The holidays are upon us, and it’s time to start thinking about what gifts you might want to get the nurse in your life! I have put together a holiday gift guide for travel healthcare professionals. I’m breaking down these gift ideas into three categories: Nurses/Student Nurses, Travel Nurses, and RV Travel Nurses. A lot of these are functional, but some are also just plain cute and would make for some great work accessories.
Nurses/Student Nurses
- Badge reels. These are always great, inexpensive gifts to get the nurse in your life. You can find them on Amazon or Etsy, and can be personalized to the nurse you are purchasing for! Here’s a super cute option, but there are tons of others.
- Badge pens/markers. These come in handy and are another great stocking stuffer/inexpensive gift you will be thanked for!
- Personalized water bottle/coffee cup. You really can’t go wrong with this option because 1) most nurses love cups/bottles with cute or funny sayings and 2) getting nurses motivated to drink more water during their shifts is never a bad thing!
- Fleece/jacket. Hospitals get CHILLY. Bonus points if you get the jacket personalized!
- Blue light glasses/safety glasses. Nurses spend long hours staring at computer screens/charting. We also spend a lot of time at the bedside performing interventions that could potentially expose us to a lot of germs. A great gift would either be to get regular blue light glasses for all the time spent at the computer or a combination of blue light blockers/safety glasses like these.
Travel Nurses
- Packing cubes/vacuum storage bags. It’s no secret that travel nurses do a lot of packing/moving. Why not get the travel nurse in your life something they can use often and they will be forever grateful for? Packing cubes and vacuum storage bags are great gifts and will help them stay organized every time they have to move!
- Digital Photo Frame. Photos help you feel close to friends and family when you are physically far away from them, but traveling with dozens of picture frames can be difficult. Get your travel nurse a digital photo frame that can hold hundreds of photos in one, so they don’t have to worry about taking tons of individual frames.
- Travel journal. A fun way to help keep track of all the adventures they will have on their assignments!
- Portable battery. Bound to be either on the road or on an adventure, your travel nurse may run into a dead or dying phone battery or may need to charge their cameras up to capture their latest adventure. Portable batteries are so handy to have and should be on everyone’s wish list!
- White Noise Machine. Sleeping in a new place can be noisy, especially if your travel nurse is asleep during the day. White noise machines are a great and thoughtful gift to help them get their Zs. Opt for one with an optional timer so they won’t have to worry about it going off in the middle of their sleep!
RV Travel Nurses
- Propane Fire Pit. Part of the fun of being a full-time RVer is getting to feel like you are camping all the time. What gets you more in the camping spirit than a campfire? Some RV parks, however, do not allow your traditional wood-burning fire pits, so propane fire pits are a great gift for the RV travel nurse in your life!
- Roadside Assistance Emergency Kit. When you have a full-time RV, you do a lot of driving. You never know when an emergency will happen, and it’s always good to be prepared.
- Small space heater. RVs can get cold in the wintertime, and space heaters come in handy always! This is a relatively inexpensive yet thoughtful gift for the RV travel nurse in your life.
- Harvest Hosts Membership. Harvest Host campgrounds are places RVers/van lifers can stay all over the country and are typically found at wineries, breweries, farms, and other unique places. In order to stay at these places, though, you need to be a member. This is a great gift to give the adventurous RV travel nurse, you know to give them a full year of cool overnight stays!
- National Parks Pass. Give the RV travel nurse the gift of one year of free access to all the national parks in the United States with this awesome gift!
We hope you found this holiday gift guide helpful. Do you have any other ideas that we should include in our next holiday gift guide? Comment them below.
Our job board is a great place to search for your next travel nurse assignment. We have you covered with our housing page if housing is an issue. You can search for what you are looking for.
