What is Local Travel Nursing?
Travel Nursing is a different way of doing nursing. It started a few decades ago when nurses were in short supply in some areas of the country and needed to be moved to work where required and at better pay. A local travel nurse is a registered nurse or RN who works on short-term travel contracts close to home or your state. Most hospitals generally adopt the rule that a nurse comes from at least 50 miles away to do travel nursing work. This is not such a strict rule, and hospitals adopt it because their staff will not take their travel nursing shifts. In reality, nurses can work as local travel nurses close to home, or in their state, without having to leave the familiarity of their surroundings and their families and without having to disappear for several months.
Pros and Cons of Travel Nursing Close to Home
The Nursa app allows you to take local travel nursing jobs close to where you are so you can be close to your loved ones and home. Some cons of being a local travel nurse are:
Being in their state, registered nurses may have trouble finding local jobs because they reduce the number of jobs they can search for. This doesn’t apply right now, as due to the pandemic, many hospitals are short-staffed, and in almost every state, there is a shortage of nurses and a great need to cover shifts for local travel nurses.
Registered nurses will not travel, as is common in travel nursing jobs, so they will not see new places. The upside is that they may choose to travel at another time on their vacation and were looking for local jobs for whatever personal reason they had.
Local travel nurses still need to set up housing for their work as travel nurses.
There are plentiful pros to working as a local travel nurse:
- The salary received by RNs is much higher when they choose to work as local travel nurses. If they decide to work as local travel nurses and have a permanent job in a hospital, they will receive substantial monetary compensation for their work. However, they should be well organized to avoid extreme fatigue from holding two positions.
- They are close to home, which can be an advantage in countless ways. Frequently, nurses have pets, children, commitments, family, or want to be close to home for a personal reason. Even if they must rent a living space near their work, they are close to home and can easily commute.
- Due to the proximity of their homes, they will not need to carry large amounts of luggage or furniture back and forth but can quickly return home for whatever they need.
- Some local travel nursing jobs offer travel stipends; if that is the case, this helps lower housing costs.
- The flexibility of work and shifts is more significant than a permanent job in a hospital. Generally, RNs will be able to know the shifts they will have in advance in their local travel nursing job and be sure that the schedules suit them.
- They will be able to take care of any local responsibilities they may have, see their old friends and pursue their current hobbies, as they will be very close to home.
Local travel nursing jobs are a great opportunity, with more pros than cons, for all RNs who want to try it. One of the most significant advantages of using the Nursa app to search for the jobs closest to the RNs is that they can try it out for a while if travel nursing is something they like to do and make the decision to do it more permanently, taking advantage of the various benefits it offers.
The app is a way to connect with hospitals so that nurses have control of their jobs and access a higher salary.
Hospitals make available a large number of high-paying jobs for RNs as local travel nurses. Registered nurses must download the mobile app, sign up for an account, and upload their credentials to start working. Searching for shifts is very easy, and they can set the distance they want to search for jobs in the area they want, close to home.