It has been 5 months since I completed my 7th Travel Nurse Contract. As the summer starts coming to an end, I have started to think about what’s next in this Travel Nurse/RV adventure. I have a minimum of 5 weeks left here at home base before I will be ready to hit the road again and with that, it makes now the perfect time to start the process for looking at new Travel Nurse opportunities.
As I start these early steps to getting a new contract, I thought I would share my process from start to finish! I know that I did this in my very first blogs with my very first contract way back in 2019, but the longer that I have done this, the more knowledge from past experiences I have to share.
The very first step is to look at the Travel Nurse market. Just for the record, I am established with only 2 travel nurse agencies and have zero desire to establish more! I will be sticking with what jobs are open and where with only these 2 agencies.
A lot goes into considering a location!
First, do I carry a Nursing license with that state. This quickly weeds out probably half of my location possibilities!
Then I consider the time of year!! I will not be going to Montana in the Fall/Winter, nor will I be going to Florida. You may say, ”Why not Florida? That’s the perfect place for a Fall/Winter contract”. RV parks are impossible to find in Florida in the Winter… Everyone has the same idea about wintering in the Sunshine State! With time of year, I not only consider the Hot/Cold weather, but also the Tornadoes and Hurricanes! I will not be going to Oklahoma in the spring and I will not be taking a Coastal Contract in the Fall! After eliminating all of the weather related locations, I am usually left with only a few contract location options!
Lastly, I eliminate all BIG CITY options! I am not a city girl! I want those small, country towns with a population below 100K people! Get it below 50K and I’m super happy!
Once I go through all of these steps, I don’t really have a lot of options left. If there are a few, I start to look into RV parks in the city (some cities do not allow longer than 30 day stays due to city ordinances and a LOT of RV parks are fully booked), I look at activities in the area (because the whole reason in doing this is for the adventure), and I investigate the cost of living in the area.
And if by a miracle there is one location left on my list that meets all of these criterias, I ask my recruiter for more info on that job. If the pay is good and there are no red flags like excessive call requirements, travel between multiple locations, and float to additional departments, I ask for my profile to be submitted.
As of right now, This is where I am at. Yesterday, I asked to be submitted for a position in Nebraska. I was super excited and it met all my requirements, but unfortunately, the position had already been filled. Listings sometimes take a day or two to come down after filing a position.
Out of the 40 positions open, there was only 1 that met my requirements and that 1 had actually already been filled. So, now I wait. I will continue to check job openings for both Travel Nurse agencies in the hopes that my perfect location becomes available!
Who knew there was so much to consider when choosing the right location? I surely didn’t when I first got started, but RV life definitely makes Travel Nursing a little bit trickier!
Keep following along as I take you through this process one step at a time! The Hunt for Contract #8 has begun!
