2012 will be a big year for us. We have started a web design business and two travel blogs. Additionally, we are considering the purchase of a large motor home so that we can become permanent travelers. That right there lets you know how we feel about travel nursing, but let’s go back to the beginning.

We became full-time travelers in October of 2011 and were recently asked about what led us into this lifestyle.  Was there a firm decision and moment of clarity that set our feet on the road? Sure, but it came after finally acknowledging the existence of, and giving in to, our own gypsy natures.

There is also a depressing aspect of our journey that, in my opinion, follows the decline of American manufacturing. As a maintenance electrician, I have witnessed the fall with my own eyes. I was one of the last to go as I watched Cessna Aircraft cut 10,000 workers in Wichita. Thus, with broken loyalty and fresh wounds, I quit my next job two months before they shut the plant down and absorbed the business into another facility. I couldn’t watch it happen again, but as you can imagine, it did.

Long story short, it was time for a career change. At some point during all of this, I went back to college for Web Design and started taking classes online.

Looking back, I can see that we were already “amateur” road warriors. In our 17 years of marriage, Melissa and I have moved 14 times and have lived in 7 cities. I literally dragged the poor woman all across the Midwest while I went from one manufacturing plant to the next.

What we learned is that dodging lay-offs and continually working for struggling companies places a huge burden on the entire family. The sad truth is that we have only been able to work the same hours for 6 of the last 18 years, and take one vacation per decade. It hurts because, after shopping, sightseeing is her passion in this world.

I can see now that we were damaging her resume while trying to maintain high wages and provide for the family. Because of this, Melissa has worked for seven different hospitals in the last five years prior to taking her first travel assignment.  We can joke about it now and refer to it as “travel training”.

As the situation and our emotions were heating up, here is a picture of where we were at:

• We had sold our last home 2 years earlier.
• Our current lease was coming up.
• Junior had gone off to college recently, so we were empty-nested.
• My “new” job required us to go days without seeing each other.
• Most importantly, Melissa was fed up with our lives and lack of adventure.

For as long as it takes Melissa to make a decision, the world sure moves when she finally does. Maybe she was just waiting for me to throw in the towel. I still don’t know, but here is how it went down.

I came home from work one day and said, “I give up. Manufacturing no longer provides an acceptable future. It’s time to deliver pizzas or something until I graduate.” She must have seen it coming because her reply was several steps ahead of me. She says, “Well, I have been speaking with a nursing recruiter lately, and I want you to be my Sherpa. You can finish college, take care of everything, and drive me to work every day while I make the money.”  Since Cessna took all my manly pride during my first layoff, all I said was, “do you want me to wear an apron?”

We were packed and headed for the mountains two weeks later and have slept in the same bed at the same time every day since leaving. Feels kind of like being married for a change.

You may have noticed we have a new design and site structure. We hope it will make TravelNursingBlogs.com easier for you to find the info you need to have a great travel nursing career.

In addition to tweaking the logo a little and changing the color we added the ability for 5 more posts to sit in our featured posts area. They rotate between two groups of three every 7 seconds or you can slide them over by hitting the arrows on either side of the carousel.

We also restructured the page links at the top of the site, which now include:

Home - This is pretty self explanatory, it is the main page of TravelNursingBlogs.com

Ask a Travel Nurse - Here is where you can learn about our featured travel nursing author David Morrsion, RN and ask him questions about travel nursing

Travel Nurse Resources - All of the key travel nursing resources we have been adding to the site over the years are under this link 

• Travel Nursing Article Archives
• Travel Nursing Checklist Part 1
• Travel Nursing Checklist Part 2
• Travel Nursing Checklist Part 3
• Useful Travel Nursing Websites
• Cost of Living Calculator

Search Travel Nursing Jobs - Here you can search newly updated travel nursing jobs every two weeks

About - This is where you can learn more about TravelNursingBlogs.com and its authors

 We also reorganized some of the links by grouping posts into more general areas, which include:

Featured - This where all of the weekly feautured travel nursing posts go, this is a great spot to find some of our best past posts

Nursing – Here is where posts that are more about nursing in general, nursing burnout or the nursing shortage go

Travel Nursing – This is our default category for all our posts so it is a great place to browse around

