Hey y’all😆 Alidia & Ashley here! We are a Cardiac/PCU travel nursing pair (along with our 3 dogs). We have been traveling together since February 2018 and are currently finishing up our 3rd assignment in Kirkland Washington.
A Little Background for you Guys-
We were complete strangers until we met at our first job as permanent staff in Charlotte, NC. Alidia is from a small town not far outside Charlotte, and never even moved until she attended UNCC were she got her BSN and a minor in public health! Ashley is from New York, and after receiving her BSN she decided to move to Charlotte as well to pursue her first nursing job.
We worked at a trauma 1 hospital on their Cardiothoracic/Vascular Surgery Step-Down unit. We were very fortunate to work on this unit as new grads (although we may not have felt like it at the time) because we gained so much knowledge and experience from working with such talented surgeons. After working just a few shifts together, we realized just how alike we were and became super close, super-fast! We both shared a dream and goal of travel nursing but weren’t sure if we were quite ready or how to even go about it…. we were both still fairly new nurses and really loved the group of people we worked with on our home unit.
To Travel or Not?
We went back and forth on whether or not we had enough experience and confidence to just up and leave what we knew as home. We were both single and not emotionally tied to Charlotte anymore, both burned out from under-staffing at our current hospital, and both itching to start travel nursing and experience new places. So, after a lot of research and encouragement from our support systems we decided to take a leap of faith and start traveling nursing together! We ended up in the hands of an amazing recruiter who found us the most perfect first travel nurse assignment together. We wanted to stay semi-local and test out the whole travel nurse thing before jumping full in and heading out of state.
Our First Contract
Our first travel nurse contract in High Point NC was such a wonderful experience for us. Although we were sad for it to come to an end, we were so ready to see what the future had in store for us as a travel nursing pair. Somehow, we decided that the opposite end of the country was our next move-so here we (still) are 6 months later in Washington state! We landed jobs about 20 minutes outside of Seattle in a cute town called Kirkland on a PCU unit.
While general PCU is not our true specialty, we decided to accept it because we were really set on the location and are always up for expanding our expertise! We locked in great housing (which can be a challenge for the 5 of us), which was a huge determining factor in our decision to extend. Finding your own housing can be a challenge, but especially when you have pets! This coupled with that fact that we would be able to head straight home and have time off with family for the holidays made our decision to extend for a full, second contract, pretty easy.
You are Never Alone
We feel so blessed to have chosen this career as we have already experienced more than some people do in a lifetime. One of the coolest parts about being a travel nursing pair is that you’re never alone. Moving to a place where you are completely new can be intimidating and stressful-so we really enjoy the security of knowing we have one another! Although these don’t always have the same days off, it’s pretty easy to plan around our schedule so that we still get to explore and travel on our days off.
We have also met some pretty amazing people along our journey so far. The travel nurse community is much larger and stronger than we could have ever imagined, and it’s constantly growing. Other travelers have been SO easy to connect with and we are beyond thankful for that! Facebook and Instagram pages/groups make networking super easy. We really enjoy meeting new people and making real, lasting connections, and that’s what the travel community is all about!
Long story short, we are still new to this and learning…. BUT-we plan on sharing all aspects of the traveling experience, good & bad. Make sure to follow our Instagram to keep up with us and please never hesitate to reach out @thetravelqts
Looking for more information on traveling as a pair, read: Travel Nursing as a Travel Nurse Pair: Tips for Making it Work.
