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We look forward to helping you advance your career as a travel nurse!
Are you ready to try travel nursing? Working with a travel nurse staffing agency can make it easier to find travel nursing jobs and to negotiate pay rates and benefits. An agency gives you a point of contact who can help you navigate job listings and compensation packages.
The sooner you find the right company, the faster you can start traveling. We’ve found the best travel nurse companies of 2024 to help you find the right fit for you.
Click here for today’s top travel nursing opportunities.
All of these companies offer the basics such as housing, benefits, travel reimbursement, staffing in all 50 states, and 24-hour customer support.
| Agency | Description |
|---|---|
| Jackson Nursing | Founded in 2006. Emphasizes volunteerism amongst their staff. They offer medical mission opportunities. They also staff government agencies such as the VA, Department of Defense Medical treatment centers, Indian Health Services, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. |
| Aureus Medical Group | Established over 25 years ago. One of the largest in the nation. They have a student outreach program for new registered nurses. They also offer tuition reimbursement for up to $12,000 as well as paid time off (PTO) after working 2,080 hours. |
| Trustaff | Established in 2002, Trustaff has thousands of jobs nationwide for all specialties, nursing and allied. They also offer licensure reimbursement, benefits starting at $23/week, and 24/7 clinical support. |
| AYA | Established 2001. Staffs multiple healthcare professionals. They also contract per diem work. You can see some of their nurses on MTV’s “Scrubbing In” TV show. |
| Nightingale Nursing | Offers immediate 401K contribution as well as extension bonuses. They also offer per diem work. |
| Mellenia Medical Staffing | Established in 1998. The offer contracts for government facilities such as the VA, Department of Defense medical centers, Indian Health Services, and The Federal Bureau of Prisons in addition to standard travel assignments. |
| Sagent | Established 2001. Offers immediate 401K contribution. Offers license reimbursement as well as VisaScreen and NCLEX-RN exam reimbursement for international travelers. |
| Trinity Healthcare Staffing Group | Established 1999 by a travel nurse who wanted to increase professionalism in the industry. They offer positions in all 50 states and take care of the ground work of securing a position and working out compensation packages and benefits. |
Click here to find the right company for you!
When looking for the best travel nursing company to suit your needs, you first have to know what your needs are.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering travel nursing companies:
When looking into travel nurse agencies, you should first make sure that they provide the basics: free housing or a housing stipend, health and dental insurance, a retirement plan, travel reimbursement, 24-hour customer support, and a variety and abundance of travel nursing jobs all over the country.
Do you want your agency to find housing for you, or do you want to take the housing stipend and search for housing yourself?
I personally found it much easier to have my agency set up my housing for me. This way, I knew it was safe, furnished, close to where I was working, and paid for. If there were any problems, all I had to do was call my company, and it would be handled.
Many people choose to find their own housing and take the housing stipend instead. There are pros and cons to this choice:
Another thing to keep in mind, if you are traveling with a pet, it may make it difficult to find your own housing. Oftentimes, travel nurse agencies have housing already contracted that accepts pets.
There are pros and cons to using your a travel nurse agency’s contracted housing vs. finding your own housing. It just depends on how much time and effort you can put into the search and if you’re hoping to pocket any extra housing stipend cash.
The majority of travel nurse companies offer health and dental insurance.
Now that the Affordable Care Act is in place, it might be wise to research whether or not it would be more cost-effective for you to go with your agency’s healthcare plan or purchase one of your own through healthcare.org. The benefit of going through healthcare.org is that if you do plan on switching travel nurse agencies, you won’t have to change your insurance.
Some smaller travel nurse companies will give you a healthcare stipend if you don’t take their health insurance so you can purchase your own.
As far as retirement plans go, I decided to open up my own Roth IRA and not contribute to the 401K because I didn’t know how long I was going to be traveling. With some companies you can contribute to your 401K from day 1 and with others you have to wait as long as 1 year.
When talking with your potential travel nurse agency, make sure you ask them what the reimbursement is for travel.
“Travel” cost is considered the amount of money it takes you to get from your “tax home” to your travel assignment or from one assignment to the next. Often times this can be negotiated if there is a high need in one state that happens to be across the country.
I have found that the average reimbursement is $500.
They will pay you half on your first paycheck and the other half when you complete your assignment. You have the option of either driving or flying to your next destination. I personally drove to each of my assignments; I couldn’t imagine trying to fit all my belongings into suitcases, and I love road trips.
