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Travel nursing offers endless opportunities for nurses seeking diverse career opportunities and a bigger paycheck while exploring new places around the country. If you travel nurse with family members, it also provides a chance for everyone to go on an amazing adventure. Whether you’re traveling with a spouse and/or children or bringing a four-legged family member, use these tips to make the most of the experience.
Is Travel Nursing with Family Allowed? Yes!
New travel nurses with families often wonder whether they can bring their family members with them on the road. It’s unlikely you’ll find a travel nurse agency that doesn’t allow their nurses to bring their loved ones along. Many recruiters even encourage it. However, some agencies are better at helping you with the logistics of travel nursing with your family than others. Ask the agency whether it has any recruiters used to working with families and could provide additional help working through the various challenges.
Pros and Cons of Traveling with Your Spouse
Travel nursing isn’t just for singles. It’s relatively common for spouses and significant others to accompany their traveling partners. Traveling with a partner can be a lot of fun as you explore new places together. It provides an ideal opportunity to roam the country at a much lower expense and without using up vacation days. If you have family members in other states you rarely get to visit, travel nursing might allow you to see them more regularly. Many couples also find that traveling together strengthens their relationships.
On the downside, employment can be an issue for your significant other, depending on their occupation. If they typically work on-site, finding a job in each new location can be challenging, especially for shorter 13-week assignments. However, one of the few things we might be able to thank the COVID-19 pandemic for is the rise of the work-from-home culture.
While remote working wasn’t a new concept, many companies embraced it when pandemic lockdowns made in-office work impossible in many fields. Thus, their current job may allow them to work remotely. While you work on the road, they work from home—wherever home might be. Vice versa, if your spouse works on the road, you might consider a work-from-home nursing job to travel with them. The table below shows the percentage of remote working options within various occupations.
Source: USA Today Blueprint via McKinsey & Company
Another potential downside for travel spouses is frequent moves make it difficult to develop friendships. It’s important that spouses have outside interests to put them in contact with like-minded individuals, especially if they’re not working outside the home. If you’re wondering what your spouse can do while you travel nurse, it really comes down to what they like to do.
Athletic spouses might consider joining a local gym or an adult recreational league. Bookworms can seek out book clubs. Artistic or musically inclined spouses might find something of interest through the parks and recreation department or an arts center. These are just a few possible places to find friendly companionship on the road and prevent them from becoming lonely while you’re at work.
Joys and Challenges of Traveling with Kids
Some major perks of travel nursing with family include spending more time with your kids and enjoying crucial milestones in their lives that you might otherwise miss. The time when your kids are young is fleeting, and you never get it back. Bringing your kids along allows you to enjoy many more moments together. Plus, kids often enjoy these extended family vacations.
Traveling with your kids also provides numerous opportunities to see new sights and discover new things together. In addition to kid-friendly activities like zoos, amusement parks, arcades, etc., look for interesting museums, art galleries, state and national parks and other venues to expand your children’s cultural experiences.
As you travel to various regions of the country, each new location exposes your children to different cuisines, cultures and traditions. This exposure provides unique learning experiences that help mold your youngsters into more adaptable adults who embrace diversity.
Despite the many joys, travel nursing with kids also comes with a slew of challenges. The top concern is usually schooling. You don’t want them to miss out on a solid education. While it’s possible to register them for public schools in each location, especially if you choose extended contracts, it’s not always the ideal plan for every child. You can also opt to only travel nurse during summer vacations. You might consider homeschooling if your spouse comes along and works from home. Although homeschooling has become increasingly popular, It’s crucial to consider multiple factors before making this educational decision.
Another option is virtual schools. Virtual schooling also became necessary for parents nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic and school shutdowns. Virtual public school programs still exist if your child previously adapted well to the online learning environment. These programs provide students with consistency and a good education through tuition-free, K-12 online classes taught by state-certified teachers.
If you opt out of in-person instruction, find activities that allow your children to interact with other kids their age. Finding ways to hang out with other kids can present another potential complication. Like spouses who find it challenging to make new friends after each move, children face a similar problem. Leaving their friends behind can be especially difficult for kids, but making new friends can be rewarding. Plus, with modern conveniences, keeping in touch with their old and new friends is much easier with texting, video chat and kid-friendly social platforms.
