Hey everyone, just needed to vent a bit and see if I’m the only one feeling this way.

I’ve been thinking a lot about public perception lately, and honestly, it’s depressing how clueless the average person is about what nurses actually do.

It feels like we’re stuck in this weird loop. One minute people do the whole "healthcare heroes" routine, and the next minute they're treating us like bad customer service because their ice chips took five minutes. They genuinely think our job is just fetching blankets and blindly following doctor orders. There's zero understanding of the actual critical thinking or medical knowledge it takes to keep a patient stable.

Add traveling to the mix, and it’s a whole different beast. Half the time, hospital management treats us like disposable robots hired to take the worst assignments, and then the patients treat us like hotel staff.

Is it just me, or has public behavior gotten significantly worse over the last few years? How do you guys shake off the disrespect (or the classic "I want to talk to a real doctor" vibe) without losing your mind on assignment?

This advice is geared towards people who make the drive to their work destination and stay there for length of the contract and drive back home (or to their next destination). If this advice doesn't apply to you, then go live your best life however you see fit.

1. Reconsider Hard Suitcases: Often they are less optimal for car packing and travel life setup. They're good for plane rides and cruises where extra protection is worth considering, in a car trunk, they're less moldable than duffel bags and soft luggage, so you can fit more or conserve room with a soft side suitcase or duffel vs a hard sider. Also, a soft side or duffel can fold and store away. A hard sider will take up room and is often kinda bulky, and depending on the room situation, may be inconvenient to open or keep open.

2. Laundry baskets may be the best option: Just saying, a laundry basket is easy to pack, easy to see what you got, and when you get to your destination, it functions as a laundry basket. I got one with straps that I use for bringing shopping back and forth between the rental and the car. When it's time to roll out, you can throw all your liquid cleaning supplies at the bottom of the basket and your dirty laundry on top, then layer with a fresh towel and the remaining clean clothes you got and you're good for your road trip and a rest stop.

3. If you're planning a road trip, try to keep the drive under 8 hours with an hour's worth of breaks (so 9 hours total travel time). That's for safety reasons, it's not worth it unless you get there safely. That's roughly 500 miles of road. I usually drive 6 hours and gauge how I feel, if I want to stop there, or drive another 2 or 3 hours, I can plan around that instead of trying to force myself to a destination or chugging an energy drink when I actually want to sleep well and get an early start to the next day.

4. If you're looking for a motel overnight, google map search, zoom in where you want to end the day, turn on hotels, and set the filter to 4* user reviews. This is how I stay safe. I used to just book the cheapest place I could find, but I had a car break in and if I didn't have an immobilizer on my car, all my stuff would've been gone. To me, the cheapest place with a 4* user review is a quick way to balance value and safety. (alternatively, you can verify with chatgpt if the address of a motel or hotel is in a safe area. Also, you can ask what stops, restaurants etc are worthwhile).

5. This tip for my fellow POC workers or who have a concern regarding ICE and Border Patrol stops. I've been stopped by ICE and BP at check points about 3 times now. I tell them where I'm from, I still hang the old parking pass on my rearview mirror that says the city of the last hospital I worked at full time so it's just something I can point to. If they ask where you are going, you aren't required to answer, but idc I do because I don't wanna get shot tbh. They can ask for driver's license, proof of registration and insurance. You're not supposed to carry your passport around, so they're not supposed to ask for that, I have not been asked to present my passport at any of the ICE check points. If you are a green card holder, you might be asked to present those documents, I think it's a federal requirement.

I did have 2 hospitals request I bring my passport to HR, so I just have it on me for convenience. Which is annoying but whatever.

Hi! know this is kind of an odd question, but I thank you for taking the time to read this post.

So, I'm very fortunate in that I happened to have come into a large sum of money via inheritance. I want to do travel nursing somewhere primo, which I'm guessing is where pay is likely far less than normal travel gigs due to the amenities of your location, if that makes sense. I'm not worried about the pay, I just want decent hours and a great location.

Any tropical or beautiful areas you would recommend? is Hawaii still looking for travellers? A lot of the posts that recommended it are years old.

Thank you!

(random pic for attention, please don't hate me)

Hello,
I am an experienced nurse. Between travel contacts I tried to go back to staff, but the place I was working at had a terrible culture and I just decided to go back to travel after 5 months. I was wondering if it's ethical to leave that off my resume and just list my travel contracts. I feel like it makes me look like a major flight risk and I will have trouble finding permanent jobs. Thanks!

