Wondering if you should be looking for travel nurse jobs? If your inner wanderlust conflicts with your work week, then perhaps you should consider packing your career in your suitcase.
Most people are eager to travel and explore different destinations, cultures and continents.
Whether you’re desperate to experience a different climate, see the seven wonders of the world, or trek through a mountain range; we all have travel ambitions.
For many people, however, there is never the ‘right time’ to embark on an extended journey. We tend to spend our twenties building a career and, perhaps, getting on the property ladder, while our thirties are spent climbing the career ladder and sometimes starting a family.
Unfortunately, this means many people miss out on the chance to travel.
However, traveling and building a career needn’t be mutually exclusive. If you want to go to globetrotting without harming your professional prospects, take a look at these innovative ways to build your nursing career so you can apply for travel nurse jobs.
How to Score Travel Nurse Jobs
Work Experience
Working abroad is a great way to fund your travels, but it can also benefit your nursing career.
When you gain work experience in different countries, you gain a more in-depth understanding of your industry or vocation. Indeed, many people discover new facets of their careers by gaining experience abroad.
The benefits of global work experience are so well-known that there are now a number of organizations that offer such placements. From paid positions to volunteer internships, traveling could be the best way to secure valuable work experience.
Learn a Language
Being bilingual or multilingual is an asset in any job role. When you can speak another language fluently, it opens doors that may have remained locked to you.
Being able to converse with clients, patients or customers in their native language can help you to build a rapport with them more easily, for example. Similarly, being able to communicate with colleagues in their native language can enhance in-house operations.
As well as increasing your employability, learning a language can enhance your own cognitive skills. Being bilingual is often associated with enhanced:
- Information processing
- Memory and recall
- Multi-tasking
- Decision making
Although you can learn a language from anywhere, it’s easier to pick up a new language when you’re immersed in it.
By spending time in another country and learning from native speakers, you will be able to understand, speak, read and write in a new language much more quickly than via other forms of learning.
Study Online
The internet means you no longer have to be in one location to study. With a number of reputable universities offering online courses and degrees, you can build your career from anywhere in the world.
Simply ensure that you’ll have access to the internet wherever you’re heading and throw your laptop or tablet into your suitcase.
While many courses can be completed online, some professions do require face-to-face training or on-site placements. However, this needn’t prevent you from traveling.
Condensed programs are a great way to complete a nursing degree more quickly than usual, without missing out on your education or training.
Furthermore, you can even combine online and on-site study. With accelerated nursing programs, for example, you can undertake much of your degree online and arrange on-site placements in advance.
This means you can study online while traveling and organize any placements for when you return.
Whatever profession you’re pursuing, you’ll find a variety of degree courses that offer flexible study arrangements. By studying online, you can gain the qualifications you need to advance your chosen career while traveling and exploring the world.
What Are the Perks to Being a Travel Nurse?
Earn Money While You Travel
If you’re worried about losing your income while you’re globetrotting, why not explore other options? Depending on your current job role, you may even find that your qualifications enable you to work overseas.
If not, there are a range of alternative ways you can generate an income while you’re traveling. These include:
- Working as a freelancer
- Teaching English
- Being a house sitter
- Becoming an au pair or nanny
- Writing a blog
- Taking casual jobs
With so many ways to earn an income while you’re traveling, there’s no need to cut your trip short when you find yourself running low on cash. Many people supplement their travel fund by working as a waiter or bartender while they’re island hopping.
Alternatively, online freelance work lets you travel anywhere in the world while picking up projects.
If you own a house or car, you could even generate income without doing a thing. Renting out a vehicle, room, or property way is a great way to maximize your income without having to sell your assets.
With letting managers and agencies on hand to organize the details, you can enjoy your trip while generating passive income.
Gain Life Experience
Traveling the world enables you to gain unparalleled life experience. Whether you’re going on a solo adventure, traveling with a partner or exploring with friends, you’ll learn more about yourself and the world while you’re away.
When it comes to your career, this life experience can be extremely valuable. Many people go from school to college to work, with little in the way of real-life experience.
Employers place a lot of value on people who have taken time out to gain life experience, so you could find that your travels actually enhance your career prospects, rather than harming them.
See the World and Start Your Career
If traveling is on your bucket list, waiting for the ‘right time’ may mean it becomes an unfulfilled ambition or a distant dream. While many people assume that traveling comes at a cost in terms of your career, this needn’t be the case.
With some careful planning and advanced organization, your travel plans can enhance your employability, give you critical work experience and help you to stand out from the crowd when you’re applying for jobs in the future.
In addition to this, you’ll find the real-life experience you gain from traveling helps you to connect with people more authentically which is advantageous in any job role.
With so many benefits associated with traveling, it’s easy to see why so many are looking to land travel nurse jobs. Exploring what the world has to offer while earning a good income, now that’s living intentionally.
