Is your spouse or partner interested in living the travel-nurse lifestyle with you? As a traveling registered nurse, you may already have a general understanding of the demands and intricacies of nursing as a profession. However, travel nursing – while also allowing for greater flexibility and freedom at times – also comes with more unique demands.
If you’re a travel nurse or soon-to-be travel nurse reading this, then you likely have a better understanding of what’s ahead of you. Yet, you might be wondering how your partner or spouse will adjust to your travel nursing career and how you will manage your relationship together.
We’re here today to help with navigating the available options of travel nurses and their spouses, as well as to provide some advice from fellow travel nursing couples on how to keep your relationship strong. Whether you choose to travel with your partner or spouse, remain at your home base, or a mix of both, every choice requires much thought, preparation, and communication.
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What Does Travel Nursing Look Like?
If you have been considering the prospect of becoming a travel nurse, you may have some questions about what travel nursing really looks like. So before we discuss the options of spouses and partners of travel nurses, we need to briefly talk about what travel nursing really looks like.
Travel nurses, well, travel for work. Somewhat different from other professionals who may travel for work, however, is that travel nurses regularly choose how long they’re away and where they go for work.Â
Travel nursing contracts generally range anywhere from a few weeks to as long as six months, with the typical contracts spanning 12-13 weeks long. When it comes to hours on the job, travel nurses are often assigned shifts to fill in the needs of their contracted facility (typically a hospital). This tends to mean frequently working nights, long shift days, and on-call shifts while on assignment. The plus sides include freedom to explore or travel on days off and often higher pay rates!
As travel nurses know, every assignment is unique and comes with its own set of benefits and challenges. For travel nursing spouses and partners, it’s important to be aware of this diversity before making your final decisions on whether or not to travel with your partner or stay home.Â
Adventurous travel nurses may want to travel far from home, while others may focus on nursing contracts within a certain radius of their home. Either way, the flexibility of travel nursing locations means spouses have flexibility of their options, too!
Want to Travel, Too?
There’s no denying the allure of the professional nomadic lifestyle for many people. You and your spouse or partner might still be traveling for work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still go out and explore your new temporary home! There’s so much out there to discover and experience, and travel nursing contracts mean you can be in one place long enough to start feeling like a local.
Of course, it isn’t as easy as packing your bag and setting out on an adventure with your travel nursing wife or husband. There are things to consider like your own career, housing and transportation arrangements while traveling, and the timing of it all.
Speaking about her own experiences as a wife to her travel nurse husband, travel blogger of Carryon Babe Gian said,
“The time and chance to travel can come and go, and we did not want to regret not traveling together and taking such an amazing opportunity.”
If adventure is calling you to join your spouse in the same way Gian joined her travel nurse husband, then let’s walk through what that might look like for you!
3 Things to Consider before Travel Nursing with your Spouse
#1 — Career
The first thing to consider before jumping into traveling with your spouse is whether or not your spouse’s own career can adapt to the remote and traveling lifestyle. Now that remote work has become more commonplace and will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future, more spouses of travel nurses may be able to come along on travel assignments than before.
Spouses with freelance careers may be particularly suited to traveling with their travel nurse spouse. Many careers and jobs, though, simply won’t allow for the flexibility of being far from the office for much of the year. If your job simply won’t let you go remote, then your options will be to either stay and not travel, search another job in your field that will let you work remotely, or try your hand at something entirely new.
Gig work can be one way to earn some extra cash while maintaining a flexible schedule while traveling with your spouse. Becoming a rideshare driver, food deliverer, pet sitter, or other similar work are options available throughout most of the country. Some of these jobs do require your own vehicle, though, so keep that in mind when figuring out logistics such as whether or not you’ll be taking two cars or just one on your travel adventures (more on that next)
Lastly, you’ll want to think about financial stability when it comes to job options when traveling. Travel nurses do tend to earn more on average on nursing contracts then regular nurses, but the contracts do come with a small caveat of uncertainty. Sometimes contracts can suddenly be cancelled without warning due to unexpected changes in staffing needs.
Would the income of either spouse be able to support the two of you alone for a period of time? If so, great! If not, you’ll need to put in some more careful planning when it comes to finances like savings, expenses, and shared income.
#2 — What Will Your Housing and Transportation Look Like?