If you’re a single parent and travel nurse, it puts a bit more pressure on you, but it can still be done. Besides the usual concerns, single parents potentially face the additional difficulty of finding trustworthy childcare in each new location. Vetting daycare facilities or babysitting/nanny services is another hurdle to consider, even for nurses who travel with a spouse/partner when both work outside the home.
Tips for Travel Nursing with Pets
Pets are an extended part of your family, and their support and companionship make travel nursing more enjoyable. Most travel nurse agencies usually welcome furry friends, but housing can sometimes be an issue. Not all travel nurse housing is pet-friendly, so you must explore this vital issue every time you search for suitable accommodations. In addition to potentially having fewer housing options, be prepared to pay pet fees, which are often non-refundable and can be pricey.
Pets also change the dynamics in other ways and present unique challenges like documentation and other requirements. While many states only have rules governing livestock, some also have animal health requirements regarding pets. When traveling to/through states with what’s sometimes referred to as “pet checkpoints,” appropriate documentation is critical.
At a minimum, you must be able to provide proof of current rabies vaccination. Some states may require additional vaccinations or other requirements, such as an interstate health certificate from your veterinarian. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service offers a database of interstate pet travel rules by state that provides a good starting point.
Your vet should be able to tell you everything you need to know about traveling with your pet. You can also contact the state animal health officials in the states you’re traveling to/through for more information. If you’re flying by plane instead of driving, different airlines may require several types of certifications and proof of treatment for tapeworms.
Take the time to research and ask questions because some states are extremely strict and quarantine pets when pet parents don’t meet every requirement. Quarantines can last 120 days—that’s a long time for Fido or Fifi to be locked in a cage away from you. Start prepping several months in advance and get your pet microchipped in case you become separated from each other.
Do Travel Nurses Get Stipends for Their Family?
Stipends are tax-free monies paid to qualified travelers to cover housing, meals and other incidentals and are an essential part of your overall pay package. Travel contracts include a set dollar amount for stipends and don’t usually take into account whether you’re traveling with family members. Most travel nurse agencies typically cap stipends to avoid losing money. Although you can negotiate for larger stipends, be prepared to pay at least part of your travel costs yourself, including housing.
RELATED: How Travel Nurse Housing Stipends Work
Housing and the Travel Nurse Family
One of the significant benefits of travel nursing is free housing—if you qualify. When you travel nurse with family, you still qualify for housing, but it might not be completely free. Depending on your housing needs, you may pay out of pocket for rent or receive a reduced pay rate if you take agency-provided housing. Your home away from home must meet everyone’s needs to make each assignment more successful and enjoyable for every family member.
Travel nurse housing for families works in different ways based on your situation. If you’re only traveling with your significant other, the one-bedroom apartment they put you in should still work. Larger accommodations are the norm if you add one or more kids to the mix. Before taking a travel nursing job, speak with your recruiter about your family’s housing needs, especially if you’re taking agency-provided housing. If you opt for the housing stipend and find your own lodgings, research the area you plan on working in to gain insight into local rental prices.
RELATED: 10 Best Websites for Finding Travel Nurse Housing
Travel Nursing and Relationships
Travel nursing can be hard on your relationship with your entire family when you leave them behind. Leaving your spouse and/or your children for long stretches at a time while you’re on the road can negatively impact your bond with them. One positive bonus of bringing them along is the ability to spend more time together, which can help strengthen your bond with everyone.
However, if your family doesn’t want to travel and you don’t want to be too far away for too long, choose travel assignments close to home. You still benefit from many of the perks of travel nursing, but assignments within a few hours of your home allow you to return home on your off days. If you choose this route, look for contracts with three 12-hour shifts to make the drive back and forth from your work location worthwhile.
RELATED: What Are Local Agency Travel Nurse Contracts?
You Can Travel Nurse with Family
Engaging in travel nursing with a family is a huge decision that has many aspects to consider. Although it requires some prep work, the payoff is spending more time with your family while potentially earning a significantly higher income. Travel nursing with family opens up so many possibilities to create memories that last a lifetime. Every family is unique, but traveling together is doable with advanced planning and sometimes a little or a lot of patience and/or creativity.
Where are you headed first? Begin your search by looking at some top travel nurse locations nationwide.
