EARNING 6 FIGURES, WORKING 9 MONTHS A YEAR, TRAVELING THE COUNTRY: WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A TRAVEL NURSE, FROM THOSE WHO HAVE DONE IT
Travel nursing isn't for everyone, but it does come with perks. Compared with permanent staff nursing positions, travel nurses enjoy more flexible contracts, opportunities for travel and higher salaries.
Travel nurses work short-term contracts, usually for a few months at a time, anywhere there are staffing shortages around the U.S. This includes hospitals and long-term care facilities, as well as places like jails and prisons.
Demand for travel nurses was growing before the pandemic, but it exploded between 2020 and 2022, pushing up gross salaries to as much as $6,000 per week, according to health-care staffing agency AceStack.
While demand has since subsided somewhat, travel nurses can still earn 30% to 50% more than similar permanent staff nurse positions, especially where demand is highest.
The occupation "provides a lot of freedom in my life," says Kevin Levu, 24, a travel nurse at Pelican Bay, a maximum security prison in Crescent City, California.
"For me, it's the benefit of choosing how long I work somewhere, negotiating my pay and feeling like I'm being paid what I'm worth," says Levu.
Here's a look at both the upsides and challenges of being a travel nurse, according to three registered or licensed vocational nurses who made the switch.
The opportunity to work in new places: 'I was motivated by adventure'
The freedom to travel across the U.S. is often cited as one of the biggest perks of being a travel nurse. It's what drew Kirsten Newcomb to the position. In March 2020, Newcomb, then 33, moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui after quitting her longtime job as a staff nurse in Virginia.
"I was motivated mainly by adventure," she told Grow, the personal finance site published by CNBC in partnership with Acorns, in 2022. "I just knew if I was going to start travel nursing I wanted to go somewhere epic," like Hawaii.
Newcomb, who always "loved planning vacations," had been considering travel nursing for a long time before finally seizing the opportunity to work in Maui in 2020, before the pandemic began.
Similarly for Levu, travel nursing was a way to "experience something outside of the norm." While working with violent inmates is far from a vacation, he says the experience has given him perspective about his own sense of freedom.
"The beach is three minutes away from my house, but for some of these inmates it might as well be 1,000 miles away, because they're never getting out," says Levu.
Shorter contracts provide more flexibility
Travel nurse contracts usually only last a few months, making it logistically easy to take time off work between gigs. Contracts can often be extended, too, especially in places where travel nurses are in high demand.
That flexibility allows Aspen Tucker to work hard for nine months, followed by a three-month break.
At 26, Tucker left his staff nursing job in 2020 for his first travel nursing gig, attracted by the higher pay and the freedom to set his own schedule.
With more time off, he's been able to take extended vacations to far flung destinations like Belize, Colombia, Seychelles, Qatar and Kenya.
"When I was younger, I wrote down a list of places I always wanted to travel," he says. "I try to knock out every place on that list."
Newcomb has also taken weeks off between travel nursing gigs as a way to unwind. "I've been able to take more time off than I was as a staff nurse, for sure," she says.
Travel nursing offers increased income
Travel nurses tend to earn more per hour than staff nurses. Plus, they usually receive tax-free bursaries or stipends to cover living expenses, which boosts their income even further.
While travel nurses could earn more than $6,000 per week between 2020 and 2022, they now bring in an average of $2,800 for a 48-hour week, according to AceStack. That's about $1,400 to $1,960 higher than regular staff nursing positions.
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By switching to travel nursing, Newcomb boosted her pay from about $1,000 per week to $7,000 per week in 2020, allowing her to save $30,000 over the course of one year.
Likewise, Tucker more than tripled his nursing salary in 2022, which allowed him to save $57,000 for a down payment on a home in Spartanburg, South Carolina — a home base for when he's not working.
Levu doubled his income from $56,600 in 2023 to $112,000 in 2024 when he started working as a travel nurse at a county prison. The financial security that comes with Levu's job gives him a sense of "relief" knowing there's more "breathing space" in his monthly budget, he says.
The challenges of the job take an emotional toll
While travel nursing has financial and lifestyle benefits, the job is not without its challenges. Contracts are often in high-stress environments like prisons, hospitals and crisis centers that can take an emotional toll on those in the profession.
Newcomb, who worked at a crisis center in Dallas during the pandemic in 2020, says the experience was grueling. "I think I saw more patients pass away than I had in the full 10 years previous in my whole nursing career," she says.
For Levu, becoming a travel nurse meant leaving the routine of a long-term care facility for the jarring intensity of working in a prison, where inmate violence is common.
"I have blood on my hands, and then later my shift ends," Levu says. In the outside world, "people are greeting me at the grocery store, and I'm like, 'Dude, this feels a little unreal.'"
The hours can be long, too. Tucker is able to take time off when he needs it, but when on contract he has worked 48- to 60-hour weeks to maximize his overtime pay.
Life on the road comes with trade-offs
In addition to the emotional toll, travel nursing comes with logistical trade-offs too.
In Newcomb's case, despite being able to "swim with turtles" on a tropical island, the high cost of living in Maui prevented her from saving much money when she was there. And with each job comes the challenge of finding a new place to stay, usually within two weeks of accepting an offer.
The logistics of travel can be "very stressful," she says.
The added travel costs can also be difficult to manage, says Tucker. When working, he's had to pay rent while still making mortgage payments back home. He's also had to pay friends to take care of his pet dog and keep an eye on his home.
By not having a permanent job, Tucker also doesn't have health insurance when he's not working. He has to be careful about health-care costs when he's been between contracts, he says.
The obvious challenge for Levu is the threat of violence at Pelican Bay. For that reason, "corrections isn't something I plan on doing on a long-term basis," he says. Instead, he might join the army as a commissioned nurse.
In the meantime, Levu is learning to balance the stress of his work with his mental health. That means not always picking up overtime, just to make more money: "If it's something I enjoy doing, then I will," he says. "Otherwise, I don't necessarily need the money that bad."
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