We're off!! Moving around the U.S.A.

[MicroBob]

Cliff-notes: GF is a traveling-nurse.
We're moving around the country on a series of 3-6 month assignments.
First stop is Panama City, FL and then we want to go to a bunch of other places for a few months including Miami, Las Vegas and Hawaii.

-----------------------------

GF is a nurse at a hospital.
Basically she has a lot of job flexibility across the country because hospitals are everywhere and they need nurses.

More specifically, they have these traveling-nurse agencies. They places nurses in hospitals that have a dire need for staff for 3-6 month assignment.
The benefit is that they pretty much pay you the same or a little more as if you just got hired yourself at that same hospital full-time...plus they cover your housing and sometimes your moving costs on top of that.

GF has always wanted to do this and my 'job' playing poker on the internet is obviously not location-dependant.
So we've officially started.

We're mostly isolated to the U.S. for this whereas I would prefer international travel but that's no biggie. Maybe Europe will be in the future for us some other way.

We have packed up and moved out of Memphis (thank god).
Our first stop is a 3 month assignement in Panama City, FL.
She wanted to stay within driving distance of Memphis to visit her brother. She also wanted to go to the beach.
And my parents live less than 1 hour away in Destin, FL so it works out decently. We've both been to Destin a zillion times to visit but never been out here to the more party-like/tourist atmosphere of Panama City.

GF had been working weekends exclusively (pays more if you commit to work every weekend) but will not be doing that anymore so that we can actually have a life.
In Memphis we would go out on a Monday and call in 'our weekend' and go have a good time. But it's still a Monday and everything is dead.
So we're looking forward to going out on actual weekends for once.
And Panama City has no shortage of bars on the beach where you can sit back with a Pina Colada or something.

We are hoping she likes the hospital enough and they like her enough to extend the 3-month assignment to 6-months. That way we will be here through XMas and New Year's and I'll be with my family and her family will come into town too.

Our furnished apartment here is actually pretty decent.
Not amazing. But definitely much better than what I was expecting for being a 'freebie' from the traveling-nurse agency.

From here some places we are likely to pursue for 3-6 month assignments include:

- Miami. GF is hispanic and her best friend lives down there. She would like to enjoy some latino culture such as the restaurants, salsa-clubs, stuff like that.

- Las Vegas. We had fun when we went to LV for 3 or 4 days last year. But she was at a conference which ate up her hours and energy and we could only go out so much. By doing a 3 month stretch there we can take our time and hit some of the night-clubs and restaurants at a more casual pace without trying to cram everything into a 4-day-no-sleep vacation.

- Hawaii. GF really wants to do this one.

- Pittsburgh. yeah, it seems weird. But this is where she lived when she first came to the U.S. and she loved the city and the area.
New Orleans got scratched off our list since the hurricane. Overcrowded hospitals = added stress to the workday and she just doesn't want to deal with it.

I'm thinking of trying to add San Francisco to our list because it sounds awesome. But it also sounds damn expensive so I'm not sure on that one.
Maybe somewhere in the rocky mountains, we're not sure.
NY or Boston perhaps? We're up for anything!!

We're both pretty excited for our adventures across the U.S. and hope everything goes smoothly.

I'm 36 and she's 30 so this is mostly our only chance to do something like this before we eventually decide on where we want to settle down and potentially start a family.

[jbrent33]

Sounds like it should be fun. Just enough time in each place to get to check it out without getting tired of it.

If you want to get away from P.C. for a weekend I highly reccomend the Watercolor Inn. It's a short walk from Seaside and is truly a fantastic hotel.

Good luck.

PS: Trip report from the Hot Body contest at Lavela (w/pics) is mandatory

[MicroBob]

We're definitely open to suggestions in the Fla panhandle. We're totally new here and have no idea where to go or what to do.
We're just making it up as we go along so thanks for the Watercolor tip. Hadn't heard of it.

Recently learned of Club LaVela which evidently is the largest club in the entire country and is where a lot of that spring-break wet-t-shirt contest stuff takes place (although the crazyness isn't isolated to just spring break of course).

