Here are just a few hobbies, interests or passions that go great with travel nursing:

• Running
• Photography
• Historian
• Genealogy
• Writing
• Mountain Biking
• Antiquing
• Hiking
• Roller Coaster Chasing
• Shopping
• Following your favorite band
• Hunting
• Fishing
• Watching your favorite pro sports team

Basically, travel nursing can give you a lot more access to anything you are an aficionado of, whether it is visiting wine country, attending county fairs or seeing every lighthouse in the country. The choices are endless. What would you add? What hobbies have you been able to enjoy more as a travel nurse?

• Sort your photos into either themes or chronological order. Keep the groups small and simple you will only want 3-6 pictures on each page.
• Pick your album based on how many photos you have. With lots of photos you will need an album with large pages. If you think you will need to add more pages later on get an expandable and refillable album. And of course remember to get sheet protectors.
• A good set of cropping scissors is crucial. And make sure you don’t cut anything important out of the photo you may want to have in the future. In fact, before you start make a back up of all the pictures you are going to use.
• It is all about the color so choose wisely. The best way to find the right color is to experiment and see what works.
• Don’t forget the decoration. Simple mats and other borders and backgrounds are the elements of a great scrapbook. Use acid-free glue or tape “splits” to keep your photos protected.
• Remember the memories. Stories and information to accompany each photo creates more emotional for value for your scrapbook. Always keep in mind the five W’s; Who, What, When, Where and Why.

If you want to learn more (and I am sure you will) here is a list of some great links that can point you in the right direction.

ScrapBooking.com
ScrapJazz
Creative Memories
Scrapbooking 101
About.com: Scrapbooking
Addicted to Scrapbooking
All Things Scrapbooking
ScrapScene
Scrapbooking Directory
Scrapbook’s Scrapbook

Here are a few other cool scrapbooking sites that you might find kind of fun. At All Things Scrapbooking they have a list of all the top scrapbooking blogs on the web, a must resource for the serious scrapbooker.

This site, Picaboo, lets you design a scrapbook online and then have it printed and shipped to yourself or send it as a gift to someone. Happy memory collecting and travel nursing.

Some of the other healthcare careers look pretty intersting too. If you get second it is worth looking at the whole list.

However, if you are in a situation where you are working with a new company, it is a little more difficult to guarantee which Recruiter you end up with. Often when you call in you will be forwarded to a Recruiter who you have never met before. She will try to strike up a relationship with you. It is important that you feel comfortable. Often a Recruiter is the face of the company to travel nurses like you so one bad experience may turn you off to a particular company. That is why in this situation it is best to do some research. Spend some time online in nursing forums and nurse social networking sites asking for the names of good Recruiters and good travel nursing companies. Ask around at the hospital too. Most likely your hospital has travelers in it who can fill you in on rn travel companies and nurse recruiters for the good or bad.

Another thing to keep in mind is to find out, when you first start talking to a company, whether or not you will have the same Recruiter for your entire career with that company or if they will move you from Recruiter to Recruiter depending on where you are working. This is defintely a situation you want to avoid, otherwise you will have to build a new relationship with each travel nursing assignment and in travel nursing the nurse/recruiter relationship is too valuable to need to be rebuilt with every change of region.

Once you are finally on the phone with the Recruiter, this is your chance to interview them. Pull out your checklist of items that you have pre-written (see Travel nursing checklist items #3, 4 and 5). Ask a lot of questions. Ask them until you feel comfortable. Find out how much they know about your specialty because your needs may be completely different than someone who has a different nursing specialty. Try to spend some extra time trying to get to know them on a personal level. It will help if any tough situations arise knowing you have a friend on your side.

Remember this is probably the most important part of the travel nursing process so take the time to make sure it is done right. For the rest of the Ultimate Travel Nursing Checklist click here.

Also we gave each author their own page. There may be other small changes in the future, but nothing drastic. If we do we will be sure to let you know.

Some other tips to keep in mind are to be very organized with your paperwork and be super careful as you leave each travel nursing housing assignment to not leave any personal documents behind.

You also need to be very cautious online and use firewalls, anti-spyware, and anti-virus software to protect your computer from hackers and spyware. Also when you are applying online make sure that it is a secure site, which you can tell by looking at the URL. You should see a “s” after the standard http. Https stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer” which you can learn more about here.

Here are some other great resources for protecting your identity during your travel nursing assignment.
Fraud.org
The FTC’s Identity Theft Site