Reply With QuoteThe most in-demand specialties for travel nurses are ER, ICU, OR, & Labor/Delivery. To be a travel nurse, you should have at LEAST 1 year of experience as an RN in your chosen specialty, but most facilities want 2 years of experience.
I'm getting close to graduating school and have always wanted to travel. How long should I work before traveling and what are the most wanted positions for traveling?
The most in-demand specialties for travel nurses are ER, ICU, OR, & Labor/Delivery. To be a travel nurse, you should have at LEAST 1 year of experience as an RN in your chosen specialty, but most facilities want 2 years of experience.
Actually, to be a travel nurse and to truly be able to travel and function in your chosen specialty independently, you need more than a year or two of experience. Sure, most companies require two years, some of the others only one, but you should be very confident in your skills and able to literally hit the floor running with very little, if any orientation to the facility. Take your time, get comfortable in your specialty and then travel. Most of us who have traveled for any length of time (more than five years, I personally have traveled for 10), think that you should have a solid three years in one area.. four to five preferably, but three solid at one facility should get you the time you need to be develop the autonomy needed to be a traveler. More and more young, inexperienced nurses are traveling with little true experience and end up having terrible experiences, leaving travel nursing all together with a bad taste in their mouth. Just my opinion though. Good luck to you!!
I have been a nurse for 4 years- I worked in Peds for a year and a half, then in ER for a little over a year before I started traveling. I have been traveling for a year, working ER, which means I have a little over 2 years of ER experience. I have never had any difficulty in any of my travel assignments, and do not find it difficult to "hit the ground running." I KNOW that I am a good, competent ER nurse, and no one who I have ever worked with has thought otherwise. I am comfortable serving as a resource for new grads, precepting students, and taking charge in code/trauma situations. I disagree that it takes 3-5 years for a nurse to become totally autonomous in their chosen specialty. While everyone is different, I would say that most nurses should be ready to travel after 2 years, which is why this is the requirement for most hospitals & travel companies.
I agree, Amanda. 2 years is usually average. I have seen fulltime regular staff become charge nurses, preceptors, and definitely working code situations after only a year on staff! They would have been grateful to get 2 years training first.
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I think where you learn is probably even more important than how long you learn. (I'm an L+D nurse with a couple years CVOR experience.) Really, you're going to learn a lot more in a facility that has 500 deliveries per month than in one that has 50. Even if you it's not your patient that has something really weird going on, you'll learn from the other nurses. So take that into consideration when you decide on a place to start. And never, ever think you know it all. Be confident in what you do know, but always be open to new learning experiences. I have been an RN for over 15 years now, have done staff and charge and management. I love to travel because I hate to play politics and can always learn something everywhere I go. But the day I start thinking I know it all is the day I need to hang it up- before I hurt somebody.
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