Barkow

I've worked in both high and low-risk L&D units. I think your bigger difficulty would be adjusting to travel nursing after only working in one facility for seven years rather than the high-risk/low-risk issue. At high-risk facilities you have sicker patients more often, but as long as you have the experience and assessment skills, I don't think it's difficult to adjust. Also, from an L&D RN perspective, a higher-risk unit might be delivering more preterm or sick babies, but it's not like the actual work of the L&D nurse differs much in this case since NICU is responsible for the baby. If you want to start traveling as soon as possible, I'd focus on finding a first assignment where you can be successful and get used to traveling, without worrying about a crazy acuity jump. Your recruiter's 1-10 question is difficult to answer, but it sounds like you have a decent skill base. But a lot of L&D managers will be focused on delivery numbers that you're used to on your unit, how many patients you're used to taking at a time, and how often you do things like mag. Some high-risk units will be really focused on these numbers, while others might be desperate and give you a pass. I'd still favor a good, functional assignment initially at a travel-friendly location, and then you can more easily experiment with different types of units later.

Don't automatically classify all of California as having expensive housing! Definitely check pay with multiple agencies to find the best rate, but there are areas with cheaper cost of living and great pay. A city like Modesto, for example, has 1-bedrooms listed on Craigslist for $1000 and under as short-term rentals. Whether you want to spend 13 weeks in Modesto depends on your travel goals and what you seek from an assignment, but it's good to know your options.

CT to TX is a big move! If you want to try another assignment, you could always do something within maybe a four hour radius of home, and see if you can get your shifts in a row and go home for long weekends. And sometimes just knowing you can get in your car and go back anytime you want makes a huge difference. You could also plan your assignments around locations where you have friends or relatives, and even better if you can rent a room from them and avoid the whole hotel thing. Then you could always branch out further in the future once you have a few assignments under your belt. Good luck!

Run far, far away from Bayfront! Understaffed, low morale, poor benefits, bad facilities.

You probably need more hospital experience before traveling, as well as more savings to account for unknowns. Also, you can possibly make more money in Cali as a staff RN vs traveler (assuming that is where you live currently), plus you get the staff benefits such as PTO, sick time, better health insurance.

The real monetary advantage of travel nursing is in the tax-free money you get for housing/meals due to the fact that you are duplicating living expenses at the travel location. If you keep the apartment as your tax home you get the advantage of tax-free stipends, but this is only an advantage if your current apartment doesn't cost so much to make it not worth keeping. It sounds like you want to use travel nursing to lead to a permanent move, so probably no harm keeping the apartment until you make that decision.

I would just apply for the TX license now since you know you want to end up there. Better to have it done so you're able to apply to positions as soon as you see them, and it shows you're invested in making the move.

If you absolutely know you want to move to Austin, I'd just go ahead and try to find a staff job. If you're valuable enough to them they shouldn't mind waiting six weeks for you to start, and like Ned pointed out you can sometimes get relocation money. I'd only use traveling if you're having trouble getting bites on your applications from afar, or if you're not 100% sure about the move and want to try it out while maintaining your home in Albany as backup.

The Peace Corps has a program for healthcare professionals that's a shorter time commitment than regular assignments. Might be worth checking out, and it could give you connections for the future if you wanted to stay.

I'm currently working as an RN in Florida, but it has only been about eight months, so I'd hate to generalize too much. Staffing where I work does not comply with guidelines for my specialty, and they have no desire to meet those guidelines, so there is high turnover due to burnout. Medical practices on my unit are not up to the latest standards. With several years of experience the pay isn't terrible, but new grads are started pretty low. Not having state income tax is helpful, but my health benefits cost more here than I've ever paid, for worse coverage, though perhaps other hospitals are better with this. Again, I don't want to generalize too much, but the southeast is not known as being a good area in which to practice.

I'm temporarily living in FL due to my husband's job after working as an RN in several states. Do a search of the travel nurse forum to see if there are more opinions from outsiders, but this state isn't well known for pay or working conditions. Lots of people come down here with visions of beaches and low cost of living, but the reality is different when you're actually living and working here.

You might be better off doing overtime shifts paying time and a half at your current job, if available, rather than doing straight pay shifts at a second job. More efficient that way, and you can always do it when you want to, as opposed to the stress of fulfilling staff requirements at two facilities.

In terms of a coverage gap before your contract starts (if you choose the travel company insurance), check with your current employer as to how long your health coverage remains after you leave. They might cover you until the end of the month, so if you leave your job on April 2 and start your assignment by May, there's no coverage gap.

Might be getting late in the season but check out Park City Medical Center. It's a pretty small but cushy place that ends up with busier winters for ER and OR due to all the ski injuries. They do have some trouble keeping staff due to cost of living, so I wonder if you could work out a deal if not a straight seasonal contract. Utah doesn't particularly have a nursing shortage, but I have worked with one traveler. OR and PACU had tons where I was.