Not all benefits or pay packages are created equal. It is important to find an agency that offers benefits, housing, and pay packages that are specific to your needs.
The whole point of travel nursing is to travel…right? So it is important to find a company that serves the city or cities you want to travel to. Some agencies claim they have contracts nationwide, however, that may not be the case.
If you know of a specific hospital that you would like to travel to because it looks good on your resume or a specific city you want to explore, then make sure your potential agency has a contract at that location. This is especially important if you want to travel to places such as Hawaii and Alaska.
Match with a travel company here.
Does the company tend to pay a higher base rate with lower non-taxable reimbursements or a lower base rate with higher non-taxable reimbursements?
Having a higher base rate may serve you better if you plan on taking company housing, plan on buying a house, or getting a loan in the near future. If you are someone who likes to find their own housing, then a higher housing stipend may be the way to go with a lower base rate.
Most agencies offer a one-bedroom furnished apartment for your typical 13-week contract. This typically does not include dishes, linen, a washer and dryer, a T.V., or even a vacuum. If you don’t like lugging your belongings around with you all over the country or paying out of pocket to rent this stuff, then it may be wise to either ask if the agency provides any of these necessities at no cost or find your own housing.
If your contract is only eight weeks, then you could get stuck in an extended-stay hotel. I personally like to have nice housing, so I wanted a company that focused on providing comfortable and safe housing options. If you like to find your own housing then this may not apply to you.
Most agencies offer medical/dental benefits and a retirement package. If these benefits are important to you, then finding a company with good benefits is essential.
If you like to live on the edge with no health benefits and you brush and floss your teeth like a champ, then maybe you don’t care about benefits. If this is the case then you can ask the company if they are willing to pay you a higher base rate for not taking their benefits.
As far as retirement packages go, I found it easier to do my own Roth IRA on the side. This way, if I switched companies I didn’t have to worry about moving my money all over the place.
Click here to discover new high paying opportunities.
Travel nurse companies can reimburse you for the following:
Some travel nurse agencies have a CEU database that is free for their employees. This helps cut costs in those states that require a certain number to maintain or acquire a new license.
These extra costs add up over time so it’s nice to know your agency is looking out for your pocketbook.
A missed shift means you called in sick, and a canceled shift means they canceled you for low census. For the most part, the hospital determines how the travel nurse agency handles this, and it will be written in your contract.
This is important because in the travel nurse world if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. And in some cases, you may have to reimburse your agency for housing costs.
There may be a clause written in your contract that allows you to “miss” a certain amount of shifts without being penalized. There will also be a clause that states how many shifts the hospital can cancel you. Usually, it’s once a pay period, and your agency shouldn’t require you to reimburse them for housing costs.
There are even some agencies that offer 100% guaranteed shifts meaning no matter what you will not get canceled.
Find travel assignments in your specialty here.
There are a number of travel nursing companies to choose from.
Finding the best travel nursing company that fits your needs and a recruiter that has your best interests in mind are absolutely essential for an enjoyable travel nursing experience.
The right staffing agency for you is out there, now is the time to find them!
Click here for today’s top travel nursing opportunities.
Being a travel nurse can be rewarding on multiple levels — career advancement, great pay, and the ability to explore the country. But, it’s not as straightforward as becoming a staff nurse. There are inherent differences and challenges that you may not be aware of.
To help you navigate the world of travel nursing, we sought out advice from a travel nurse staffing professional. Mike Wilder is a senior career consultant and team lead for Medical Solutions in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s been working with travel nurses and finding them placements for over eight years.
“In our line of work, no one candidate is the same. I talk to people from all walks of life — from those who just graduated nursing school to those with 20 years experience,” he says.
His biggest piece of advice to nurses of every age, gender, and speciality is to simply keep an open mind. It’s how you get the most out of your experience, he says.
Here are some of this other tips for those interested in travel nursing:
There are a lot of requests for assignments in Hawaii, but there are far less jobs available than other beach communities. Georgia, the Carolinas, and even Texas have some wonderful beaches, so make sure you consider those too.
Like Hawaii, California is also high on the list of placement requests, especially in the winter. But competition isn’t the only thing that might make you reconsider the Golden State for your next travel nursing assignment. “There are a lot of jobs there because of a nursing shortage, and their pay rates are the highest. But the state is notorious for taking three months for an application by endorsement to go through,” Wilder says.
