Travel Nursing Explained: Pay, Stipends & Everything You Need to Know

Considering becoming a travel nurse?

In this episode of Health Recoded, I break down everything you need to know before taking your first travel nursing assignment—from pay and tax-free stipends to housing, contracts, and what travel nursing is really like.

After four years as a travel nurse working across the United States, I share the lessons I wish someone had told me before I accepted my first assignment.

Travel nursing can be an incredible way to increase your income, explore new cities, and grow professionally—but it also comes with unique challenges that many new travelers don't expect.

In this episode, we cover how travel nursing works, how travel nurse pay is structured, common mistakes to avoid, and practical tips to help you start your first assignment with confidence.

We cover:

• What travel nursing is and how it works
• Travel nurse pay, tax-free stipends, and GSA guidelines
• Common challenges new travel nurses face
• What to prepare before your first assignment
• Tips from a veteran travel nurse for a successful assignment

If you're thinking about becoming a travel nurse or preparing for your first contract, this episode will give you a practical, realistic guide to getting started.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:36 What Is Travel Nursing?

01:58 How to start Travel Nursing

04:15 How Travel Nurse Pay & Stipends Work

09:16 IRS Tax Home Rules Explained

11:20 How Travel Nurse Stipends are Structured

12:56 Common Travel Nurse IRS audit risks

14:29 The Reality of Travel Nursing - What Makes it Difficult?

26:08 What to Prepare Before Your First Assignment

29:00 How to Set Up Travel Nurse Housing

31:13 What to Pack to Bring on Your First Assignment

32:57 How to Prepare for Your First Assignment (before you get there)

35:37 Veteran Travel Nurse Tips

43:07 Was Travel Nursing Worth It?

46:42 Key Takeaways

Subscribe for more conversations that help you better understand your health, healthcare careers, and the science behind the human body. New episodes every week.

This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, tax, or financial advice. Tax laws can vary by individual circumstance, so consult a qualified tax professional regarding your own situation.

Resources:

https://www.andersgroup.org/blog/understanding-stipends-and-maximizing-your-experience

https://travelnursecalc.com/blog/am-i-duplicating-expenses-correctly-travel-nurse/

American Nurses Association. (2024). Travel nursing: Opportunities and considerations. https://www.nursingworld.org

Internal Revenue Service. (2024). Publication 463: Travel, gift, and car expenses. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463

U.S. General Services Administration. (2024). Per diem rates. https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates

National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2024). Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC). https://www.nursecompact.com

Travel Nurse Tax. (2024). Tax home rules for travel healthcare professionals. https://traveltax.com