I left IHC a year ago. The issue with shift differentials at the time was that they were a percentage of one's hourly pay, rather than a straight amount per hour. So a new grad at the bottom of the pay scale not only earned less pay, but their shift differential was lower than a more experienced nurse. Not sure if this is still accurate. I believe there was a weekend differential of maybe 50 cents/hour. Holiday was time and a half, but in a sneaky way. For example, let's say you work night shift after Thanksgiving dinner. Your whole holiday was ruined, but you're only getting time and a half during the 7p-12a portion of that shift, when it was literally the day of the holiday. You'd have to also work the night shift before the holiday to get that 12a-7a portion at holiday pay rate and thus end up with 12 full hours overall of holiday pay. Hope that makes some sense

I left Utah a year ago and worked for IHC. The issue with raises was that even though we got one every year, they seemed to be a straight percentage for everyone, so if you started at a lower rate, your raise wasn't as large. Also, when I was there, shift differentials were a percentage of your hourly pay rather than a set amount, so a more experienced night RN would end up with a higher shift dif, which also affects those at the lower end of the pay scale. They did a salary readjustment last year which made things a bit better, but still behind where it should have been.

There are obviously differences between a vacation versus 13 weeks somewhere, and it looks like the OP may be able to do a few assignments given her circumstances. However, she said she wants to use travel nursing to help pay down debt, which may or may not be a good idea depending on a variety of factors we don't know, and whether her husband can be employed on the road. She also does not particularly like her current specialty and would like to cross-train to something else entirely, and is actively working toward a NP degree. While travel nursing might be good if she needs a way out for a bit, most of her long-term goals seem better served in a permanent setting. I was just pointing out that those wanderlust needs can be accomplished in different ways, or the OP may simply be better served relocating to a larger city.

My last staff job was great in that my manager was really supportive about vacation requests, so don't underestimate the benefits of a staff job in which you are established and know the ins and outs of the scheduling processes. As a full-time employee I was able to take several international trips each year by self-scheduling efficiently and using minimal PTO. Depending on your travel RN contract you might not have that flexibility, and taking time off between assignments means not getting paid during that time. You don't need to be a travel nurse to travel, it's about just going for it.

Oftentimes working L&D at a small hospital gives you an incredible degree of autonomy and skill not found on larger units, due to working with limited resources. If you take travel jobs where you can gradually work your way through higher-risk settings to gain exposure to situations that you don't often see currently, you'll probably do really well.

I was super cheap when I first became a nurse. I was a money hoarder, rarely ate out. But, as a result, I was able to buy a new car and save up a 25% down payment on a house. Over time I've gotten less cheap and used my savings to travel the world, since experiences are worth more than stuff. I still save quite a bit despite the traveling, and have grown to the point where I can understand that coffee is more valuable when served in a cute setting where I can get work done. If I want to buy something extraneous, I calculate how much I'd have to work to pay for it, and will work extra shifts to justify those expenses. I think equating how much nursing work has to be done to buy something offers great perspective and helps guide choices.

I don't particularly love nursing, but I love the benefits nursing has given me. I was able to become a homeowner at a young age and have always been able to support myself. Seeing friends struggle really gave me perspective. I have the freedom to move anywhere when I need to. If I do self-scheduling I travel during blocks of time off, and have been all over the world. I'm thankful to do L&D and enjoy it for the most part, but it's really the stability and life freedom that keeps me going.

I was able to secure an LDRP job before graduation. It was in a rural area near where I went to nursing school, but found out after working there a bit that there were huge problems between the nurse manager and staff, and several long-time nurses had recently quit, so the manager was hiring new grads to get bodies in to replace them. I stuck it out for two years and I was glad to gain skills in all intrapartum areas, which made me very marketable to future jobs.

Ned, do you think it really matters how often I'm home if the job meets travel criteria otherwise? Heck I could take a travel job 2,000 miles away and still opt to use my money to fly home for half of the week. Seems like that's my prerogative...?

Just relocated and thinking of taking a local assignment (~60 miles, but congested driving conditions) to have something to do while thinking about where to work permanently. I would ideally have at least two shifts blocked together. For a day assignment I would stay at a hotel 1-2x/week between shifts and live at home the rest of the time, but what would you guys do for a night job in that situation to sleep during the day between consecutive shifts? Are chain hotels willing to rent rooms in the day if they're not full? Would airbnb owners be more likely? Hospital call rooms? Thanks!

Thanks for the input. I guess everywhere I've worked has simply transitioned the next in line person to days, and a night position is posted. Maybe the positions were posted internally or for a token period of time, but the day postings I'm seeing are weeks to months old. I have never personally even had the option of applying straight to a day job, only nights have been posted when I've applied in the past. Just seems like bad HR mojo, especially with potential external candidates, to start off a hiring relationship that way.