Find out which locations are hiring. Begin your adventure today!
“It’s a disservice to paint yourself into being a certain type of nurse — such as one who only wants to work at a big university hospital,” he adds. “The more flexible you are, the more experience you’ll get.” So much of being a travel nurse is having a sense of adventure. Explore the opportunities that you’ll find in settings you normally wouldn’t experience otherwise. You may be surprised to discover how much you like working with children or how rewarding the ICU is.
“There are 28 states that share a nursing compact — meaning there is reciprocity that each state accepts the nurse’s license from those other states,” Wilder says. That can make the transition from nurse to traveling nurse quite fast.
However, other states have their own rules and may require you to submit an application by endorsement or pay a fee before being verified to practice in that state. For example, California, where many nurses want an assignment, is not part of the nursing compact and has an application process separate from other compact states.
Read more: Current Nursing Compact States
Also, you’ll need to get fingerprinted and wait for a background check. Some states can issue the endorsement in 7-10 days, while others take two to three months. On average, the cost for the application is $100-$250.
It can take as little as two weeks to get a nurse ready for their new job once they decide on an assignment. But, depending on other factors like how complicated the application process, you may have more downtime than expected between assignments.
On average, most traveling nurse contracts are three months. Though, some hospitals offer longer or shorter contracts dependent on needs — many have 8-week contracts to fill for maternity leave coverage.
If a nurse finds that what was promised in the contract isn’t coming to fruition at the hospital, they can contact the clinical team at their staffing agency who will step in to help with the problem. Most agencies are also flexible if there is a sickness or death that may require you to terminate your contract early.
Speak with a staffing agent who can help you understand everything you need to know.
The agency which placed you is usually the one paying you. The hospital doesn’t pay for any insurance or payroll taxes. All billing goes through the travel company.
“Everything is taken care of by us,” Wilder explains. “We even cover liability insurance.”
Every travel nurse staffing company has different offers. Most offer non-taxable housing stipends and mileage reimbursement. Some companies such as Medical Solutions reimburse for any continuing education and certification expenses, and license renewals while being a travel nurse.
The staffing agency knows all the best and safe housing options available in the places they send travel nurses. But if nurses decide to find their own housing, they can still use the travel companies’ housing departments to find locations that are convenient and in good neighborhoods.
“If the travel nurse takes housing through us, we have a very experienced housing department that finds the best housing in safe communities with a short commute to the hospital,” Wilder says.
Don’t close yourself off from those you are working with. “Try to bring the community of traveling nurses together, and explore the area as much as possible,” he says. “Most nurse work three 12-hour shifts, so that affords you time to explore the area. Don’t just immerse yourself in the job.”
Wilder says it’s all about staying adaptable, being outgoing, having fun, and learning from the experience.
“Sometimes, travel nurses settle into where their assignment is and love the area. And the hospital feels the same way about them. They decide to keep the travel nurse on indefinitely. That has happened,” he says.
Travel nurses are in high demand. Meet your next employer now.
Travel nursing is a fun and exciting adventure! It’s the best time I’ve ever experienced during my nursing career. But what happens when something goes wrong? What happens when the adventure turns south…really quick?
In this article I will discuss some typical issues you may come across in travel nursing and how to fix them.
Start your travel nursing adventure here!
My number one rule when traveling has always been: be prepared, do your homework, and plan ahead. If you simply do this, you will eliminate 99% of all the bad things that could happen to you.
But let’s say you didn’t do your research and you signed up with the first travel company you could find. You were so excited that you signed the first contract they put in front of you, and rushed off to your first travel assignment. Upon your arrival, you discover that your housing location won’t allow your best friend, your dog, to stay with you. You may have also failed to recognize the travel time between your housing and your work location making your drive to work over 45 minutes everyday.
Honestly, housing issues are a very typical mistake with first time travelers and it’s usually a quick fix. Simply partner up with your travel company and see if they can help you out. A good travel nursing company will do everything they can to find you new housing, or work with the apartment complex to accommodate you. You should always have a say in where and how the travel company accommodates you, in respects to housing.
Always, always read your travel contract before you sign it. This point can’t be stressed enough. You would think that this is a no-brainer when it comes to travel nursing, but all too often, nurses forget to read the fine print and their travel nursing dream becomes a nightmare. Remember, if you signed it, you are bound to it.
