The Road Ahead
The appeal of travel nursing is taking new nursing assignments in different cities and earning higher salaries, but there are downsides, too. Travel nurses often receive fewer benefits than staff nurses and end up with less favorable assignments; their levels of dissatisfaction and burnout are also higher, and their sense of work-life balance is lower than staff nurses.
Most travel contracts last between 4 and 13 weeks. Hospitals often put policies and practices in place that limit the number of back-to-back contracts that traveling nurses can accept, which means that RNs can either convert to core staff or move on to new assignments once their contract term is up.
Weirich noted that some hospitals devote considerable effort to recruiting traveling nurses to full-time roles, adding, “There are active initiatives ... to make it such a good experience that they want to stay.”
On the flip side, contracts can be terminated without notice, leaving traveling nurses scrambling to find a new assignment and a new place to live on short notice.
“You’re there as long as the hospital needs you,” said Neill. “You could sign a 12- or 15-week contract, and their needs change a month in, and ... there are budget cuts, and they can’t pay salaries anymore, so they are laying off their nurses.”
Declining demand for travel nurses has made it harder to line up back-to-back contracts. Despite being available for work, Doran once waited 6 weeks to secure a new assignment and had to live off her savings.
Spurlock believes increased competition and declining wages — pay for travel nurses declined more than 9% from January 2023 to January 2024 — have made travel nursing less attractive.
“There has been such an influx of travel nurses ... because of COVID,” said Spurlock. “The rates have now come down [and] everybody’s fighting for jobs, and ... it’s very difficult to get a job that’s paying decent money.”
Despite the challenges, Spurlock continues learning new things from each assignment and hopes to work as a travel nurse until retirement. Doran has worked at hospitals in Washington, Oregon, California, and Wisconsin and would like to add Montana, Utah, and Nevada to the list. The goal: Continue accepting assignments in different cities and states until she finds the place where she wants to put down roots.
“Nursing is a great job, but it’s a hard job [and] it can take its toll at times,” Neill said. It’s important that nurses know their goals and values to be able to find a good fitting position. “And the beauty of it is that travel can be a great way to explore and add some flexibility.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.