Travel Nurse Jobs for the Snow Bird

Perusing through listings of medical staffing agencies that provide travel nurse jobs, an ad from a Hawaii staffing agency caught my attention. Although this agency has opportunities in states all across the country, it focuses heavily on the needs of Hawaii’s medical institutions. Apparently, recruiting travel nurses to Hawaii is a task that’s easier said than done. I found this intriguing. Especially as a resident of the Northeast who hates the weather here.

My thoughts meandered through a forest of benefits of travel nurse jobs scheduled according to the changing seasons. With the right agency and a little bit of luck, a nurse could line up assignments that would keep him or her in warmer climates during the winter months and cooler climates during summer months. And with Hawaii being just one of the many options, how could a traveling nurse go wrong?

Choose Your Staffing Agency Well

The only potential downfall to this plan is signing on with a staffing agency that’s not on board with you. In order to make this work you need an agency with enough assignments to allow you to schedule accordingly. You also need one that provides you with direct housing or a stipend commensurate with the cost of housing in the cities where you’re assigned. Using Hawaii as an example, housing costs in America’s 50th state are higher than anywhere else in the country. That needs to be taken care of if this plan is going to be profitable.

Travel costs are another consideration of travel nurse jobs for the snow bird. If your staffing agency covers all the costs of your travel from one assignment to the next you’re golden. If not, paying for your own travel to Hawaii may not be economically feasible if the assignment is too short. The good news is that this is almost never an issue; staffing agencies pay travel costs as a general rule.

Planning Your Travel

Travel nurse jobs allow nurses some flexibility in planning their schedule as long as the staffing agency you work for has enough work. Otherwise, you may need to accept whatever comes along regardless of where in the country it’s located. Barring that, you can plan your snow bird activities based on assignments that might be coming up in the future. Traveling nurses need to openly communicate with the staffing agency in order to ensure both are on the same page.

With assignments typically lasting between 3 to 6 months, you might not be able to avoid winter weather completely. For example, an assignment in Chicago may be scheduled to end in late November when the city’s weather is still pretty manageable. But it’s not entirely out of the realm possibility for Chicago to get significant snow at that time of year, so you still might have to put up with it for a few weeks. Likewise, you may end up being in a warm weather climate for the first few weeks of the hot season.

See the Country

One of the most obvious benefits of travel nurse jobs is the ability to see all parts of the country. With a good planning and the right job assignments, you could potentially visit every state in the union during your career as a traveling nurse. You may see many of the country’s major cities, some of the smaller ones, and maybe even a rural area or two. But that’s the beauty of being a traveling nurse; seeing places that you would have never had the opportunity to get to before.

To make the most of this opportunity, traveling nurses should schedule their time away from work accordingly. Use your days off to visit local historical sites, museums and festivals, natural sites, and yes, even tourist attractions. Develop friendships with your coworkers – that will really help you understand how the local residents of that city live. Invite those same friends to your apartment for dinner or cocktails, and share with them your own memories and experiences. In other words, make your snow bird traveling nurse experience more than just a job with great weather. Make it a cultural experience.

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