Travel Nurse Calc. (2024). Travel nurse stipend and duplicated expense guidelines. https://travelnursecalc.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're thinking about getting into travel nursing but you're not sure where to get started, let me help you. Hi, I'm Alex. I'm your nurse. I've traveled across the country working in multiple health systems as a travel nurse for roughly four years. Getting started can be intimidating. So as a veteran traveler, let me share with you what I have learned and some tips and tricks that I learned along the way to hopefully help you find success as you get started. So we're going to break down some multiple things here. We're going to talk about what is travel nursing, what are agencies, how long does it take, some of the finances, and then just some general tips from a vet. So what is travel nursing? Why does it exist? Hospitals use travelers or contractors because maybe there's different seasons where they need more people, or they have staff fluctuations with maternity leaves, or maybe they had recruitment difficulties or high turnover in certain units. So as a result, they will go seek out these short-term assignments instead of bringing on full-time staff to help meet their needs in the interim. So travel nursing was originally designed as a temporary staffing solution, but particularly post-COVID, it has become its own entire workforce. So with COVID, we saw such a massive influx in the need of healthcare workers because we had so many sick people. So they were hiring people with higher and higher rates. And as a result, that really shifted what the travel nurse economy looks like. So we're still seeing today some of the runoff of that, if you will, but we're going to talk about what the basics of travel nursing are as a whole if you're looking to get started. So typically a travel nurse assignment is roughly three months. Again, COVID kind of messed that up. It can be four weeks, it can be eight weeks, it can be longer than that, but the usual is about three months or 12 weeks. So how you find these contracts, there's a couple different ways you can do it, but it's typically through an agency. So you'll work with a recruiter at a specific agency, and there's roughly 400 agencies. They come and they go, there's small ones, there's big ones, so it's really hard to give you a true number to how many there are, but they all have their own set of recruiters, their own system, and how they work. But essentially, you might get contacted by a recruiter if you're in their system, or if you've been in another system like Vivian, where you're looking for a contract, it'll put your information out there for them to contact you. But otherwise, you can go directly to the agency to try to find somebody to work with to work with that agency. So essentially, hospitals need more help and therefore they go and find these short-term contracts. So we're going to talk about some typical requirements here. Most agencies will require the nurse themselves to have one to two years of recent experience, roughly. So when I got started in travel nursing, I had just hit two years. So I was a little bit over my two-year mark. And I had wanted to go sooner, but then COVID had hit. And I had had another travel friend that came in and he said, stay where you are right now. You're good to go travel because you have a year under your belt. Give it another year, and you're going to feel so much more prepared because traveling is a different can of worms. And I'm glad he told me that. So for ICU specifically, I need to have my ACLS, those kinds of things. And then your independent practice skills. So travel nurses are expected to hit the ground running with minimal orientation. So you need to be able to do your job very safely and consistently the moment you hit that new hospital. So that's why there's so much documentation and so many requirements before you even get an assignment and get started. They really want to vet you and make sure that you're prepared and know what you're doing. So one of the big questions and one of the big attractions to travel nurse is how much money you can make. So let's talk about how the finances work. Many nurses assume hospitals will pay me $100 an hour if I go become a travel nurse. That's not really actually how it works. Agencies receive a substantial portion of what the hospital is paying for an assignment. But most importantly, you're not getting paid $100 an hour, or maybe you are, but the real money comes in the stipend, which is the non-taxable income. So we're going to break this down and talk about how that works. So the hospital pays the agency a bill rate. And then the agency has to pay the taxable wages, the housing stipends, and the meal and incidental stipends, as well as any benefits that you take through the agency, the recruiters pay, and then the agency takes overhead as well. So this is why the hospital pays a big package, and then it gets kind of siphoned down to the nurse that's doing the work. So breaking down the taxable versus the non-taxable income. The taxable is pretty much what you're going to be used to as a staff nurse, where you're getting your hourly rate, your PTO, your overtime, all of that stuff. So you go in, you clock in, you get paid for those hours that you were there. And then depending on where you're working, you're going to get those rates of taxes taken out, either statewise or federally, etc. Where the real money comes into play for travel nursing is with the non-taxed stipend. So the stipend counts for your meals and incidentals and then the housing portion if IRS requirements are met. And so this is where it gets tricky legally with travel nursing. So a few big things to note. 50 miles is not the gold standard in distance. It is a rough estimate. There are other criteria that have to be met per the IRS in order for you to qualify for these stipends. So this isn't really on the agency. They're trying to meet federal regulations here. So you have to prove that you are duplicating expenses to qualify for the living stipend per the GSA and federal regulations. And GSA stands for US General Um Services Administration. And you could literally go look this up online. I think it's literally GSA.com or