Traveling doesn’t mean you’ll be staying in hotels for weeks on end. That’s simply too expensive and impractical for longer travel nursing contracts. Instead, the two of you will have to work together to find housing for every new assignment.
AirBnBs, extended stay hotels, or short-term apartment leases will be your primary housing options — except for the more adventurous couples who want to stay in campsites or drive their own RV. While a couple is easier to accommodate than a large family, there could be some limitations for places that only allow one resident.
Transportation is a whole other matter.
Planning to road trip in one car to your destination? You’ll both have to share one car once you’re there or rent an additional car. Flying? That brings it up to possibly two car rentals. While public transportation is affordable, it’s not always convenient. Taking Uber and Lyft around can rack up a pretty penny, too.
So, finances come into play here again. Travel nursing staffing companies sometimes provide stipends for living and travel expenses, but this isn’t always the case. And when they do offer a stipend or reimbursement, it can only be applied to the travel nurse — not their spouse.
Either way, costs for rent, airfare, gas, and car rentals will have to be split between the couple.Â
#3 — Will the Contract Timing Work for your Schedule?
While points one and two covered more concrete logistics, we want to bring some other elements into view.
Maybe your spouse can’t leave his or her job and go remote for three months for a travel nursing assignment. However, your spouse might be able to join you using your vacation days, weekends, and three day holidays.
Most travel nurses aren’t on assignment every week of the year, either. The flexibility of their career allows them to take a few weeks in between assignments to come home, and not every assignment they take has to be far away. Some travel nurses choose to exclusively stay within a driving distance from their own home!
Other travel considerations include the timing of your personal lives. If neither of you have kids yet, traveling together while young is a great time to try it out, and the same is true for older couples with adult children.
Remember that it’s okay for personal responsibilities to take priority over traveling for work. The great beauty of travel nursing is that it allows both travel nurses and their spouses or partners to take part in the flexibility of travel, too!
Why You Might Want to Stay Home
While it might sound like the dream of a lifetime to travel the country with your spouse or partner, there are some reasons why your adventures might not be such a magical option. And you know what? That’s okay, too!
First, as previously mentioned, a career could be the main factor keeping a non-travel nursing spouse at home. The truth of the matter is that many jobs aren’t that flexible, but on the positive side, remote work options do appear to be becoming more common here on out. The cost of travel for both of you may also not be worth it depending on your financial needs.
Next comes the feeling of home. For nomads at heart, adjusting to a new place every few weeks or months is an exciting part of traveling for work. Making a new place instantly feel like home is one of the many incredible talents of travel nurses. Spouses and partners may not always feel the same way, however. Sometimes no amount of bringing your own decor and easy-to-transport household items can really make a place feel like home.
Lastly, being far from family and friends for much of the year can be a real struggle. Partners and spouses of travel nurses should think about the benefits of staying home for longer contracts if being close to friends and family is important to your social life, as well as your mental and emotional health.
These factors aren’t here to deter you from still making the best of tagging along with your travel nurse spouse or partner, but rather just to help you consider the pros and cons of both traveling and staying home.
Making Your Relationship Work
No matter what you and your spouse or partner choose to do as a travel nursing couple, you’re going to face some unique challenges. But nothing is impossible to overcome! There are a few important things to remember with couples who travel for work, especially travel nurses.
Communication comes first. This is especially true when it comes to balancing responsibilities, schedules, and priorities. Travel nursing couples — no matter whether they travel together or not — also need to prioritize genuinely catching up with each other on a regular basis. As we discussed earlier, travel nurse schedules can be rough. Maybe you won’t be able to catch up with each other after a 12-hour shift, but there’s always time on days off or for a quick few minutes to chat before a shift. Consider making a ritual out of how, where, and when you communicate!
It’s necessary to take care of your individual needs, too. Travel nurses need time to recharge not only after long back-to-back shifts, but also after traveling. Make sure that time is set aside so that your travel nurse partner/spouse can bounce back when it’s time to catch up! For non-travel nursing partners and spouses, be sure to also make time to connect with other important people in your life in order to build strong relationships all-around.
Whether you’re a spouse of a travel nurse looking to tag along for a great cross-country adventure, or you’re a travel nurse yourself, Loyal Source offers incredible nationwide travel nursing opportunities to meet every adventurer’s needs!