Travel nursing has become a lucrative option for nurses looking to make good money. Is it possible to travel on a boat? Absolutely! Is it the easiest way to travel? Probably not, but it has a lot of benefits too.
Off the Radar…Filling up the Cruising Kitty!
Have you missed us lately? We’ve been busy working to pad up the cruising kitty for the past few months…nothing much exciting to write about! So how do we manage to keep cruising on S/V Seeking Kokomo? Since we aren’t independently wealthy yet (I wish!) that requires stopping to work periodically to pad up the cruising kitty. Here’s how we do it:
Travel Nursing Contracts
Since both of us have over a quarter-century of nursing experience, travel nursing is a great option for us. When we started cruising, we expected travel contracts to be our only source of income. It is nice to be able to travel together, knowing you are working with someone who has your back! We make a great team, both on the sea and in the emergency department. But travel contracts on the boat can be a challenge. Here are the pros and cons, as we see them:
Pros:
- Especially since the COVID-19 outbreak, travel contracts are paying fantastic money. You can work a 13-week contract and make enough to travel for quite some time.
- Experience different cultures, meet different people, and meet the locals. Part of the fun of travelling is getting to know the locals and exploring their favorite places. Working in the hospital, you get to meet lots of folks who are really amazing and talk to them about fun places to go exploring on your days off.
- No politics. I love travel nursing after being in leadership for many years because you don’t get sucked into the politics or petty nonsense in the department. It’s great to be able to go into work, take care of your patients, and go home.
- Taking our home with us makes traveling comfortable. I have everything I need on the boat. We worked one contract staying in an apartment, but it never felt comfortable (and my bed didn’t rock me to sleep at night!) I love having all my stuff organized and handy without packing, unpacking and moving around. Benefit on the boat, pull the dock lines and go!
Cons:
- It can be a challenge finding contracts close to where we can dock the boat. When we are travelling, we never know if we will be working the same days or same shifts, so we always go to a marina for the duration of the contract. That can also be expensive, depending on the location.
- If the facility is far enough from the marina, that requires an Uber trip back and forth to work. Again, cost can add up.
- Most contracts are posted because facilities are short staffed. Often times the culture is less than stellar (sometimes totally toxic), which is driving staff to leave. You know going in that the job is not going to be easy.
- Finding supplies is a pain. I hate the first few weeks on a contract when I end up staring at the walls of the stock room searching for whatever I need.
Teaching Online: Another option for travel nursing
After COVID erupted, I had the opportunity to start teaching emergency nursing courses online. With over 15 years of experience doing this in live classes prior to leaving my full-time job, this was an amazing opportunity for me. I love teaching and it became a way to pad the cruising kitty as we traveled.
Pros:
- I love teaching, so the work is easy and fun!
- I have taught at anchorages all the way from Florida to Maryland, stopping for a couple of days to work before we move on. All I need is my laptop and modem.
- The classes I teach have students from all over the USA, Canada, and even a few from Australia. It’s been fun meeting folks from all over and hearing their stories of emergency nursing!
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Cons:
- You need a good internet connection to teach over Zoom and it does use a lot of data (about 5 GB for an 8-hour day.) In two years of travel, we have encountered two anchorages with sketchy internet, so minimal issue there. I do tailor the amount I work based on my data allowance.
- Living in a small space, it is difficult for Nick to be quiet while I teach. If I work too much, he gets bored and restless on the boat. Sometimes he will take the dingy ashore and run errands, but we have also been places where he was afraid to leave me alone on the boat in case of issues (anchor dragging, etc.)
Self-directed Online Courses
With over 15 years of teaching emergency nursing prior to cruising, I decided to take my experience and build an online course to prepare nurses for the certification exam in emergency nursing (CEN.) I had a lot of experience teaching this course and hoped I would be able to continue presenting the material online.
Pros:
- Once built, you only have to continue to update the material as new research comes out. I try to keep up with all the latest nursing journals and medical research so I know when I need to edit my courses.
- You can create as many courses as you want to sell and continue to post as you travel.
Cons:
- Building the courses was an enormous job. It took me about three months of full-time work to create the entire CEN course.
- Marketing is an ongoing job that I’m not especially good at. If I had more experience with marketing, I think I could pull this off, but at the moment, it is not a big income stream for me.
That said, we are still cruising two years after retiring from our full-time jobs! We spent the summer back in Clearwater, Florida visiting with friends and family in a place we felt secure enough to leave the boat. Now, we are back afloat and in search of our next adventure!