something like that. I can link it in the bottom in the description. But essentially, they have it outlined for each state, the rough estimate of where you're going to be, of how much a resident would be spending in that area, so that the agency can then go calculate how much you should be ideally getting in your stipend. That's not a guarantee of what you're going to be getting because the agency is going to be taking care of that. But it is a good idea to know if you're getting the appropriate amount of stipend whenever you receive your package. So travel nursing stipends are non-taxable allowances for temporary housing, meals and incidentals. And these are set rates based on GSA. So agencies cannot legally pay tax-free stipends that exceed the GSA limits for that assigned location. Okay. So some of the rules and regulations on this the GSA is calculating the maximum untaxed daily rate an employer can provide without requiring receipts for the actual expenses. And agencies are not legally required to pay the absolute maximum, and actual rates often depend on the hospital's specific bill rate. And so this is why you'll have multiple travel nurses doing the exact same assignment on the exact same unit, but with different agencies. They're getting different rates. And that's where things can get a little bit messy. Ultimately, you don't need to keep receipts for these stipends in order to prove it. Because stipends are reimbursements rather than wages, you receive the full stipend amount regardless of what you spend. So when you choose where you're going to work and also the agency that you're working with, you can choose for the agency to find your housing for you if you don't want to deal with all of that. Or you can go choose to take the stipend and find your housing yourself. So if you choose for the agency to find it for you, then you lose this non-tax stipend because they're essentially taking that portion since they've done the work to find you your housing. But if you want to go through the work of Airbnb or wherever, which we'll talk about in a second, of finding your own housing, you can probably save a lot of money and bank the rest of that stipend for yourself. So let's talk about what tax home requirements are per the IRS. So to receive tax-free stipends, you must maintain a permanent tax home, which is your primary residence where you incur duplicated living expenses. And there's criteria for this. So this is outside of the distance that I was talking about a second ago. So you either need to perform part of your regular work in the vicinity of your tax home, you still incur substantial living costs, like a mortgage or rent, or you can prove you have not abandoned your primary residence and that you return to it regularly, i.e., you're traveling further distances, right, than those 50 miles in order to work outside of your radius of your home. So this is why typically people will have a home or an apartment that they're still renting, and then they'll go and rent somewhere else. You're having to duplicate those expenses to make that extra money, anyways. A critical trap that I want to talk about here, though. A lot of people think I'll just go room with my parents and dump my stuff off in a storage unit and pay them a nominal amount of $100 a month and just bank all that cash. This is where the IRS will audit and absolutely come for you. You need to make sure that you are paying a fair market value for the home that you're claiming as your tax home. So you can go put your stuff in storage at your parents' house and then claim that as your primary location. But you need to make sure that the amount that you're paying is actually comparable to the market rate. So if you live in an area and the average rent is $1,000 for easy figuring, then you need to make sure that that is what you're paying your parents, if that's who you're staying with monthly. And we want to have a paper trail there because if the IRS comes to audit you, they're gonna want to see that. And if they don't, you're gonna get in trouble. So how rates are structured, you've got the housing and the meals and incidentals. So this is just the non-tax stipend portion, right? This is not the hourly rate that we already discussed. So the housing covers the place that you're renting in this secondary location. So rent, utilities, other lodging costs, and this can vary widely based on the location and even the time of year. And then the meals and incidentals, this is meals or travel-related expenses, and that's typically gonna be a lesser amount per day. But essentially both of these get lumped into the tax-free stipend portion, and that's what you get. And then you also get the bill rate as well. So sometimes people will lump those two things together and say you're getting $100 an hour, but it's not really fair because part of that's getting taxed and part of it's not. They're just lumping it together and saying you're making $2,500 in a week, and that comes out to however many dollars an hour for your 36 hours that you work or whatever your hourly package is. So this is where it gets kind of funky. And whenever I had my own contracts, I wanted to see the hard numbers. I wanted to see what is the hourly rate, what is the tax, if they could tell me, what is the stipend. I wanted to see the stipend being broken down. I would go check it with the GSA. So there was a lot of work that I was doing on my end to double check that all of these numbers looked right and were being followed. And this is one of the things that we're gonna talk about in a minute about why travel nursing is so hard. Okay. So I talked about getting audited by the IRS, common audit risks, some potential red flags if you do get audited, no legitimate tax home, or you're staying permanently in one location, and so therefore your expenses were not being duplicated. You had fake leases, kind of like the parent situation where you weren't paying correctly, and then again, just with all of this failing to duplicate expenses. So you're essentially fraudulently claiming the government money with the tax-free stipend. So many travel nurses don't realize the IRS does not care what your recruiter told you, the IRS cares whether you qualify. And so this is one of the