miam

Staff makes much more then travelers in the bay area, but very very difficult to land perm positions.

You can't expect other nurses to spoon feed you specific information. You have to be willing to get on the phone and do your homework. And if the assignment does not work out then learn from it and move on. Travel nursing is a very individual experience. Experienced travelers can guide you and give great advise but you have to be willing to do the leg work.

If you are signed up with several agencies then you should have work. That being said I don't know if travel nursing is for those extremely "picky". How do you know you don't lime a area until you have been? And it's only 13 weeks,then you move on.its great to know where you want to be, but flexibility is the key to travel nursing.

She may have been on the rude side but she was right. We are there to fill in the needs they have and very often it may not seem fair. But not very often do we get treated like staff. A lot worse then that can happen as a traveler then getting a crap schedule. It might make for a rough 13 weeks but is def not uncommon. Its the life of a travel nurse and hopefully your next assignment will be better.

I don't think it would be wise to start traveling thinking you are going to have to make a lot of extra money to pay back loans. What if you are at an assignment and they cancel you 2 weeks into a 13 week assignment and you are out of work those 2 weeks and are responsible for the other 11 weeks of rent?? So many bad things can happen, along with good.make sure your have a couple months of savings before you start, must to cover your butt so you can enjoy your adventure.

Thanks guys. I am a little old old to have been this stupid ( can't use the young/doumb excuse) but hopefully still have the nursing career I want.

Question: I am currently a travel nurse , am with several companies, have current RN clean license. My question is I do have a felony eluding on my background from a year ago. It wasn't a high speed chase of course, but I did not pull over soon enough and they charged me with that. It is awful and I hate the fact I wasn't paying attention. Will this prevent me for applying for any further licenses or with any other agencies?

You would want to drive so that you could have a vehicle to explore with. Unless you rent a car, and that would be something you pay for, not the agency and quite expensive.

I'm lucky, I have a compact license but since you do not pick 3 or 4 states that seem to have nursing jobs that you are interested in and want to visit and appapply for license when you can afford it. It will get expensive fast.

i have done this at comfort inns, they have let check in as early as 7 a. They are pretty basic, but for 36 hrs all you really need is a clean bed, a microwave, and a fridge. It works. :)

why would you say travel nursing is not full time? Most of us ask for guaranteed 36 hour weeks in our contract, which is always considered full time.

with the travel industry still being pretty tight on jobs, and peoples experience being different, i think it would be very difficult for two nurses to try to arrange travel assignments together right now, but maybe not impossible. from my experience i would tell anyone who was worried about being by themselves or being lonenly that travel nursing is not for you because the majority of time you will be by yourself and have to be ok with it. yes, there is a goid chance that you will meet other staff nurses and other travelers, but for the most part they will have their own schedules and or friends/family that they do things with. So you will have to plan in advance to make alot of plans (shopping, siteseeing, outdoor activity) on your own, and hopefully make buddies along the way. Otherwise you will be misserable sitting inside your hotel/apartment just sitting around inbetween working your shifts.

which agency are you using that seems to have alot of oakland contracts?

you might want to dit tight at your job for at least another year, maybe try to get some ER or ICU experience. you are going to have a really hard time trying to get a travel job right now ith such limited experience. Or at the very best you are going to wind up taking one that more experienced travelers know not to take. That can wind up in a very negative experience for you.

jtmarcy12: dont hate me because i have a hard time gaining weight :). I do sympathize with people who are overweight, even though i have never completly understood it. Like i said, sometimes i get flack for being on the short side even though i cant make myself stretch, so i know its hard to be judged for anything that we feel we have a hard time controlling. As for the question of is it hard to meet people i would say as a rule yes, you def have to be the one to get out there and do things. There is always the pssibility of becoming friends with other travelers and staff nurses, and you can develop some terrific buddies, but it can also get very lonely if you expect other people to make the first move. You def have to be ok with being by yourself.