Become a Travel Nurse in 5 Easy Steps

Full-time nurses can become a travel nurse in five easy steps.

Want to make more? Want unrivaled autonomy and flexibility? Are you interested in exploring your country, and getting paid to do it?

Travel nursing is the best way for nurses to maximize their earning potential, beef their resume, and see the nation, all #AtTheSameDamnTime. And it’s not that difficult to become one. Below are five easy steps to becoming a travel nurse:

Step 1: Get Experience

The first thing you need to know is that Chief Nursing Officers (CNO’s) expect travel nurses to transition into their facilities seamlessly. Therefore, having at least a year or two of experience in your respected specialty is usually a must.

Step 2: Find a Good Travel Nurse Agency

Once you decide to travel, prepare yourself to get bombarded with offers from travel nursing agencies. Finding out which is best for you is important, and we have a lot of reasons why we think you would love Health Carousel Travel Nursing, but keep looking!

You can use resources like Highway Hypodermics and Travel Nursing Central, where nurses rate their experience with different travel nursing brands. Both sites produce an annual “Top-10” list of agencies that receive the highest ratings, and yes, Health Carousel Travel Nursing is included.

But all gloating aside, it is so important that you do not settle on your agency – there’s too much opportunity at stake to settle, and the reality is, travel nurses don’t have to settle for anything.

You should also keep benefits in mind. Does the agency offer insurance, on the first day? How much will this cost? These are questions that can affect your pay package, so do ask!

Step 3: Build Your Travel Nursing Submission Profile

The three main components of your travel nurse profile are:

• your application
• skills checklist
• and clinical references.

Upfront paperwork is usually long and unavoidable. Sorry.

Veteran travel nurses advise saving all of your application materials. When you have all your materials ready to go, you can apply a lot faster.

Step 4: Manage Your Paperwork

Picking up from step three, managing all of your paperwork will make things go a lot faster. These documents include:

• medical records
• licenses
• certifications

Keep timing in mind. The job you want won’t be open forever, so it’s best to always be ready. When you have all your paperwork together, your application process will go a lot smoother.

Step 5: Accept a Position, Become a Travel Nurse – Yay!

By the time you get to your assignment, there should be no doubts in your mind because you’ve done the work to make an informed decision. You’ve done your research, and you’ve chosen the best agency for you. Now it’s time to start your journey.

There are a few housekeeping items that you’ll want to nail down. For example, you will need to establish your tax home in order to receive tax-free stipends. This is super important because most travel nursing agencies offer some untaxed compensation that is totally legal!