Wendy at end

I got into travel nursing because I was 25. I was single. I had a dog and my staff job was terrible staffing and I was just tired of getting shafted. And so I was like, you know what, let's make the leap. I talked to Olivia and so then went to Dallas, which is where I met Zane. I kind of did a like, I guess local travel gig, we had had some travelers at my hospital come through just to help us out. And I was like, man, that sounds like a lot of fun, like being able to see the country and still do my job. Like this sounds like something I'm very much into. So I started looking into it like, like almost like Ally, I went with another company initially and after the six months we worked together in Dallas. I was like, I'm switching to your company because I'm not liking this one. He saw the light

Was I hoping to find love while traveling? Absolutely not. I left home on Valentine's Day with my dog and my car loaded full of stuff and I headed for Dallas. I was just going to start an adventure, but on my own and whatever happened after that, I was like, well, whatever happens happens, let's go for an adventure. Here we are almost eight years later.

Few big dreams that I've been able to accomplish. Thanks to travel nursing was #1 I got to buy my dream car which was a 4runner. The other big dream that I always had was to just travel the world. And so with travel nursing I was like I not only get to see the country and adventure, this amazing country that we have, but I also get to go everywhere else. I've gotten to go to 16 different countries and just the amount of opportunities that I've gotten to go on and have just because of travel nursing because of the freedom that it provides. Like I mean I have the freedom to take the time off when I want to and I don't have to beg for my PTO. With this. I just get to go and say I get to work my three months and then take my time off and go adventure and take anywhere between a week to three months. This was just that opportunity to be able to see parts of the country that you know you saw on social media all the time and you know people posting stuff but you know you never really think that you're gonna be the one that's gonna go see those places in person, let alone go overseas. One of the biggest things that I wanted to do was go to Egypt. Actually going there and like seeing the great pyramids and like swimming in the Nile and seeing Swiming in the red Sea. Yeah, diving, scuba diving in the red sea Like all of these things that like I really just only dreamed about. Were now a reality. It's just stuff that like you know like I said you you see online and you're like oh that's cool, I'd like to do that. But then like a lot of people don't really get to experience that. Really just getting to see the country while I'm doing my job is just awesome. We get to do what we love as well as travel, which is also another love.

Advice that we always kind of give like people looking to travel Get experience where you're working at first um that is the biggest help that will help you down the road is just having at least two years under your belt, wherever whatever specialty you're in, just so you know what you're doing, you know, because you're gonna be in environments where you don't know where supplies are, you don't know who your doctors are, you don't know who your charge nurse is. So really like having the experience and not just being like, I just graduated last week, I'm gonna start traveling like great ambition, love it, go for it. Keep that energy up, but get some experience first. Pull that trigger whenever you get there. Because traveling is something we recommend to everybody who's able to do it. It's just something that frees you up. You know, you learn so many different ways to do something. We feel like we're more well rounded nurses having traveled, you know, even for as long as we have. So yeah, definitely just go for it. Just get the experience where you're at and then go for it. And the other thing that I will add on to that is know your "why." For us we travel for adventure, we travel because we get to see the country. We like to go on adventures, right? Money is not the priority. Absolutely money is important, but it is not the most important thing, but for some people, money is the priority and that's what some people are traveling for. So if you have your "why," you can accomplish anything. As long as you know what you're doing it for, and doing it for the right reasons.

Having an option to continue education is a great benefit for a nurse. A lot of the hospitals provide this to their permanent employees. But you don't always see this with the travel companies. It's a great benefit. One that has a very flexible program that can work with you as a traveler because every 13 weeks, your schedule changes, so it's a little more difficult. So this is a great benefit to have available to you as a travel nurse. When I started traveling, I noticed that some of the jobs that I wanted were requiring a BSN and this was something that I had always intended to do, but just never got the opportunity to do that due to family obligations and other financial constraints. So finally, when I heard about the Aspen program with TNAA I thought what a great opportunity it was affordable, it was flexible. It allowed me to travel and go back to school and manage both pretty easily. So I thought it was a great experience and a great opportunity that I had. When a company invests in great benefits It tells me that they're investing in their employees. When they add extra items like education reimbursement. It says to me that they want to see their employees improve, excel, have more opportunities for better jobs. I think it really shows that the company thinks it's important to invest in their employees and that they value them. When I first went to an orientation session, I saw that they cared. They cared about their staff, they cared about their nurses, they wanted to make things better and they invested their time and their money to find out how they could do that.