things that can make it so difficult. Travel nursing requires you to be extremely independent. I loved it. I loved what I did, I learned so much, I learned more in my four years as a travel nurse than I probably would have had I stayed at one hospital system or even transferred to a couple of different ones in the same area. You have to be able to independently operate on your own in every capacity. And I'm not saying that you can't pull on friends or family or have a very helpful recruiter, but you really kind of have to CYA, which is cover your ass for those that don't work in the hospital or have never heard that term before. So you really have to make sure you have your ducks in a row on everything housing, income, finances, documentation, the whole nine yards. So let's talk about some things about what makes travel nursing difficult. You are starting a new job every three months. If you don't extend, so there is the potential to extend should the hospital offer it, right? So you sign a contract, it's three months, and then maybe a couple weeks before you're supposed to be up, you can talk to your recruiter, maybe the hospital management will come to you and say, hey, we really like you, will you stay? And you get to extend for two weeks, four weeks, another 13, whatever you want to do. Um, but again, it's gonna be based on their needs. There was one hospital I really wanted to extend at because it was amazing and I didn't want to go, and they didn't need me, so I had to leave. So it just really depends. Some people, some hospital systems, and depending on the season, they will need you or they won't. So don't bank on being able to extend. Okay. Know that you're gonna be there for three months and just hope that you can extend, but don't be afraid to also keep your ear to the ground and be looking around at other places. So that's a lot of work, right? Starting a new job every three months, even if just starting a new job, period, can be really stressful. Your routine's getting thrown off. You don't know anybody, people don't know you. In the hospital, that's really important to know who you're working with, to know which doctor to talk to about what, or to know which nurse to avoid for whatever reasons. And I think one thing that really struck me was it was less so much who I didn't know, and it was more so that people didn't know me. They didn't know what I was capable of as a nurse, and so they were looking to me as the travel nurse, but that could mean anything. I could have 10 years of experience and know everything, or I could have two years and know very little. And that got to be the hardest part was nobody knew what I was capable of, and I had to prove it every time. And I just got tired of being the new kid, you know, people are second guessing you and saying, oh, you can't do that. Or on the flip side, they're saying you can do this because you have this experience or this credential. And I'm saying, I actually don't have experience with this specific machine. I'm gonna need your help to show me. Because at the end of the day, next to your license, the thing that matters the most is patient safety. So don't say yes to something that you don't feel comfortable with because you may find yourself in court later. And I'm not saying this to scare anybody, but I am being realistic, and this comes back to the point of being able to stand on your own two feet and be independent. You have to be able to hold your own if you're gonna do this. So orientation when you get into a hospital can be minimal. I think for my first assignment, I was promised in my contract two days. And I think I showed up and two hours later, they're like, okay, you're ready to be on your own. We've got some other people that we need to take one-to-ones to. I don't remember exactly what happened or what I said. I think I may be pressed and got 12 hours, but point being, you never know what you're gonna walk into. And even if you verify it with your recruiter that the hospital definitely wants you to have two days or two weeks or whatever, you may get there, and the circumstance may be the circumstance, and they're gonna make you do what they need you to do. And that's kind of how it is. So this is very different from staff orientation. I feel like staff orientation, they kept us on orientation for forever, and it's kind of the opposite. It's like I don't need to be detract this much, like please just let me do my job, I know what I'm doing. But then on the flip side, with traveling, they sometimes want to drop the balls drop you a little bit too soon off on doing your own thing. So I'm not speaking negatively, I'm just speaking realistically. And then off of that, too, it's pretty common for travel nurses to get dumped the difficult assignments or to get floated first. And it's often towards the end of my um experience, it was pretty consistent that it was written in contracts that you were gonna be floated first. It wasn't always that way when I first got started, but sometimes it's kind of an unspoken rule within the hospital that if there's a travel nurse, they're gonna go first because you're kind of just I hate to say it this way, but you just you get dumped on, and so you get the shit end of the stick, and you're the one that's getting paid the most money, and you're expendable to them the most because they can just dump you in your assignment at any given moment. And as a result, you might get some of the worst assignments, you might get floated first. And this is another reason why I say make sure you know what you're doing and that you have good experience and are able to adapt and overcome with this. And so, on top of that, you have constant adaptation with this. Every single hospital has their own orientation or has their own staff or has their own charting system, their different policies, their different physicians, just everything. You essentially become an expert at adapting. Travel nursing teaches flexibility faster than almost any other nursing job because you're having to adapt to so many different environments. I didn't ever get training to do PCU and I still had to do it. And you just you build up your chops a lot quicker and you gain a lot of experience. And so I'm sure a lot of this sounds like