Top 5 Benefits of Being a Travel Nurse
If you’re reading this blog post, the chances are that you’ve considered a career change to travel nursing. If you still need some convincing, read on! Here are the top 5 benefits of being a travel nurse.
Reason #1: The traveling itself!
How many other careers offer you the chance to travel at all, let alone complete control over when and where you go? Travel nurses do not have to work for a hospital or organization for longer than the duration of a contract; they can select their next location on any criteria they choose. If you have always longed to hike through the Grand Canyon, take a job in or around Phoenix or Las Vegas. If you know that winter is coming up and you hate to live in cold and snowy climes, look for contracts in a warm state like Florida or Texas!
When it comes to making major decisions about your career, travel nursing offers almost complete independence. The travel nurse chooses where they will work and when, based on which contract they accept.
Reason #2: Higher pay
It’s a fact: travel nurses in search of higher pay will make more than staff nurses. In some hospitals, travel nurses can make as much as $8,000-$10,000 per week! Hospitals seek to hire travel nurses when they desperately need more staff, especially during COVID-19 outbreaks. Since there is such an urgent demand for staff in that hospital, they are inherently willing to pay higher rates.
If you’re looking to pay off some of the nursing school debt that nearly every nurse has incurred or just to put some extra cash in your savings, selecting high-paying travel nurse assignments will make that happen far faster than staff nursing.
Reason #3: Better conditions
If you follow nursing industry news, you may notice that many outlets are reporting a startling trend: more and more staff nurses are quitting their longtime jobs to become travel nurses. The nursing shortage has resulted in many hospitals being chronically short staffed. Nurses, who have already labored through the horrors of the pandemic, are being overworked and underappreciated by employers who are unable to secure more staff. Becoming a travel nurse offers these overburdened staff nurses greater discretion over their career path and the conditions that they choose to work in.
Reason #4: Improve skills
If you’re looking to pad your nursing resume, then travel nursing is certainly the career choice for you. Working in a number of different hospitals over time allows nurses the opportunity to gain a diverse skill set by accepting assignments, practice, and training in different specialties. Nurses who strive to be well-rounded and always capable have an easier time of gaining new skills in different hospitals over the course of several assignments rather than trying to navigate changing specialties within one organization that depends on you to fill that role.
Furthermore, if you decide to settle down as a staff nurse one day, your skill set will be fully loaded and you’ll be able to work in any specialty you desire.
Reason #5: Making connections
Travel nursing allows you to explore every corner of the country or even each facet of the world. In the location of each new assignment, travel nurses come into contact with a diverse range of other healthcare workers. As they travel from place to place, these nurses will accumulate an ever-growing network of other healthcare professionals. These could be friends, mentors, students, or even a connection whose recommendation is just enough to help you secure your dream position. Intrinsic to travel nursing is the fact that travel nurses are able to build such rich, complex collections of people, experiences, and skills.
Did this list convince you? Check out available assignments- filtered to your preference- on Wanderly today! If you are not yet a nurse but are wondering how to fulfill your dreams as a travel nurse, look here for a brief overview of the process. To read more about travel nursing and all it has to offer, be sure to explore the Wanderly blog!