Travel Nursing Blog Admin – Under this category we put all the posts by different authors and boring admin items like this post ;

Travel Nursing Career Advice - This one of our most robust categories with tons of advice to help you get ahead of the pack when it comes to your travel nurse career. It has sub-categories like:  

• Ask a Travel Nurse
• Travel Nurse Company
• Travel Nurse Finances
• Travel Nursing Benefits
• Travel Nursing Checklist
• Travel Nursing Industry

Travel Nursing Jobs - Each week, in addition to our mass job postings under the Search Travel Nursing Jobs link, we also post one or two Featured Travel Nursing Jobs that are organized here now by state or specialty

Travel Nursing Life - This is the category were we deal with the lighter side of travel nursing and discuss things like: 

• Life on the Road
• Safety tips for travel nurses
• Scrubs
• Travel guides for nurses
• Travel Nurse Housing
• Travel Nursing Fun
• Travel nursing photo tips
• Travel Nursing Tips
• Travel Nursing Twitter Posts
• Travel Nursing Wellness

Travel Nursing Questions - Here is where a series of key common questions about travel nursing and their answers can be found

In addition, we have added some new functionality that we hope will make it easier for you to get the info you need from TravelNursingBlogs.com. You can now subscribe to the feed using FeedBurner, which means you can include us in your blog reader easier. And we added the option for you to subscribe to a daily email that will deliver the latest posts to your inbox.

In the end we hope this redesign will improve your experience with TravelNursingBlogs.com, but we would also love your feedback on the redesign, so leave a comment below, or send me an email at Jeff.Long@TravelNursingBlogs.com.

So when my husband informed me that he wanted to quit his stable job with amazing benefits to become a travel nurse, I’ll admit I thought he was going off the deep end. But if he’s crazy, then I’m crazy too, because I promptly put in my two week notice and started shopping for designer luggage.

We’ve now been traveling for ten months, and it has been quite an adventure. We’ve learned a lot, grown much closer, and made some great memories together. But it hasn’t always been easy. Traveling has been more challenging than we ever imagined. Our life on the road has many ups, downs, twists, and turns; but at least it has never been boring.

There are many great resources out there for travel nurses. But as I quickly found, the spouses of travel nurses often feel left out of the picture. I can’t quote any impressive statistics, but it seems to me that most travel nurses leave their spouses behind. After one assignment, I can understand why. The families of travel nurses have their own set of struggles and challenges, and often lack the feeling of community that the nurses share on the road.

I hope that by sharing my experiences and some things I’ve learned along the way, I can help you other spouses cope with the traveling life, and maybe even learn to love it.

Courtney
Adventures in Travel Nursing

Here is a little bit about Courtney and her husband. Courtney is a freelance writer. Her husband, Brandon, is an Emergency Department travel nurse. Courtney travels with Brandon across the country. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, photography, and painting. She keeps a blog about their travel nursing experiences at http://www.brandonandcourtney.blogspot.com, and is currently working on a book detailing the ins and outs of travel nursing.

• Travel Nursing Resources
• Nursing Information
• Nursing Resources
• Nursing Organizations
• Nursing Education
• Nursing Niche Sites
• Nursing Social Networks
• Travel Nursing Blogs
• Nursing Supplies
• Nursing Other
• Hospital Information
• Moving Resources
• Travel Resources
• Housing Information
• City Information
• Settling In Tips
• Day-to-Day Living Tips
• Personal Health Tips
• Financial Resources
• Social Networking Resources

Take a look and report back with any sites you think they missed.

Those of you who have travelled before will relate to their stories and for those of you who are considering travel nursing, you can gain some valuable insight from their experiences. Enjoy!

Patricia Lederman
Group Editor
plederman@advanstar.com

Bobbi Harrison
Managing Editor
bharrison@advanstar.com

Jennifer Samuels
Associate Editor
jennifer.samuels@advanstar.com

If you read Healthcare Traveler magazine then you are already aware of the kind of info and quality they will bring to the travel nursing blog universe. Check out their blog and tell them TravelNursingBlogs.com sent you.

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.

• The highlighted Travel Nursing Tips section
• The Featured Article
• The new Featured Travel Nursing Jobs Page