I'm speaking negatively of this. I loved travel nursing. I'm very grateful to be out of it now, but at the same time, I'm very grateful for the experience that I had with it. And I honestly encourage anybody that's thinking of doing it to go do it because you're going to meet so much of yourself as well as a lot of other amazing people and have a lot of amazing experiences. But I do want to highlight some of these other things realistically so that you know what you're getting into, because some of these things I just wasn't really prepared for. Would I still have done it had I known? Absolutely. I don't regret the experience. But again, it's not for everybody, and I do want to have that conversation. So, on top of the constant adaptation, you can get into decision fatigue here because you're kind of having to decide almost every facet of your life pretty constantly. So every assignment requires housing changes, transportation, licensing, credentialing, figuring out where to go to the gym or the grocery store, just your living environment. And that constant planning can become exhausting because it's not just where am I gonna go work next or what's the new hospital system. It's where am I gonna live? Who am I gonna make friends with? How am I gonna exist in my routine in this area? And that can become a lot. So, as much fun as it can be to move to a completely different environment and explore and see so many different things, sometimes it's not for everybody because your routine can really be thrown off. And with that, I want to mention there is questionable consistency and permanency. As I kind of mentioned a second ago, you can get dropped very quickly. It, particularly post COVID, has gotten to be very common where the hospital will literally walk up to you and say, You can go home now, we don't need you anymore. I finished my orientation one time and I had the recruiter call me the next day and say, Yeah, your contract's canceled. They don't need your assignment anymore. Um, I have a three-month lease that I have to honor right now. And you're telling me I'm not gonna get paid? That's exactly what they're telling you. Yes. So on that note, actually, I'm gonna save that tip for a second. But you can travel across the country, you can make great money, you can explore new cities and new friends, and you can also get canceled with almost no warning. Again, travel nursing was one of the most rewarding things that I ever did in my own experience, and I'm grateful for it. But I'm not gonna sit here and say that it was sunshine and rainbows the whole time because I put up with a lot of shit. And again, it was also through COVID, and COVID really changed the game with how nurses in general were treated, but particularly with how travel nurses were treated in the health system. So you don't really have the legal support or backup, even with a contract that you think you're going to. And this is kind of back to the note of being really independent and really on top of your own stuff. Because even if you have a contract, I don't know if this has changed because I know that there was some litigation beginning during COVID because of how quickly hospitals were dropping people and agencies would bait and switch nurses where they would put out an assignment and then say, Oh, that assignment doesn't exist anymore. Here's a different one, and it was a much lower rate. So I don't know what the legal environment looks like around travel nursing anymore, but back when I was doing it, there was very little backup. So just go into it knowing that you're probably gonna have to support yourself a little bit extra on this. But one of the key points that I do really want to make when it comes to travel nursing is it can be pretty lonely. I did it for four years, and again, I loved it, I made amazing friends, I saw amazing things, but there were definitely moments that I wish I had more connection, more people around. And I did my best, I had my hobbies, and I stay active and I talk to my family and friends and everything, and I would take trips, but it was always better when I went to a location where I knew someone, whether I just had even one friend in the area or there were some family around, even if we weren't super close, just to feel like I had some sort of connection subconsciously, because ultimately it's less so much who you know, and more so who knows you, who's got your back if something happens or you're in a pickle. So for some people, that doesn't matter as much. They can take off and go make friends within a couple of weeks and they feel great. But for me, I really needed those connections. So it didn't stop me from going and traveling because I think that was kind of a muscle that I needed to flex was going out and continuing to be independent and grow within my own right and to meet other people and expand. I love that I have different friends in different places and I can go travel and see them now whenever I want. But I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you and say that it wasn't hard at some times. And um that is something that I want to highlight because I think it catches people off guard because if you live around your family or you live with a roommate or you have lots of friends where you are, and you're leaving that, it can sometimes really surprise people after a few weeks and they're like, okay, holy crap, wait, this is actually a lot. You're changing your routines, your hobbies, your relationships, your environment all at once. And that can be really destabilizing. So just go into it, understanding that and knowing that, and just have some patience with yourself. So, off of that, my tips for you from a vet on how to have a successful travel nursing assignment, if it's your first one or not, or you're just trying to continue your career. Um, before you go, particularly for those on your first assignment, before you go on your first assignment, things to have prepped, get all of your documentation lined out, like as much to a T as you possibly can. Create a folder on your computer, in the cloud, whatever, I don't care, but have all of your licenses put together or know when they expire, or have your nurses paid for, pulled up, printed. I don't care. Have it prepared. That