LaVela is advertising on the radio some Guns n Roses cover/tribute band this Saturday and GF wants to go because she used to dig them back in the day. That should be hilariously silly I'm guessing.

[TheMetetron]

Glad this finally happened. Pictures of something required.

[Jim Kuhn]

Congrats Bob. This will be a great experience for you and your girlfriend. My girlfriend is an R.N. and we have discussed partial retirement in a few years and her becoming a traveling nurse we could live in different cities. She will be very interested in this thread and the trip reports. Please update often! :&gt

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[MicroBob]

Interesting.
She met a lot of travelling nurses during her orientation who seem to really love it but I do think it depends on your temprement and willingness to go with the flow and deal with change, etc.

I'm sure she'll be happy to share more thoughts once she's done it for a little while longer.

Obviously some of the hospitals that need traveling-nurses probably are desperate for anyone to work there because they might be a bit overcrowded.

She had it REALLY good at her last full-time job.
Really low patient-to-nurse ratio. No real drama amongst other nurses or other staff, etc etc.
Was easy to get complacent and just stay there becuase it was such a relaxing atmosphere there.
But she REALLY wanted to do this and get out of Memphis and travel around.

Unfortunately, right now she is a bit annoyed because the new hospital she got an assignment at is over-crowded and not well managed it seems and it's WAY more hectic then she's used to.

Her regular 6:45a-7:15p type shift didn't end until 9p yesterday and there were still a couple of nurses on her shift who still hadn't gotten out yet because they still had a patient to transfer or some charting to do.

Yiiikes.
Fortunately she will just work 3 shifts a week which will work out to roughly her 40 hours. It's just sucking it up during those 12.5-14 hour shifts that seems pretty damned tough to my outsider perspective.

They use freaking MS-DOS on these ancient computers and this crappy system that she's struggling to figure out (apparently they don't believe in using 'modern' computers with mouses and stuff).

I'm reminding her to just show up, do the best she can, and we'll go out at the end of the day and get a Pina Colada or something and just look at it as more of a long-term vacation with some occasional crappy work-shifts in there.

[NewTeaBag]

Best of luck Senor Bob!

When I was married (for about 5 years whilst I was in The Navy) was married to a nurse. She did the travelling nurse thing for a bit. Her best friend college also did it. From what they both said, the benefits can be quite good (as in good pay, potenially housing like you guys got, and the ability to travel). There were of course drawbacks. The most significant ones they mentioned were being "low nurse on the pole" so to speak in that they were often assigned more of the "shitduty" than the hospital regulars, and more of the work. Additionaly, in matters of dispute, the head nurses tended to decide in favor of the hospital regs rather than the traveling/temp nurses.

If your gf has a strong will and laid back disposition, she'll be fine, if she really revolts at BS hospital politics, this may end up stressing her too much.

Either way, best of luck!

PS: I saw some nasty stuff when I was in the military, but I could never match the stories my wife would tell me. EEEEEEWWWWW! I made her a deal. She doesn't tell me about anymore level 3 bedsores, and I wouldn't tell her about bloated corpses or killing.

[Mrs. Utah]

Hey MicroBob,

Cool thread. As I nurse I will be very interested to hear about both of your adventures.
I have never done the travel nurse thing but wanted to, just not in the cards for me.
Anyway, its sounds like she had it pretty nice at her last assignment and what she is putting up with now is more the norm. Sadly. Nursing care is the easy part, learning each hospital system is a challenge.


I do have a very good friend who does travel, which is how I met her. She eventually traveled to Hawaii and that was it for her. Loves it there. Met her now husband and that is where they have settled. She has worked in several hospitals in Hawaii so if I can provide any insight through her as you move closer to going there, let me know. I know she was able to request her hospitals through her agency.


[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[MagicianGOB]

Don't rule out the SF nursing stop. My friend did this while I was living in Monterey, CA, and he loved it. You're avoiding the most expensive part of SF: rent. SF would probably be in my top 3 places to live, and I'm living in Hawaii right now.