Travel Nursing is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time. In fact, it’s part of the reason I became a nurse. I’ve always loved to travel and I always thought it seemed very whimsical to be able to have a job that paid you to do so. When I first learned about travel nursing, I really had no idea what it entailed, I just knew I wanted to do it. I’m one of those people who joined the travel nurse facebook groups before I even finished nursing school (maybe before I even started nursing school?). I would spend hours just scrolling through the groups, learning what it was all about, taking in everything I could, and daydreaming about the day I could do what they did.
Eventually, real life took over. I graduated nursing school, got a job on a med/surg floor, got married, and settled down. At times in my life it seemed like my dream of travel nursing would never become a reality. It wasn’t practical – I had a husband, we bought a house, my family was close by, everything was “as it should be.” But I never stopped thinking about that dream. I never stopped scrolling the facebook groups, reading the blog posts, talking about how I would do it “one day.” I never gave up.
Here I am today seven years into my nursing career. I work in my dream specialty (labor and delivery) and I get paid to live in a new city every three months. I’m living a dream that I’ve had since I was in high school. Is this real life?!
The Truth About Why I Finally Took The Leap To Become A Travel Nurse
To be completely honest, my transition into travel nursing essentially came out of a culmination of me saying “fuck this” to several different things in my life all at once. I did the whole ‘graduate, get married, and settle down’ thing that is expected of a girl my age (especially in the south). I had everything I “should” want – a husband, my own house, a good job in a good hospital and eventually in the specialty that I wanted, great friends, etc. But truth be told, I hated it. I always felt like something was missing, and I felt like I would be doing myself a disservice to stay in that place forever, both physically and mentally. One day I finally reached a breaking point and decided I needed a completely new start. I basically said fuck this to my entire life up to that point, and I picked up and left to go travel. It has been the best thing I ever did.
“Fuck This” To My Job
When I transferred from med/surg into labor and delivery, I was so passionate about my job that I would have done anything and everything for it. I studied and learned and asked questions and did all I could to expand my knowledge. I cross trained to every area of my specialty that I possibly could and I was one of the only nurses on my unit who did it all. I precepted new nurses. I trained to relief charge. I helped with employee recognition and I led community outreach projects like March of Dimes and Volunteer nights at Ronald McDonald House for my unit.
Despite all of that, I never felt appreciated. No one in leadership seemed to recognize my drive or passion. I got in trouble for petty things. I was told I needed to cover my colorful hair, not speak so loudly, and not expect to advance because I didn’t fit into a certain box. Looking back now, I realize it just wasn’t the right culture fit for me. I was exactly the same person at another hospital and ended up being promoted into management. However, at the time, the lack of recognition led me to decide that if that unit didn’t want to grow me professionally, then I would go elsewhere and be paid more for less bullshit.
That’s exactly what travel nursing ended up being. In some ways I am more reserved while I’m getting a feel for the unit, but I never leave work feeling like I gave everything for nothing. I will always be a great nurse and take great care of my patients, but when I’m there as a travel nurse I don’t have to give extra unless I want to. I’m not obligated to work extra, attend staff meetings, or get involved in unit politics. I can get as involved as I want to, but I also have the option to punch the clock, do my job, and then go home and leave work at work. It’s a wonderful feeling.
Staff nurses at so many hospitals are under-appreciated, overworked, and underpaid. For me, traveling was a way to help myself feel okay with that – I may be working just as hard, but at least I’m compensated well for it and have more flexibility in my life than I did when I was perm staff.
“Fuck This” To My Relationship
I was married at 23 and divorced by 25. Less than a year into my marriage, everything went to shit. It was a culmination of a lot of things that maybe I’ll touch on in a later post when I’m ready, but what I’ll say now is I just needed to go and the only way was to be physically far away. For the first year that I traveled, every time I would come home this relationship haunted me. I couldn’t even go to a bar in my hometown without being harassed by my ex or people who knew him. It was an absolute disaster and extremely hard to deal with, but retrospectively travel nursing saved me from what could have been a complete mental breakdown over that situation.
There’s something about the culture shock of travel nursing that gives you a new perspective. You realize how small and insignificant certain things are, and you let things roll off your shoulder that would have once ruined your whole day. When you spend three months in a place, you learn to value the hell out of the good things/people/relationships, and to leave the others ones alone. You take what you want with you and you leave everything else. Being able to physically distance myself was a huge growth point for me. Which brings me to my next and final point…
“Fuck This” To My Small Town Drama
I read and shared this post on my facebook story the other day and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. There is really no way to understand how much you get stuck in the monotony of the same thing if you stay in the same place your entire life. I am from a town of just under 100,000 people in southwest Virginia. I love the place I grew up and the people there, but I was also tired of having to drive hours to see a good concert or catch a flight to another city. I was in my early twenties and living in this town made me feel like my life had already peaked and I was just going to spend forever going to the same bars with the same people and complaining about the same shit for the rest of my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends. I love the dingy gay bar I’ve been hanging out at since I was eighteen. I love the local restaurants at home and I love going to the same festival for Memorial Day every year and watching the same Beatles cover band with my mom. But somewhere in all of that I took a step back and just realized how monotonous it all felt. I was horrified and I knew I had to go. I didn’t want to spend forever in the same city and the same cycle, but I also didn’t know where the hell else I would go because that was all I’d ever known.
That’s what made travel nursing the absolute perfect thing for me. There’s no way to figure out where you want to spend your life by taking a weekend trip or even a quick vacation there. Instead, I get to live in a new place for three months. I get to understand the people and the culture and the feel of the town in a way I wouldn’t get to experience otherwise thanks to travel nursing. I have had so many opportunities to live in some amazing places and visit even more because of traveling. I had never even been to Las Vegas before my 28th birthday! When I was in Virginia it was a long, expensive flight away, but from Denver it was easy to hop on a cheap flight for a weekend trip!
Being able to have these kinds of experiences opened my eyes to how much I had been missing and how much I had fallen into the patterns of my comfort zone. For some people, settling down in their small town and spending forever there is a dream – and that’s great! It just wasn’t for me. I love the experiences that travel nursing has provided me. Every time I go somewhere I am surprised at the things I learn or how different things were than what I expected. I am constantly humbled and constantly growing. And because of that, I love coming home even more. I can see those ten people and those two bars and appreciate those experiences in a way I didn’t before. When there’s drama or gossip (as there always is in a small town), it’s easier to let it roll off my shoulder instead of getting caught up in it. There’s just a new kind of perspective that you gain when you get outside of what’s familiar and allow yourself to do crazy things.
But Doesn’t It Make You Anxious?
People ask me all the time if it stresses me out or makes me anxious having to change cities and jobs every few months (especially if they know me and how anxious I am anyway). Uh, yes. Duh. Of course it makes me anxious. I want to throw up every time I start a new assignment because I have no idea what to expect. Every time I have to find my next contract I think I might have completely lost my mind for choosing this. But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I didn’t start traveling because I had some miraculous epiphany and overcame all of my anxiety about it. I started because my life got to a point where I felt that was the only feasible option aside from a complete mental breakdown. Traveling was my ultimate “fuck this.” I started because I didn’t know what else to do, but I stay because of the insane experiences and personal growth this lifestyle has offered me.
Have you ever done anything crazy like uprooting your life to move every three months? Have you ever dreamt of being a travel nurse? Have you ever felt like giving two middle fingers to your situation? Let me know in the comments! I love hearing your stories <3
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