Travel nurses accept short-term assignments to work at various healthcare facilities nationwide. Travel nursing has many benefits, including the opportunity to travel and explore regional culture, better pay and other financial perks, and opportunities to expand marketable skills to nurture one’s nursing career.
What do travel nurses do? As a travel nurse, you would travel to different places to work at short-term assignments at various healthcare facilities around the country, usually for about three months. You’ll be able to immerse yourself in different regional cultures and work through a diverse range of patient cases. There are a lot of benefits of travel nursing to consider, particularly if you’re an adventurous person who enjoys travel and is interested in enviable compensation.
Learn how travel nursing works and what travel nurses do.
At Utica University, our nursing school graduates can pursue exciting healthcare careers in various places and specialties. Utica’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program paves the way for a rapid career transition to nursing, allowing qualified applicants to graduate in as few as 16 months. That means you could become a travel nurse much sooner than you might think.
Regarding travel nursing, adventure and pay are the two most often touted benefits. There are other travel nurse benefits you’ll want to consider, however, such as opportunities for your career development and the ability to avoid or at least reduce your exposure to workplace politics.
What Does It Mean to Be a Travel Nurse?
What exactly is a travel nurse, and what do travel nurses do? First, you should know that travel nursing isn’t truly a nursing specialty. All types of nurses from all different specialties can become travel nurses. Some travel nurses are medical-surgical nurses, while others are emergency room nurses, nurse practitioners (NPs), oncology nurses, and certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs).
Because travel nurses work across a range of specialties, their work can vary. In general, however, a travel nurse can provide patients the same type of care as non-travel nurses in their specialty, such as administering medications, performing assessments, and delivering patient education.
Travel nurses work for a travel nurse agency, which connects them to short-term work assignments ranging from a few weeks to a few months. Nurses apply for each job they’re interested in, have job interviews remotely, and sign a contract if they want to accept the job. They’ll then travel to the destination for their work assignment. Travel nursing offers considerable flexibility since RNs can pick and choose the assignments they want and even take long breaks between them.
How long does it take to become a travel nurse?
Short answer: it depends. If you choose Utica’s ABSN program, you could earn a nursing degree in as few as 16 months after completing any outstanding degree requirement courses. Then, you’ll need to pass the NCLEX and obtain a multistate nursing license, which might take a couple of months if you pass it on the first attempt.
Your next step is to gain clinical experience. Travel nurse agencies and hospitals generally prefer to hire travel nurses with at least one to two years of clinical experience in their specialty area. Then, you can apply to an agency and become a travel nurse.
Benefits of Being a Travel Nurse
There are plenty of benefits of travel nursing to consider, starting with the pay rate.
1. Enviable Pay Rates
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nurses made a median annual salary of $93,600 as of May 2024. The BLS doesn’t track salary data specifically for travel nurses, but these nurses often earn pay rates higher than staff nurses. Of course, salaries vary by location, demand, specialty, and other factors like experience.
2. Other Financial Perks
In addition to enviable pay rates, travel nurses benefit from other financial perks. They receive housing stipends, meal allowances, and travel reimbursements, along with standard benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. Financial perks can vary by travel agency.
3. Enjoy Traveling to New Places
One of the primary benefits of being a travel nurse is the ability to travel widely and often. The problem with vacations is that they don’t typically last long enough to immerse yourself in the regional culture, cultivate new relationships, and thoroughly explore the attractions. A travel nursing job lets you do exactly that.
4. Gain New Skills
Travel nursing also provides opportunities to gain or strengthen skills, such as flexibility, which is fundamental for success in nursing practice. As a travel nurse, you’ll move to new facilities often. You’ll need to adjust to new systems and collaborate with new coworkers. This process will surely hone your adaptability skills, which will help you advance your career in the long run.
It’s easy to get the false impression that nursing is the same from facility to facility. A unit in one hospital may not take identical types of patients as that same unit in another hospital. Equipment, computer charting systems, and many aspects of nursing vary from facility to facility. As such, the nursing experience in both units might be dramatically different, and you’ll benefit from exposure to diverse systems and protocols.
5. Avoid Workplace Politics
Workplace politics are challenging to avoid if you work with the same team for a long time at the same facility. As a travel nurse, however, you’ll change assignments frequently enough that you aren’t likely to get bogged down in undesirable workplace politics.
6. Try Out New Hospitals and Different Settings
Every healthcare facility is a little different. Some are teaching hospitals, some are world-renowned for some specialty, while others are not. All of these variables can affect your professional life as a nurse.
As a travel nurse, you can target any type of hospital you’re interested in to understand what professional life will be like in that setting. You can move from setting to setting to determine what works best for you.
7. Improve the Marketability of Your Resume
One of the most common resume tips you’ll hear these days is to tailor your resume to the specific job it’s being submitted for. This can be easier for travel nurses, since travel nurses gain experience in many different settings.
You’ll work in hospitals both large and small, with many different computer charting systems and with all types of patients. By widening your experience, you’ll expand your resume to coincide with the needs of more employers, thereby increasing your marketability.
Pursue a Career in Travel Nursing at Utica University
Utica University can help you pursue any nursing career, including travel nursing. You may be eligible to apply if you have a completed bachelor’s degree or at least 65 non-nursing college credits from an accredited school. Our ABSN program and Advanced Standing B.S. in Nursing program in New York can allow you to graduate with your nursing degree in as few as 16 months. Plus, our academic success coaches and highly dedicated nursing instructors will help support your progress every step of the way.
Contact an admission representative today to learn if our accelerated nursing pathway could be a good fit for you.
