About Me and This Page

Hey guys,
  So, as a traveler's spouse I'm responsible for a lot of the behind the scenes work. The majority of how we travel has been figured out by trial and error. What I write here isn't what you should/shouldn't do but mostly what works for us. With the lack of information we have found I hope to help those that are interested in this lifestyle as well as give a bit of an insight to what and why we do.

THE BEGINNING

 We met in college and soon realized we both had a passion for going places and seeing new things. Every chance we could we would drive out of the city or talk about places we want to see, things we wanted to do. After we got married, I had 1 year of school left and Josh secured a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Off and on we would talk about the possibility of travel nursing and if we could do it. By our 2 year anniversary, and after some research and with much nerves, we decided yes, this is what we want to do.

A TRAVEL NURSE? WHAT'S THAT?

The best way to explain what a travel nurse does is by using the snow bird example. So, during the winter, Florida gets a slew of new residents that travel there to avoid the winter from up north, the majority of them being retiree's. Some cities double in population. To prepare for this high population hospitals will hire travel nurses to help cover the influx of patients they will receive, instead of hiring full time nurses and having to call them off every other week once the snow birds leave during summer. Basically like most businesses that hire more workers during the high season (aka theme parks during the summer, ski resorts during the winter etc etc).
      From what little information we found online we knew we wanted to go with an agency that would help us find jobs,basically a middle man that works with the hospitals in securing nurses that they need temporarily From what little information we found online we knew we wanted to go with an agency that would help us find jobs. We made a spreadsheet, comparing agencies (benefits vs add on's , positions offered by different agencies, bonuses, etc etc) After decided on 3 agencies to talk to we began searching for positions in Florida. We knew we wanted to begin travel in November and so we were hoping for a position in a warmer climate. We learned our first lesson during this search,  never ASSUME where you want to go is where you're going to end up. We actually had an assignment offer and then it fell through. We were heart broken (not having learned this can happen yet), yet we kept pursuing something in a warmer area. We eventually successfully secured our first travel assignment in downtown Hollywood, Los Angeles California.

WAIT, HOLD ON YOU MEAN YOU CAN JUST CHOOSE TO GO ANYWHERE?

   This is a question we get a lot. The answer is, yes and no. Most states require a certain license to work s a nurse . This can be usually acquired by paying a fee, sending in your finger prints, and/or having  license from another state. Josh has what is called a compact license. Josh was certified in KY which is part of a group of states that recognize his license . He can work as a travel nurse in any of these states and not have register for a new license, just submit his license to the agency when he applies for a job. These states are:

Arizona

Arkansas

Colorado

Delaware

Idaho

Iowa

Kentucky

Maine

Maryland

Mississippi

Missouri

Nebraska

New Hampshire

New Mexico

North Carolina

North Dakota

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Virginia

Wisconsin

- See more at: http://www.nursetogether.com/list-of-nurse-license-compact-states-#sthash.yj9VyGTv.dpuf

SO YOU TRAVEL WITH ALL OF YOUR STUFF?

After we decided to travel we began to we put what we had from our 2 bedroom apartment in to a 10x10 storage shed we built on his parents property. It was crazy!! Not only were we still "newlyweds" but we have been BUSY newlyweds. Our apartment wasn't quite organized and we had LOTS and LOTS of things we haven't sorted through when we moved in together. The one bad thing about have a 2 bedroom apt was the ability to just shove things in the extra room. You don't realize just HOW much stuff you have until you have to decide what items you need and what you can do without for ...well who knows how long. To this day we still laugh about how/what we traveled to California (more about that in a later post).

So all of this is just a quick overview of what we do and how we became to be a traveling nurse family. We have met SO many amazing people along the way and seen so many things as well. We've been traveling since 2011 and we love telling our stories to people who don't have any idea what we do, it's been a great ride so far and as of right now, we're still riding this crazy roller coaster.