Some nurses get so focused on the destination or the pay, they forget to make sure key details are in their contract. I remember talking to a new travel nurse who was assigned to work in a different unit than what was promised to her. She was working in a float role rather than her desired unit of choice. I told her to read what her contract said. Sure enough, when she went back and looked at the contract, it stated that she signed up for a floating role with different hours than what she wanted. This happens sometimes and unfortunately there is not much you can do about it when it’s that late in the game.
In this situation, you can reach out to your travel company and explain that this is not what was discussed, and they can contact the hospital and see if they can work something out.
Travel nursing is supposed to be a “win” for everybody, but sometimes key details about the location and assignment don’t get mentioned. That’s why it’s important to make sure your needs and wants are in the contract, including the unit you will be working on and the guaranteed shift times/hours.
Speak to a staffing agent about new travel assignments today.
Yes, even in travel nursing you can get sent home due to low census. The difference between travel nursing and a regular job back at home is accumulating PTO. Some travel nursing companies offer PTO while others might not.
Travel nurses are usually the first to get sent home without pay or floated to other units because of low census, which can be extremely frustrating. As a travel nurse, you are a temporary worker and they would rather send you home or float, before doing that to one of their regular employees.
One way to combat this is to have certain circumstances in your contract. In my contracts, I have a maximum number of low census times allowed per month. If the hospital exceeds the certain number of times they send me home due to low census, I still get paid. It’s a nice thing to have in your contract because it guarantees your hours and pay. It was actually pretty nice to get sent home and still get paid for a full day’s work.
When it comes to travel nursing, 99% of the time, it will be an enjoyable experience. That is, if you take your time and pick the best travel nursing company for you, be prepared for anything, do your homework, and plan ahead. If not, there is a good chance you will become a perfect example for my next travel nursing horror story article.
Start your travel nursing adventure here!
You did it! After spending what seemed to be an endless amount of time researching travel nursing companies, you finally found the right one for you. You’ve spoken with several recruiters and discovered the right person to represent you. But what do you do when all the offers start rolling in? How do you know which offer to take and which one is best for you?
Find your next travel assignment here!
Well for me, these were just a few questions I asked myself as my first offers started coming in. This can be extremely frustrating especially when you don’t have the answer to those questions.
First thing, don’t freak out! This is an awesome opportunity for you to be picky and find the best offer for you. A helpful tool I used to help me pick an offer was to create a simple pros and cons list. I would suggest starting with what is the most important to you. Here are the top pros and cons that I use.
For me, the main reason I wanted to become a travel nurse was to see new locations across the U.S. So if the offer was in a new place that I had never been to, this quickly became a pro for me.
I wanted to experience new locations and discover all the new things each location had to offer. If the offer hosted site to my family’s past spring break vacations, I would probably list it as a con.
When I got an offer, I always asked about the area of town where the hospital was located. I wanted to make sure my family would be safe living in this location for 3 or more months.
Weather played a huge factor for me traveling. Last thing I wanted to do was consider a contract in Alaska while I was battling a windy winter in the Midwest. So I would encourage you to consider what the weather will be like while you are visiting. No sense in taking a contract when the weather is going to be at its worst during your time there.
During my first winter as a travel nurse I landed an awesome contract in Arizona. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too cold. So I was basking in the sun while my friends and family were experiencing one of the worst winters back at home.
Discover new travel assignments in your specialty here.
It’s important to remember that just because you have a large pool of additional support staff at your current job, doesn’t mean every location has that same support staff. Some unit ratios are different for the same specialty so make sure you ask during your interview what support staff is available to you.
Another consideration is whether you will be working days or nights. I was typically a day shift only nurse. But when that Arizona opportunity came my way, I had to consider taking a night shift. After weighing the pros and cons, I realized taking a night shift position was well worth the opportunity.
You know how the old saying goes “money drives decisions” but money wasn’t my primary focus.
Typically, if the offer was high paying I would list it as a pro, but if the location was lame and in the middle of nowhere, I would then list it as a con. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a location for pay but by no means should you go below your bottom dollar amount just to experience a warm winter in Florida.
I have always enjoyed a good location that has a rich history.
We would go walk in little historical towns and go shopping or hike in a famous national park. One of my favorites was Mount Rainer National Park. I highly suggest it! So if the location had a high probability of me discovering a few historical sites, I would list it as a pro.
