have tended to run higher so your friend's wages sound about right. If you put in the years in just about any professional field with the feds you will be at 6 figures or close to it. As I understand it a nurse traveler is basically a contractor/consultant. I've been a contractor (non-health care) so I understand the direct payroll vs contractor debate. Do you look for "tenure" and good benefits or - do you go for the highest wage with the understanding that you will have to be more independent? It just depends on your goals and what you want. Some people do a little of both.

Please trust baglady. She knows what she is talking about. It is not what is advertised to be. Also, there are certain IRS rules governing local travel and housing stipends that will get YOU (not the agency) in big trouble if you were to bypass them. Travel nursing isn't the way to make big buck since there is only so much an agency can charge a hospital and only so much they will pay you (after taking a cut)-they can divide it up a million ways; but, no matter what the total package, it will allways have the same dollar worth. Also, the traveler will incurr additional expenses and job INsecurity that are inherent for this type of career choice (epecially for the novice traveler/newish nurse who really cannot hit the ground running)

[Valerie Salva, BSN, RN]

Excellent advice from the seasoned nurses on this thread.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

What is the DFW area?

[Valerie Salva, BSN, RN]

Dalls/Ft Worth.

[kptravel]

Hey xstalkrx...My wife is a travel nurse and we are living in Los Angeles. We moved from Dallas. We have not come across any hidden costs and don't plan to. She has been cancelled before but you just make it up another day. It's no big deal. We plan on leaving here in Jan. and going somewhere else. We are having a blast. Let me know if you have any travel questions and we can answer them. Good luck.