way you know where you can apply, but also the recruiter, that's gonna be one of the first things they that they ask for, is because if you don't even have a license, you can't even work in that place. So have those lined out. Have your resume clean and up to date. Anytime that I was close to applying to something, that was the first thing that I checked to go update what my previous assignment was. Also, ACLS, BLS. I think everybody needs BLS, but if you need ACLS as well and any other certifications, make sure you have those documentation, those documents in this file, but also that they're up to date. So know if it's going to expire in 2020, whatever year. Oftentimes, if that's coming close to expiration, the agency will work with you on getting that set up in order to be able to apply. So any other certifications that you need, whether it be NIH or PALs or whatever your specific um area is that you work in. I don't know why my words are failing me. Um, but on top of that, what they're gonna want is you're gonna need a physical and you're gonna need lab work, including a drug screen. So be prepared to have to pee in a cup for a drug screen. You're also probably gonna need to do a fit test for a respirator, depending on the unit that you're working on, and depending on the hospital system, they might do it when you get there. So you might not have to do it when you go do all of the lab work. And then with agency specifically, a lot of them had me do online testing, and they didn't always use the same systems, so I often had to do these 50 hundred question tests talking about what my skills were to make sure that I was matching up with the unit that I was going to. I had to do that every time I was doing an assignment. So sometimes they overlap and they use the same systems, not every time. So just be prepared. There's lots of paperwork and documentation requirements to even apply and get set up for getting an assignment, let alone once you actually get the assignment. Another big point is the lease and where you're living. So I always used Furnish Finder, which is a website, and it's kind of like Airbnb, but it's more specifically for long-term assignments. So people will put their house up for, I think it used to be specifically for travel nurses, but I think it's expanded now to just traveling professionals since we live in the day and age we do with remote work. But people will furnish an apartment or a home or whatever, and they'll put out what their rate is for wanting to rent that. So it's literally just like Airbnb, except for the fact that it is focused for long term. I found some great ones, I found some not so great ones. I highly recommend talking directly with them on the phone, unless you're in the area and could go see them in person. And I highly recommend going and touring in person the place. There was only one or two times that I didn't tour out of the like seven or eight contracts that I did, I've lost count at this point, and one of them was great, the other one was not, and so I I always tried to get a tour in and meet the um landlord in person because a bad landlord can make for a bad situation. So my living environment is really important to me. Maybe you don't care, go live in a hotel. I did that before, that was actually not that bad. I kind of enjoyed it. Um, there's also a website called the landing, and there's probably other ones at this point that have furnished rentals, and it's kind of like going through an apartment complex, right? So you've got the leasing agency instead of going through just one landlord that has one home. So the landing is a little bit more expensive, but they're nice. And you can do three months, six months, twelve months. You don't have to be a travel nurse to do it. And I think there's probably other websites at this point, but the names are escaping me. So you can go look up um long-term stays or furnished long-term stays and find something if you're not wanting to stay in a hotel specifically. For your packing, I always say just bring the basics and the essentials. You have to have your scrubs and the things that you're gonna need in the hospital. You're gonna have to have your toiletries, and then I always brought a few daily use items that I just needed to exist. So whether it be a food scale or I don't know, like your body weight scale or something else that you absolutely use every day that maybe wouldn't typically make it on a usual packing list, bring that. But then bring a few nice outfits on top of that. You're gonna need less items than you think. And for me, part of the fun was going and finding new things there because where you live now is not necessarily going to be where you live in the future. The clothes that I needed when I was on assignment in Miami in December was not the same that I needed when I was in Chicago in December. So I brought the best that I had minimally outside of my scrubs to be able to clothe myself on my days off, but then I just went and thrifted other things that were in the area. So do what works for you, but I would highly recommend bringing less than you think you need to your first assignment and figuring it out after that. Also, I always liked bringing a few sentimental personal items, whether it be a pillow or a picture or a framed something or another. Bring a handful of things that you can put in your new place to make it feel like home. So that I don't know, again, I'm a homie person and my environment really matters to me, but it just helped to make my environment feel a little bit less foreign and a little bit more like home, even if it was just one or two things. So research the hospital before you get there. You can join Facebook groups, there's other, there's specific travel nursing groups. I don't think I'm on them anymore at this point. Um, and you can also get on Reddit, which I always caution, but there's different online groups that you can join that are travel nursing specific, and you can go and search the specific hospital or even the agency that you're working with and see what other people are saying. And there were some um hospital contracts that I was looking at that sounded really great, and then I went and saw some of the notes that other nurses were making. I was