1 year experience

I would hang out for another year - the hospitals you travel to will be expecting you to be able to hit the floor running.....Hope that helps - good luck to you - you could always do some agency work in the meantime.

not a traveler myself, but from what i understand the reputable travel companies won't hire you until around 2 years experience.

i'm guessing the large majority of the comments you will get will tell you to get 2 years before you decide to travel.

Please listen to the others. There is nothing worse than working with a traveller who doesn't know her stuff yet because she doesn't have enough experience. The reason they pay travellers what they do is because you're supposed to be able to function as well as their staff with extremely little to no orientation. After a year of nursing, it'd be hard to do.

My first time traveling was after I had about 5 years experience, to prepare I started working through a local agency working a shift every other week. That helped me with going into a new facility with no orientation and functioning as though I was regular staff. I did that for about a year before I started traveling. The 5 years working prior to traveling was spent learning critical care, I worked CCU,ICU,neuro,flight and med/surg.

Close your eyes and think back to your first day on the floor after finishing nursing school. Remember how disoriented you were. Now, if you were put into that same postion now, with what you know and can do independently, having no preceptor and only a couple of hours to get the know the floor routine, charting, med administration,etc---could you do it? If so, you can do travel nursing.

I do not think it's so much the time spent, it is the volume and acuity mix you had in that period of time. If you have had to juggle the impossible load day after dayand survived, you may have learned in one year what others needed 2-3 years to experience and master. Another thing, if you need to have your own set routine and way of doing things to get through a shift---wait to start traveling because you will not be able to have the comfort of a routine if you travel. Med-surg nurses are frequently floaters when they travel;and, you could actually find yourself on 3 different floors in one shift. Now, if you are used to floating already, that will be a plus for you transitioning into traveling.