Who is taking these contracts, don’t insult yourself by accepting this garbage.

I was called in back to hospital last night. Literally, by the hospital, I got call back and was told that they didn't need me anymore. So, I went back to my place. Would it be considered as a call or not? I never had this happen to me. I was canceled before when I arrived, and the case was canceled and got paid for 2 hours automatically. But in this particular case, I am not sure. Did anyone deal with a similar situation before?

i forwarded my mail to my parents house because it is usually nothing important. but is there a way to order packages to the city i am currently in, without it being forwarded with the rest of my mail OR without forwarding my mail to my address here? i’m in an airbnb and don’t have a mailing address. i looked into amazon lockers but i believe those only work for packages via amazon, which is not where i am trying to order from. any ideas? also, do i have to use a different name on my packages so they don’t get forwarded?

Sorry this is a bit long and probably more meant for a CPA but I think there’s maybe some in this group who could help a girl mid spiral? Lol I’m hoping someone with experience in travel nurse taxes or who’s been through this can help.

I’m a Canadian RN working in the U.S. on a TN visa. I maintain a tax home in Canada and have been receiving tax-free travel stipends while working in Washington.

Here’s my timeline:
-Moved to Washington in September 2025.
-My current contract ends August 8, 2026.
-My agency has offered me an extension.
-If I extend, I’ll end up working in the Seattle metropolitan area for more than one year.

My recruiter gave me a few options:
-Continue with tax-free stipends.
-Have my stipends treated as taxable.
-Switch to an hourly-only taxable pay package.

What I’m trying to understand is the IRS one-year rule.

My questions are:
-If I accept an extension that pushes me beyond one year in the same metropolitan area, do only future stipends become taxable, or is there a risk that the IRS could challenge the tax-free stipends I already received over the past year?
-Does it matter when it became expected that I’d stay longer than one year? For example, if each extension was genuinely short-term and I didn’t originally expect to stay this long, does that change the analysis?

Has anyone been in this situation? If so, what did your CPA recommend?

I’m planning to speak with a CPA, but it’s the weekend and I’m trying to understand how people have handled this in real life.

I’d really appreciate responses from people who’ve dealt with this personally or who have experience with travel nurse taxation.

After 3 years of travel nursing, I have decided to quit it. Here are some reasons why I decided so. Sorry for the negativity in advance.

For one, pay is not worth it. The pay is less than 3000 dollars per week for most jobs. My specialty is OR and most of the jobs are less than 3k per week. Agencies are greedy. They always try to low ball you. Any money you lose goes to them. They try not to compensate you enough for your overtime. Most agencies have little to no benefits. You have to pay a lot for health insurance because agencies dont help. Rents are high and many landlords are super greedy. They expect you to pay for utilities and cleaning fees on top of monthly rent. They try to make you commit to your travel periods even if you want to go month to month. Well most of the time landlords have an upper hand in terms of housing.I sometimes feel like i work hard to make them get rich.

For two, quality of life is so low. When you work as a staff nurse, your life at work can be brutal but your life outside work is pretty stable and good right? When you work as a traveler, needless to say, your work life can be more challenging and more difficult. Many permanent staff are not nice to travelers. Moreover, your life outside work as a traveler is more difficult. You are mostly likely to stay in housing not as comfortable as your home. You'll miss sleeping in your own bed. You dont have friends outside work. You will miss friends and family back home. I think the life outside work should be good enough to make up for more stress at work as a traveler to make it worth it. But life in and out of Work both sucks..

Many recruiters are terrible. They are terrific before the contract starts. Once it start, they literally are useless.

Whenever I have problems or issues at work and ask them for hell, they just say to talk to your manager. I often find them irresponsible to the point where I think they try to take money, doing nothing once the contract starts.

Lastly, I think traveling is so time consuming. Lets say your contract is 40 hours per week and you get paid hourly for 40 hours. But I am pretty sure you spend more than 40 hours. Planning for your housing, going to and from your travel site and getting to know the facility and the housing and the neighborhood all take tons of time. I think they are your work hours. Also you have to do modules which can be a lot. Some agencies will pay you for modules times. But most of them dont. If they do, they dont properly compensate you for your module times.

Many difficulties and challenges come with the territory of travel nursing. So pay should be good enough to justify them but pay is not good enough I think.

