Why Travel Nursing?
If you are like me, you may have planned to finish nursing school, get a job, and work to make the hourly rate for your province in order to pay off your student loans, perhaps save for a wedding, house, or even retirement, all while working to eventually enjoy your measly 3 to 4 weeks off per year.
To some degree or another, our stories are all quite similar.
However, what if another option existed that would allow you to set new limits on yourself and escape the rat race?
We’ll cover the reasons why Canadian nurses should consider travel nursing to the United States... both for the benefits down south and due to the drawbacks here in Canada.
Hopefully, these reasons resonate with you too.
I’ll also share my story and why I decided to become a U.S. travel nurse.
How I started travel nursing
I was working during covid when my manager announced, "No vacation for at least a year." Since unused vacation rolls over to the next year, it would mean every senior nurse would have twice as much vacation as me (since I just moved from Winnipeg to Ottawa and had zero seniority) and I would be lucky to get a vacation in 2 to 3 years. The idea started there.
I started looking into travel nursing to the United States.
I heard rumours of those INSANE contracts for ICU nurses during covid that were easily 10-14k/week (USD).
After a rocky year or two of getting sick (presumably with covid) and dealing with a chronic condition, I was utterly burnt-out and had decreased working from full-time to part-time to try and manage things better.
And this meant a big financial hit.
My student debts were reliably always there, following me around. It felt like years of just paying off the interest and sometimes not even that. There is certainly nothing like six-figures of debt to spur you into action. So, I began the process of going to the U.S...
I started looking into travel nursing to the States but there weren't many resources out there. Mainly, I had Reddit and Facebook as my only options to educate myself.
1) Reddit, of course, being notorious for trolls and unrelated topics. I would look up something nursing related and end up on a thread dedicated to baking with zucchini...
2) Facebook was the most useful, but the group I found was a mainly about Canadian travel nursing within Canada (about 65-70%). Even webinars with accountants were not meant for Canadian to U.S. travel nurses. I began to think, there should be more resources out there. There should be a book or guide or a facebook group meant solely for Canadian to U.S. travel nursing. But none of that existed. I was left to shift through tons of irrelevant comments and posts.
Beginning to dream big...
It took me about 10 months to get my TN visa, state license, find a great recruiter (Dillon Cram) and onboard with his agency (RNNetwork), get submitted to contracts, interview, accept the job, get all the credentialing completed, and then drive down roughly 10 days prior to the start date.
Ultimately, I found the pay to be very high, much higher than I expected because of my specialty, state and time of year.
The amount I made left me thinking that I could work just one contract per year and make a Canadian nurse's full time salary for a year!
*To deal with that debt that follows me around, I ended up doing a second contract for even more money than the first contract. Overall, I was able to pay off roughly 70k (Cdn) of debt and still had put enough away for the next six to seven months for when I returned to Canada.
Bigger ideas and dreams crossed my mind.
In May 2023, after working 6 months (2 contracts), I took off the rest of the year in order to...
- Travel for the first time in 2 years (a mother-daughter American road trip, two visits my hometown of Winnipeg, Montreal, a big trip to South Korea + Japan for a month, and Quebec City at Christmastime)
- Work casually (to keep up my skills and socialize with the work family)
- Spend more time on a book project (2.5 years and still ongoing)
So, here I am, just back from visiting my family in Winnipeg, practicing Korean daily, working out, and I don't have a shift at my hospital in Canada for a week. And, of course, I am working on the Facebook group, website and resources.
So what about you?
What is stopping you from doing the same thing?*
*It does depend on your specialty, state(s) you want to work in, and time of year you want to take a contract. Also, sometimes trends or dry spells happen where there are possibly too many travel nurses looking for contracts vs. job postings or just the overall hospital-market forces.
5
Major reasons
to travel nurse to the United States
First, the biggest draw overall for Canadian nurses seemed to be the money. Whether it was to pay off debt, pay for a big upcoming expense (such as a wedding or a house), save up to retire early, or to offset the increasing inflation and cost-of-living in Canada, nurses commented that the money was too high to ignore.
Secondly, many Canadian nurses cited working conditions being possibly better; or if on par with Canadian working conditions, at least the pay was higher to make up for the burnout, worsening nurse-to-patient ratios, violence, harassment, and staffing shortages.
Third, travel nursing to the United States was mentioned as a way for nurses to escape the rat race. Rather than working 3-5 days a week all year long, travel nursing meant more overall money, time off, and better work-life balance. As a travel nurse, YOU decide when you work and the hours and vacations that YOU want.
Fourth, travel nursing gives nurses the opportunity to live and travel for extended periods of time anywhere in the world.