These were just a few of my top motives that would help me consider which offer was best for me. In the end, whichever had the most pros over cons would then become my next contract.
I would encourage you to list what is important to you and then list them as either a pro or a con. Because you will be living there for months and you want to make sure you enjoy your time there.
Travel nurses make up to $2,300 per week.
To learn more about Kyle and his decision to become a travel nurse, check out A Journey into Travel Nursing.
And check out his interview series:
Interview With A Travel Nurse: Preparing for a New Facility
Interview With A Travel Nurse: How to Recover From Failing the NCLEX
Interview With A Travel Nurse: How To Prepare To Be A Rock Star Travel Nurse – Before You Are One
Interview With A Travel Nurse: Sure-fire Signs You’re Working With The Wrong Staffing Agency
Interview With A Travel Nurse: Preparing For Travel Nursing Even Before Nursing School
Since becoming a traveler, filling out skills checklists and new company applications are probably the top two things I hate doing the most – even more than peeing in a cup every three months. However, it’s absolutely necessary to get exactly what you want out of travel nursing.
Traveling with more than one travel company can ensure that you’re getting the money you want, housing you want, and benefits you want.
Not all travel companies offer the same experience so traveling with more than one allows you to personalize it to fit your needs.
Match with a travel company here.
Obviously the first thing on everyone’s mind is money. Your check can be affected by a couple of different factors with different companies.
First, the more companies you work with the more diversity in your housing. Some companies have bigger take home pay but maybe the housing isn’t stellar. This would be a good company to go with if you’re just looking to make bank for that super sweet island vacation you’ve been dreaming about.
If living in an extended stay hotel all the time isn’t ideal for you, it’s good to have that company with a little less take-home but luxury housing working with you too.
Another way multiple companies can be beneficial in the payroll department is by being able to compare multiple different pay packages. Some bonuses are offered by hospitals but some are offered by the company. Traveling with only one company means you could potentially miss out on lots of bonus Benjamins.
Also, some companies have lower hourly rates and higher stipends and vice versa. It really just depends on what’s important to you. It also depends on taxes and Lord knows He did not bless me with accounting skills so definitely do a little research on that subject when accepting a pay package.
A lot of times different companies will have the same position so you wouldn’t necessarily have to give up a great location because the company you’re currently with doesn’t offer a bonus or the stipend amount you’re looking for.
One tip I recommend is to make sure you let the company you’re most interested in know what others are offering. Often they can match or get close to what other companies are offering just to keep you.
Click here to discover new high paying opportunities.
Working with multiple travel nurse agencies helps you get to where you want to go. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that not all companies have contracts with every hospital in every state.
Some companies can get you to Alaska and Hawaii, others can get you to specific hospitals like Johns Hopkins or New York Presbyterian. Certain companies have exclusive contracts with agencies. So you really have to work with multiple companies if getting to a specific hospital is on your agenda.
The more companies you work with the more options you have, simple as that. The more options you have also helps you get to where you want to go WHEN you want to go. You definitely won’t find me in the north during the wintertime if I have anything to do with it! I’m a fair weather kinda gal and working with multiple agencies helps me stay comfortable all year long.
Travel nurse companies have anywhere from zero to all the benefits. And similar to the dinero side of things, which company you go with depends on your needs at the time.
Are you so over paying on your student loans and just need them out of your life?! Then a company with little benefits and more cash is probably the way you want to go for a little while until Sallie Mae stops sending you all those emails.
Do you have a husband and two dogs (or kids) to take care of? Then maybe a company with a 401k and health insurance is the way for you to go. There’s even a company or two out there that offers PTO and sick days.
The lovely thing about living is that you can go from one set of needs to another and sometimes back again at any point in your life which is why being already set up through many companies is most beneficial to your wellbeing/stress level.
Find travel assignments in your specialty here.
Personally, I work with about five different companies. They go from one of the largest in country to the smallest.
One company has gotten me to the biggest, most prestigious hospitals, another has housed me in places nicer than I’d pick for myself where I can truly make home for 3 months and get paid enough to support my family and pay off student loans at the same time.
I’ve had such great experiences with each of the companies I’ve worked for. I have no doubt that no matter where I want to go or when I want to go that I can get there because I have so many people on my side working to get me there.