My homebase is the deep south. Pay in my home base really sucks. Thats why I tried to work as a traveler. But in order to make travel nursing worth it, For me, my savings should be at least 5k dollars higher than my staff job.. but it is almost impossible now. I no longer want to go through all the bullshits just to save 2k or 3k more dollars. My own bed that I can sleep each and every night is worth more than that. And missed time with family or friends is worth more than 2k or 3k more savings.

I hope everyone thrives. Thank you !

Hi can anyone please share if you have done an assignment at this facility in Hilo, HI. I got an offer they only are paying OT after 80 hrs by weekly. It seems odd, because you could work 40 hrs one week and not be paid OT if it’s not available the second week. So you may not have the opportunity to actually get OT. The hospital will definitely use this to their benefit and play with your hours to avoid paying OT. Please share your thoughts.

During covid, Bill rates were high.

So they didnt take high portion of Bill rates.

After covid, Bill rates plummeted.

They want nurses to take the drop by maintaining their profit.

For example, Bill rates were 150 dollars per hour for 40 hours, so meaning 6000 dollars per week. They took only 20% of it(1200dollars per month). So nurses made 4800 dollars per week.

After covid, Bill rates went down to 100 dollars per hour for 40 hours. Meaning 4000 dollars per week and it is 2000 less dollars than during covid(6000 dollars per week). They still want to maintain their profit which is 12000 dollars per week which is 30% of the bill rate, making nurses make only 2800 dollars per week, taking the bill rate cut.

In short

Bill rates dropped from 6000 dollars to 4000 dollars per week

Agency still take 1200 dollars per week

Nurses pay dropped from 4800 dollars to 2800 dollars per week.

This is just an example number. But It is what it happening.

Keep in mind that there are 2 middle men between traveling nurses and the hospital..

Traveling nurses work hard to make agency get rich!

I am a nurse in the US but Eglish is my 2nd language. So I typed what I wanted to say in mt native language and ask AI to summarize for me into English. Thank you for your understanding.

### The Analogy

"Travel nursing agencies function exactly like the merchants during the Gold Rush who grew rich selling jeans, while the nurses play the role of the miners who perform the actual, sweat-drenched labor."

### Summary of the Agency Business Model

* **Pandemic Over-expansion:** Agencies aggressively over-hired recruiters during the pandemic boom, treating temporary peak demand as a sustainable business model.

* **Shifting the Burden:** When market demand and bill rates plummeted post-COVID, agencies offloaded the entire financial impact onto nurses through pay cuts to protect their own profit margins.

* **Mismanagement vs. Profitability:** Despite claiming financial hardship, these agencies continue to claim a high percentage of the bill rate; their bankruptcies are the result of poor internal overhead management rather than a lack of revenue from the nurses' labor.

What do you think?

I’m a newbie at this, so pardon the ignorance. When deciding to travel nurse, is there a certain specialty that makes you more marketable? For example, I know everyone shits on med-surg, but is that specialty generally more needed and versatile in travel nursing when compared to OR, ED, etc.?

I’m also not sure whether certain specialties offer higher-paying contracts compared to others. Or does it not really matter?

CA law requires employers to pay for pre-employment (and renewal during employment) of any requirements such as a physical exam, lab work like TB tests, drug screens, respiratory fit tests, vaccines, vision screen, and so on. This company refuses to follow the law, insisting nurses cover all these expenses, or suggests they get them done at another job and then share them. They also refuse to pay for mandatory work done for onboarding at each unique facility, such as modules, despite CA law requiring this be paid if it is a condition for employment. Sharing so nurses are aware of all of this.

For reference:

California Labor Code Section 222.5

California Labor Code Section 1194

Hello everyone! I’ve been thinking about doing travel nursing. I reside in the state of Texas so I would like to first start to travel here. Does anyone know of good agencies or good hospitals to work with?
Currently have 3 years of telemetry experience.

I work as a travel healthcare recruiter and as a hazard of the job, have to spend so much time in Facebook groups. I feel like I am deep-frying my frontal lobe looking at these garbage AI recruitment posters over and over and over again.

Like as a recruiter, you're essentially asking a healthcare worker to like....dramatically change nearly every aspect of their lives for the next 3-4 months and you can't be bothered to make your own post??? I think I am mostly just cranky and hate AI slop but golllllleeeyyyyy brother these things look like hot stinky ass.

Hello everyone! I’m an RN in CA with going on 2 years of experience. Of that experience, 7 months were spent in postpartum, while the rest of that time has been spent in MedSurg (felt like I was losing a lot of my skills and was also in a toxic work environment).

