The life of a travel nurse has a lot of perks: traveling the country, meeting new people, experiencing new cities, bringing in great pay, building your skills, and benefitting from free housing—just to name a few.
Sometimes all the moving around can leave travel nurses lonely or feeling like they lack the ability to connect and make lasting friendships. That may have been the case 30 years ago, but there’s no excuse now. Thanks to technology, there are so many great ways to stay connected to the other travel nurses and co-workers that you meet during any of your 13-week assignments.
Tips For Connecting With Other Travel Nurses:
Go Social
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat. The world of social media has made it effortless to stay in touch with other people and keep up to date on everyone’s lives. There are also many websites available today that put travel nurses in touch with one another to share tips, experiences, stories, and job openings. Keep your social media pages up to date and share your travel experiences with friends old and new. Skype is another great application that lets users video chat or call contacts to help stay in touch. Another new technology to try is apps. Download the “Code Happy” app to your smartphone to receive support from fellow nurses.
Start a Blog
From home health care to intensive care units, travel nurses help save lives all across the world. What better way to share your work and travel experiences than with a blog? Posting your experiences and photos for family and friends is a great way for them to see what you’re up to in your new locations, and it is a great way for other travel nurses to follow you and stay in touch.
Pick Up the Phone
Sure it takes more effort than going online and sending a message or email, but a phone call is so much more personal and really maintains the connection. Set aside an hour each week to call your friends who you’ve made those close connections with.
Travel in Pairs
If it happens that you really connect with another travel nurse or have a friend from home that is interested in travel nursing, work with your agency so that you two can travel to destinations together. You can share a place to live, even if you work at different hospitals.
