- Make sure you have some sort of savings in place. There will be times you will be traveling in between assignments or wanting to take vacation. Because you are a Travel Nurse you don't get paid for your vacations and have to have this money set aside. We have gone three weeks in between, sometimes not by choice as the jobs just weren't there for where we wanted to go. We recommend having at least one month set aside before you start.
- Have more than one Company/Recruiter that you are working with. We love the Recruiters that we have, however, sometimes they don't have the jobs where we want to go so it is always helpful to have more than one.
- If you are taking the housing per diem make sure you know what your housing is before you sign the contract. For us it is RV Parks, I always check the area out to see what RV parks are available to us and call to verify that they have availability. I know many travel nurses that have been stuck in a hard place because they signed before they checked on the housing.
- Unless there is an Emergency finish your contract. I don't know how many times we hear about nurses who don't start or who haven't finished their contracts for non-emergency reasons. This looks bad for other Travel Nurses and looks bad on you, so if it isn't an emergency suck it up and deal with it!!
- Sometimes hospitals will cancel you, even in the middle of your contract. Hence the reason for the savings :)
- I think if you are a good nurse and a team player #5 won't happen to you very often. Husband has been Travel Nursing for over 3 years and knock on wood this has not happened to us. But everywhere he has been all of the nurses speak highly of him and they even have thrown him a going away party and signed cards saying they were going to miss him.
- Make sure you have Short Term Disability. If you are the main bread winner I think this is so important!!
- Make sure you have Life Insurance. We both have this so if something happens to either one of us we know we are covered.
- Keep your licenses and certifications up to date. Don't wait till the last minute to renew these. I have all of these on our hard drive and on my I phone. So I know when Tim's is coming due and when to start looking. Use your recruiter to help with this as well. Some of the companies will even help pay for these. You never know unless you ask.
- If you don't like your recruiter get a new one. Not every person is going to see eye to eye. Some people just don't mesh together and that is ok. It is also ok for you to find a new recruiter within the same company. We have been fortunate in all of our recruiters. Talk with other Travel Nurses and they will recommend who their better recruiters are.
- Pay will be different in the areas you go. For example, California pay is very well. Florida is not. Each area of the country is going to have different pay and your cost of living will be different as well.
- Get on Facebook and join some of the Travel Nursing Groups. They have a wealth of information that they share, I myself have learned a ton from these groups.
- Get your license for the state you want to go to a minimum of 6 months ahead of time. Virgin Islands and California I hear are taking much longer.
- Yes, you can travel to all of the cool destinations. Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, California, New York City all of these are possible. Just know that some of them you are going to be going not for the pay but for the experience. But I mean come on. How many other people can go to Hawaii, New York City, Alaska or the Virgin Islands to live for 13 weeks at a time. I personally can't wait to go to New York City during the Holidays for the Macy's Day Parade and the Christmas events.
- If moving your stuff stresses you out, get an RV. For us this has been an awesome thing. We take our house wherever we want to go and always have our stuff. We know that in certain circumstances we will be taking the company housing and that is ok. They will be few and far between.
These are just some of the things we have learned while Travel Nursing. It is not for the faint hearted, you have to have an adventurous spirit and love to travel!! Please let me know if you have any questions we would love to answer any questions you have. We love this life!!