Want to try travel nursing. Need some explanation...confused

midnightrose8504 · Sep 10, 2012

I have 4 years of med-surg, psych, and geriatrics experience. I also have my case managers certification.

NedRN · Sep 10, 2012

The floor for travel nurses is around $25 plus housing plus travel plus bad health insurance plus tax benefits. So for two of you, it works out to 100K a year plus housing etc. That actually spends even better with the tax benefits (less what you pay to maintain your tax home), and one of you taking housing and the other the tax-free housing stipend (disregarding dogs - discussed in another thread already).

Pay peaks at about $45 an hour plus the housing etc. Reasonable good pay currently is in the low 30s.

If you go to PanTravelers (search) and use the travel calculator to figure out your total compensation with everything the agency pays you - it should come out at between low 40s to low 50s. That is the low to excellent range. That range is somewhat meaningless just said here, but will come in very handy when you try to figure out what agencies are really paying you and compare offers.

SCRN01 · Sep 14, 2012

Check out this article Travel Nurse Help: How to Become a Travel Nurse?. It does a really good job of explaining the whole process.

As far as 3 dogs.......ouch. I'm not so sure that's likely. If you let the agency find housing for you, most apartment complexes only allow 2 dogs max and some only allow cats. I've NEVER seen one that allows more than 2 dogs but they could be out there. And if you were to try to find housing on your own, it gets even worse. 70-80% of private house rentals absolutely will not allow pets. Get on craigslist and look at apartments or houses for rent and you will see how bad it is. Not saying I blame them but we have 2 dogs and it really makes it hard to find something on your own. And if you do, you're likely to pay either extra $20 a month per pet or a $300 pet deposit or BOTH.

I hope I wasn't too negative about the dogs. 2 smaller dogs 20 lbs or less is do-able but a hassle. 3 dogs will be very difficult to get approved. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!!