The options are literally endless.
Some nurses simply want to work somewhere warm during the colder months (ie. snowbird in the U.S.) and then return to Canada.
Others may want to continually go back and forth home to Canada to their families, or to another country (e.g. the U.K.) or some want to visit a new country every year for half of the year like a true nomad.
Many people dream of living in a tropical paradise, waking up to look at the Eiffel Tower every morning, or enjoying afternoon tea in London every day. However, as a travel nurse, you can take an assignment or two every year and spend the other 6 months of the year anywhere you feel like.
For one year, you could spend 6 months on assignments, and then the other half of the year in Italy, drinking wine and learning to critique art.
The following year, you could live in South Korea and learn Korean and how to make the perfect ramen.
The list goes on of the opportunities available to you that many non-travel nurses couldn’t even dream of!
As a staff nurse, I was grateful just to get Christmas off every other year and a measly 3 to 4 weeks of vacation... Well, no more!
Finally, number five. More time off.
Travel nursing to the United States gives Canadian nurses a chance to work less and get more time off over the course of a year.
This is especially helpful for nurses who are working on alternative careers, their own businesses, or other ventures.
Likewise, on an existential level, I am not sure if many will agree, but I cannot fathom working a 9-to-5 job for the next thirty years, day-in-and-day-out waiting to one day be able to retire and live life to the fullest. With travel nursing, I could potentially even retire much, much earlier!
Meanwhile in Canada...
Because Nurses in Canada Cannot Legally Strike
There are numerous drawbacks to continuing to practice within Canada.
Bill 124: 1% Wage Increase
Relevant to many Ontario nurses and other Canadian nurses in other provinces who find themselves in a similar situation… This may have been changed recently, but doesn’t change the fact that provinces’ do not value their nurses and it reflects in our pay and raises.
“In 2019, the Ford government introduced and passed Bill 124, wage-suppression legislation negatively impacting registered nurses, nurse practitioners, health-care professionals and other public-sector workers. This bill limits wage increases to a maximum of one percent total compensation for each of three years. As nurses and health-care professionals, we do our best to provide high-quality care to our patients, residents, and clients day in and day out. Our invaluable work has never been more apparent than during the pandemic and ongoing health-care staffing crisis. We deserve equity, fairness and respect.” - Per ONA (https://www.ona.org/about-bill-124/)
Inflation
If you consider that nurses in Ontario were only getting a 1% wage increase and then finally got a cost-of-living adjustment of 11% over 3 years (2022-2024); and then consider the inflation rate for Canada was 6.8% in 2022, 3.9% in 2023 and it is projected to be at least 2% in 2024, it means simply a cost-of-living adjustment and is not a raise whatsoever. Nurses must still tighten their budget for housing, groceries and all other living expenses. Canadian nurses are still losing some spending power and likely future years will see little improvement. After nurses went above and beyond during a pandemic, it is a disgusting way to say “thank you.” It also makes living in densely populated cities like Toronto or Vancouver increasingly difficult.
Although, I keep a casual position in Canada because I have loved ones, friends and family, here... The high attrition and lack of retention in Canada sends a message!
Scouting
I’m sure, like many nurses, if you subscribe to various social media and job sites, you have likely received some messages offering contracts for nurses. I found I was frequently getting recruiters scouting me for American nursing contracts. Throughout the past couple of years, I watched as contracts have steadily increased in both pay and sheer number of positions posted. And the demand for nurses in my specialty has skyrocketed with every indication that it will only worsen as 15-20% of nurses in my specialty are expected to retire within the next 5-10 years (and we are not replacing ourselves fast enough). Eventually, the money being offered became too ridiculous to ignore any longer. For me, one 13-week contract to the United States (after taxes) is equal to a full-time Canadian nurse's annual salary (before taxes). Nuf’ said.
Working Conditions
I alluded to this already, but the basic premise is that the working conditions are similar across Canada and the United States ie. everywhere is short. This takes a toll on those still left fighting the good fight. Burnout, violence, harassment, denial of vacation time, etc. are all sadly expected everywhere you go now. The only difference I see, is that in the United States, at least you are being paid what you deserve, what nurses deserve. In fact, some hospitals have ‘patient codes of conduct’ now. These are put in place to protect staff and the policies basically say that if a patient is going to be inappropriate to staff, they can seek care elsewhere and will be made to leave. I have also seen conversations among American nurses who are suing patients or their families for their harassing or violent conduct. To my knowledge, I have never seen anything like either of these things available as a recourse to nurses in Canada who find themselves the victims of such behaviour.
Testimony
See Sarah Gaines’s story about quitting after bereavement and poor management