like, yeah, I don't think this is gonna be a safe option because they were constant they were talking about being constantly canceled or just different environments not being great, and I understand that people express their opinions and people are most likely to leave a negative review than a positive review. So take some of it with a grain of salt, but ultimately I always looked for more information, less so much about just specifically canceling, but more so what are the floating policies, what were the ratios, things like that, just to kind of get an idea of what I was stepping into so I wasn't going in blind every time. Let's see, um, create routine immediately. I also before so whenever I was looking up my um lease where I was gonna live, once I had already locked down where I was going, I would look up places of where to live near that that were within my specifications, right? But I was also looking, once I started locking down the lease, what is around that I'm gonna want to use? You know, where is there a dance studio or what grocery stores are around, or where's a gym, so that I would have an idea of what was going to be my routine before I got there, so that once I got there, I pretty much knew or had an idea of what I was at least gonna be checking out so that I could make my routine very quickly. The quicker you're able to get into your routine, the quicker you're going to be able to settle. And that's really important. So within your first week or before arriving, I advocate for before, but you're doing a lot beforehand, so I'm not trying to overwhelm you. Try looking up these different things. I always liked creating a list of things I wanted to go do, so treat it as adventurous or as unadventurous as you see fit. I don't want to overwhelm you with anything, but I'm just giving you the tips and tricks that helped me. So we talked a little bit about the loneliness. One thing that I found after multiple, excuse me, multiple assignments, give it three weeks at least to settle in. And then another three weeks after that to start really feeling more comfortable in your environment. Ultimately be patient with yourself and give yourself grace. I have found that after moving so many times, it literally took me right at the three-week mark to start feeling like I was home, like I had friends, like I understood my environment, and like I was settling. And so I always advocate for an extension if it's a good assignment and you can stand where you're at. But if it's not working, don't force it. But at the same time, just give yourself some grace. Week one, everything is gonna feel overwhelming. By week three, you'll know where the supply room is, you'll know where the grocery store is, and then by week six, you'll feel a bit more competent, a little bit more comfortable in the hospital and out. And then by week twelve, you're leaving. So if it's a horrible assignment, you only have three months. If it's a great assignment, you only have three months. So take that, do with it what you will. And if it's going great, consider extending because if the loneliness is getting you, you might start to find some relief beyond the third month mark. At least that's what it's been like for me. So might not be that way for everybody. But I've had other friends that have moved around a lot and they kind of advocated for the same thing. So while you're there, if you're battling the loneliness, I always advocate for exploring your environment. You'd be surprised how many travelers go to work, go to their rental, and sleep for 13 weeks. That's all that they do. And then they complain that they don't feel like they have any friends or like they got to explore anything. And sometimes the assignment, like if it was only four weeks and you're in and out of the hospital for like five days in a row, because some of these assignments are insane. I get it, you're literally only there to work and make bank and go home. But if this is something that you're looking to do a little bit more long term, really try to make the most meaningful experience out of this as a whole, right? The assignment becomes more meaningful if you actually enjoy the experience and experience the location. So I always advocate for planning trips and activities in the area. When I went west, I really enjoyed doing the um national parks. And so I would make sure that if I had a stretch of three or four days off, I was planning a trip to see a national park. So I knew that I was going to be occupied and doing something fun and engaging on my days off, other than just sitting around wondering what I was gonna do. So on that as well, include again, if you're not traveling somewhere where you know somebody and you can't have somebody to rely on to be with, have people come see you if they're interested in traveling and being in that location with you, have them come see you for a few days. I would always have a friend come and travel to see me or my sisters or my mom, and that helps to stave off the loneliness. I don't know that I mentioned this a minute ago with the um landlord leasing situation, and if I did, I guess I'll just repeat myself. But because you can get canceled at the drop of a hat in your lease with the landlord, if you can get a clause written for early cancellation in the event of a contract cancellation. Most of the landlords that I rented from were really great about this, and some wanted 30 days, understandable. Some wanted like I think I got one as little as like two days at one point. And um, so it it was really variable, but I would get some sort of cancellation clause written in because you never know, like that first one that I had, or rather, like that example that I told you, where I didn't even get to finish orientation, like I literally finished and then they canceled me. So I had three months of a lease that I had to somehow pay for in honor. So if your landlord is cool about it, get it written into the leasing agreement. It's been a couple years since I've done travel nursing. So again, I don't know specifically how the climate has changed right now in the year 2026, but most people should be cool with this. Again, I can't, it's a subjective case, so I can't advocate for anything. With something like the landing, you