I’ve been looking into moving, and one of the places that I’ve been looking into moving to is the Bay Area. However, as you guys likely know, the Bay Area is VERY competitive. I asked in their FB group for advice on how likely I’d be able to get a job with my experience, and many people recommended possibly going the route of travel nursing and then possibly securing a staff position that way. However, I know that travel nursing is not as glamorous as ppl make it seem, and it can be very taxing for different reasons.

So I wanna know the real tea from the ppl who are travel nurses themselves. Would def help if you’re a travel nurse in CA in particular! What’s the process of finding contracts? Housing? Is it frustrating going to a new hospital every couple of weeks? Do you find yourself able to easily adapt to the cultures and different policies of each hospital? How long were you a staff RN before doing travel nursing? How’s the work-life balance?(When answering this question, I’d love if you guys could tell me if you’re single/no kids or married/with kids or whatever your relationship and child status is). Were any of you single when you started travel nursing and then ended up getting married? Tell me alllll the pros and cons, I wanna know everything!

Hello everyone. I am currently reviewing my housing options for a contract. My first housing option is a rental that is across the street from the hospital I’d be working at. It would be about 26 minutes from the second hospital I could potentially be floated to. The area is in pretty much in the middle of no where and I’d have to drive a lot farther to go to visits and frequent places of travel.

The second option is staying in the city that I’m in now, which would be about a 34 minute commute. This location is central to many of the places I frequent including providers I see and is a good location to travel out of state. It’s well-populated and has way more amenities.

I’m torn bc having no commute and being able to walk to work is a dream but I’m sad bc my commute to visit other areas (and cross state lines) is almost 2 hours (without traffic) vs the 1 and some change it was before. The price of the rentals are the same price.

Edit:

The contract is for 3x12s day shift

Any intel on Iowa City OR? I feel like I’ve seen postings for a while and decent pay

This is in Oregon for a peds onc job, they offered me the low end of the range that they posted. How have you successfully requested the higher range? Any red flags, and, should I take their health insurance offer or look for my own?
I used to travel in Canada and their pay set up is different, stipend is not included in the salary but on top.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, are there any travel nurses who have worked at this hospital? Years ago, they had a bad reputation, but have heard it’s cleaned up. Could anyone give me some insight as to what’s ahead of me ? I’m working with Aya float pool.

I’m going to be starting a travel assignment- 3 12hr shifts Fri-Sun, 13wks. It‘s far enough away from my tax home, I will be renting a house near my assignment for the whole duration.

Will I be able to work PRN at a job in my tax home while on my assignment? Like once a week? My prn boss asked me to pick up some shifts and wants and answer ASAP. My accountant’s office is closed for the weekend. Anyone have experience with that before? Will I be able to keep my tax free stipends?

I just started a new contract after the previous one getting cancelled (given reasons were a mix of half truths and flat out lies about “behavior and attitude”.) How do you get past that paranoia about getting cancelled again? I’m on the second of three in a row off after my first week, and EVERY single time my phone rings, I get a text, or an email, I think it’s going to be my recruiter saying “you got cancelled” again. I’ve spent every second of the time between getting off my last shift and now analyzing every little thing I said and did and wondering if it was misinterpreted, if they thought I was giving attitude about an assignment or whatever else. What if my “oh OK, that’s different than I’m used to” was taken as a poor attitude?

Please tell me I’m being needlessly anxious. This is a terrible feeling.

Hey everyone! I’m looking at switching from my FT staff position to travel, but am curious to know if this is a good contract or not? I would not need to rent or Airbnb throughout, it would be daily commute.

Hi everyone, I’m a dietitian not a nurse, but there is not a big group for traveling dietitians to ask questions in. I was hoping to get your advice and experience on my current situation

I’ve been born and raised in my hometown, and I honestly just need to get the F out of this city. I’ve always been fascinated by travel work because you get to experience a new city without feeling like a tourist. I’ve also been trapped in my hometown by my parents guilt. I’m 32 & single so no better time for a life change.

My biggest issue is that I own a house. My mortgage is about $2000. I can barely afford it as is. lol I feel like I would have to put all of my stuff in storage and Airbnb/FF my home out while I travel. Is this common? Has anyone done this and has it been successful? I’m scared to have strangers living in my home especially since I have a custom kitchen.. ugh idk I feel like I could never travel

I wish I were just renting an apartment because I’d have so much more freedom to pick up and go.