Incomes 6 figures, working 9 months a 12 months, touring the nation: What it's wish to be a journey nurse, from those that have achieved it

Journey nursing is not for everybody, however it does include perks. In contrast with everlasting employees nursing positions, journey nurses take pleasure in extra versatile contracts, alternatives for journey and better salaries.

Journey nurses work short-term contracts, often for a number of months at a time, wherever there are staffing shortages across the U.S. This consists of hospitals and long-term care amenities, in addition to locations like jails and prisons. 

Demand for journey nurses was rising earlier than the pandemic, however it exploded between 2020 and 2022, pushing up gross salaries to as a lot as $6,000 per week, in keeping with health-care staffing company AceStack. 

Whereas demand has since subsided considerably, journey nurses can nonetheless earn 30% to 50% greater than related everlasting employees nurse positions, particularly the place demand is highest.

The occupation “gives a whole lot of freedom in my life,” says Kevin Levu, 24, a journey nurse at Pelican Bay, a most safety jail in Crescent Metropolis, California.

“For me, it is the advantage of selecting how lengthy I work someplace, negotiating my pay and feeling like I am being paid what I am price,” says Levu.

This is a have a look at each the upsides and challenges of being a journey nurse, in keeping with three registered or licensed vocational nurses who made the change.

The liberty to journey throughout the U.S. is usually cited as one of many largest perks of being a journey nurse. It is what drew Kirsten Newcomb to the place. In March 2020, Newcomb, then 33, moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui after quitting her longtime job as a employees nurse in Virginia. 

“I used to be motivated primarily by journey,” she advised Develop, the private finance web site printed by CNBC in partnership with Acorns, in 2022. “I simply knew if I used to be going to start out journey nursing I needed to go someplace epic,” like Hawaii. 

Newcomb, who at all times “liked planning holidays,” had been contemplating journey nursing for a very long time earlier than lastly seizing the chance to work in Maui in 2020, earlier than the pandemic started.

Equally for Levu, journey nursing was a method to “expertise one thing outdoors of the norm.” Whereas working with violent inmates is much from a trip, he says the expertise has given him perspective about his personal sense of freedom. 

“The seashore is three minutes away from my home, however for a few of these inmates it would as properly be 1,000 miles away, as a result of they’re by no means getting out,” says Levu.

Journey nurse contracts often solely final a number of months, making it logistically simple to take day off work between gigs. Contracts can typically be prolonged, too, particularly in locations the place journey nurses are in excessive demand.

That flexibility permits Aspen Tucker to work laborious for 9 months, adopted by a three-month break.

At 26, Tucker left his employees nursing job in 2020 for his first journey nursing gig, attracted by the upper pay and the liberty to set his personal schedule.

With extra day off, he is been in a position to take prolonged holidays to far off locations like Belize, Colombia, Seychelles, Qatar and Kenya.

“After I was youthful, I wrote down an inventory of locations I at all times needed to journey,” he says. “I attempt to knock out each place on that checklist.”

Newcomb has additionally taken weeks off between journey nursing gigs as a method to unwind. “I have been in a position to take extra day off than I used to be as a employees nurse, for positive,” she says.

Journey nurses are inclined to earn extra per hour than employees nurses. Plus, they often obtain tax-free bursaries or stipends to cowl dwelling bills, which boosts their revenue even additional.

Whereas journey nurses might earn greater than $6,000 per week between 2020 and 2022, they now herald a mean of $2,800 for a 48-hour week, in keeping with AceStack. That is about $1,400 to $1,960 larger than common employees nursing positions.

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By switching to journey nursing, Newcomb boosted her pay from about $1,000 per week to $7,000 per week in 2020, permitting her to avoid wasting $30,000 over the course of 1 12 months.

Likewise, Tucker greater than tripled his nursing wage in 2022, which allowed him to avoid wasting $57,000 for a down cost on a house in Spartanburg, South Carolina — a house base for when he isn’t working.

Levu doubled his revenue from $56,600 in 2023 to $112,000 in 2024 when he began working as a journey nurse at a county jail. The monetary safety that comes with Levu’s job offers him a way of “aid” figuring out there’s extra “respiration area” in his month-to-month finances, he says.

Whereas journey nursing has monetary and way of life advantages, the job just isn’t with out its challenges. Contracts are sometimes in high-stress environments like prisons, hospitals and disaster facilities that may take an emotional toll on these within the career.

Newcomb, who labored at a disaster middle in Dallas in the course of the pandemic in 2020, says the expertise was grueling. “I feel I noticed extra sufferers go away than I had within the full 10 years earlier in my entire nursing profession,” she says.

For Levu, turning into a journey nurse meant leaving the routine of a long-term care facility for the jarring depth of working in a jail, the place inmate violence is widespread.

“I’ve blood on my fingers, after which later my shift ends,” Levu says. Within the outdoors world, “persons are greeting me on the grocery retailer, and I am like, ‘Dude, this feels a bit unreal.'”

The hours might be lengthy, too. Tucker is ready to take day off when he wants it, however when on contract he has labored 48- to 60-hour weeks to maximise his additional time pay.

Along with the emotional toll, journey nursing comes with logistical trade-offs too. 

In Newcomb’s case, regardless of having the ability to “swim with turtles” on a tropical island, the excessive price of dwelling in Maui prevented her from saving a lot cash when she was there. And with every job comes the problem of discovering a brand new place to remain, often inside two weeks of accepting a proposal. 

The logistics of journey might be “very demanding,” she says.

The added journey prices can be troublesome to handle, says Tucker. When working, he is needed to pay lease whereas nonetheless making mortgage funds again house. He is additionally needed to pay pals to care for his pet canine and regulate his house.

By not having a everlasting job, Tucker additionally would not have medical insurance when he isn’t working. He needs to be cautious about health-care prices when he is been between contracts, he says.

The apparent problem for Levu is the specter of violence at Pelican Bay. For that motive, “corrections is not one thing I plan on doing on a long-term foundation,” he says. As an alternative, he would possibly be part of the military as a commissioned nurse.

Within the meantime, Levu is studying to stability the stress of his work together with his psychological well being. Which means not at all times choosing up additional time, simply to earn more money: “If it is one thing I take pleasure in doing, then I’ll,” he says. “In any other case, I do not essentially want the cash that unhealthy.”

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