can transfer. So if you need to suddenly take an assignment somewhere else, I think you can transfer um the remaining portion of your lease to a new unit or a new location or wherever, and you would just pay the difference. But I've never rented from them specifically, at least not yet. So I've heard people have really great experiences with that company specifically, but um I don't know how any of the other ones work. So I always did furnish finder, so I was with one specific landlord. But then off of that, I highly recommend to have an emergency fund just for your finances, even if you're not a travel nurse, you should have at least I think it's three to six months of finances saved in a high yield savings account, right? So a rainy day fund. But for travel nursing specifically, I recommend at least one to three months of expenses available because you never know when you're gonna have to pay for that duplicate expense out of your own pocket. So contracts can be canceled, units can be overstaffed, and then you'll be canceled, or the census can drop, and therefore the hospitals or the agencies can terminate the contract. So try to support yourself financially as best as you can. I've talked a little bit about some of the legal complications. I highly recommend for any and every nurse to have nursing malpractice insurance. I absolutely advocate for every travel nurse too, because once again, you're on your own, you're doing your own thing through an agency, and the hospital is going to be much less likely to back you up. So make sure your documentation is on point, whether it be the charting documentation in the hospital or your own personal documentation. So having receipts or your contracts, your leases, I still have all of my leases and contracts saved in different folders. I'm an ICU nurse, I'm a little bit detail-oriented, so everything has its own place because I need to know where was I in 2022 on this day and what where was I living and what were my expenses. So you can go as far down that rabbit hole as you like, but I do recommend keeping at least your hospital contract with the agency and the lease saved in a folder because you don't know when you're gonna have to access that in the future. I don't remember the time frame for how long it could go for the IRS to audit you, but it's actually a really, really long time. I think you need to technically keep like 10 years worth of documentation like in it in like behind, if that makes sense. Do without what you will. But keep your documents handy both before getting into the contracts and after you finish them. But you will thank yourself later. So was travel nursing worth it? Yes. I talked about this a little bit already, but it was so worth it. I got to see so much of the country and meet so many people and experience so many different health systems and patient experiences that I wouldn't have gotten had I just stayed in one place for that amount of time. I didn't enjoy some of the loneliness, I didn't enjoy some of the ways I was treated by patients or ultimately hospitals. There were some pretty bad situations that I had to go through. And I don't wish that on anybody, but I think at the same time, I'm grateful for the lessons that I've learned because it's definitely made doing a lot of other things in my life as I've gotten out of travel nursing. A lot easier. So, would I do it again? Absolutely. I don't, I wouldn't say that I regret it at all. I think in life you have to choose your regrets, and I don't regret that decision at all. I think I'd actually regret it if I didn't. Because I've grown a lot and it's really developed me into who I am today, and I'm really proud of that. So what surprised me the most, I think, was just how different different areas were. When I went to California, I felt like I was on another planet. It was, I'm from Nashville, and it was just so completely different, and I didn't like it. So I did my best to enjoy the three months there, and I was very glad to leave. But I think beyond that, just the loneliness and how loneliness affects you, but then the realization that, again, like I made earlier, it's less so much who you know, and more so much who knows you. Not whose back do you have, but who's got your back. And that's really important. And that's something that I've taken with me as I've been transitioning out of travel nursing and just living life in general. So I still live with that one and carry that one because ultimately my community and my friends and family and people are important to me. So that doesn't really change. You know, it's that way, whether you're a travel nurse or whether you're just moving to a new environment. So I do ultimately have a lot of gratitude for that lesson because it's really helped me to be independent, to move other places as I've explored beyond traveling. But I think on top of that, who should not become a travel nurse is people that can't handle that and be independent and adapt on their own fairly quickly and fairly effectively. There's some people that I talked to that had a really hard time adapting with that kind of stuff. And every time they went off to a new job, it was sunshine and rainbows for probably two weeks. And then after that, it was just straight downhill. And they struggled to settle, make friends, and feel comfortable. And it was just not great for them. It wasn't a great fit. They really relied on their environment. So that would probably be who I would recommend to not do a travel assignment. That and anybody less than two years in experience. That's my two cents. So my takeaways for you, if you're going to do this, you can do this. Give it three months. It is, or sorry, give it three weeks. It is just one assignment. Give yourself time. It is just three months. You will learn a lot, even if you don't continue it long term like I did. Ultimately, just give yourself grace and enjoy the experience. I hope this helped. If it did, please consider subscribing. I'm here every week talking about different health topics and subjects. If you have any questions, you can leave something in the comment, or you can reach out to me on Instagram at Health Recoded Podcast. Thank you for listening. I really hope it helped, and I'll see you guys next time.