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As a travel nurse or travel therapist, securing housing can be a significant challenge. There are many places and options that you could use for housing on your travel nurse assignment. From using company housing, to finding your own online or in person. Here are my top travel nurse housing tips.
Use Travel Nursing Agency Housing
Most, although not all, travel nursing agencies will offer you the choice of company-provided housing or a tax-free stipend to find your own housing. There are pros and cons to using either method. The major pro of using agency-provided housing is that it takes stress off of you to find a place, communicate with landlords, sign leases, run background checks, pay any deposits, and pay monthly rent. The major con of using housing is that it takes a large portion out of your paycheck. Nothing in travel nursing is “free”. If you have your agency find and set up housing for you, that is going to cost a considerable amount of money. Therefore, your take home pay would be significantly lower than if you found your own housing with the stipend. Also, you may not have a voice in where the housing is. However, the ease of your agency doing all of the work for you may be worth it! Especially, if the assignment is in a place where finding housing is particularly difficult.
Put An Ad On FurnishedFinders.com
Furnishedfinders.com is a website that is dedicated to helping traveling professionals connect with hosts to find short-term housing. As a traveler, you can search for properties in the area that you want to go and contact hosts. However, if you want to be connected with hosts based on your needs, you can put a free ad up for what you are looking for. Last time I put an ad on Furnished Finders, I had over five hosts call me within a couple of hours. It appears that many of the hosts are very eager to rent their properties.
Stay At An Extended Stay Hotel
There are many hotel brands that cater to the long-term traveler. Hotels that offer special perks to extended-stay travelers often come with kitchenettes, laundry services on-site, wifi, and weekly housekeeping services. Extended stay hotels can be your housing for your whole
Search Short-Term Housing Websites
The internet has made house hunting relatively easy as a traveler. There are many websites that connect hosts with travelers. There are different options from room shares, apartments, to casitas, to single homes for rent. The following sites are particularly helpful for short-term travelers because they mostly deal with travelers and vacation rentals.
Join Housing Groups On Facebook
Facebook is full of communities for traveling healthcare professionals. There are some wonderful groups that connect travelers with housing hosts on Facebook. In these groups, you can either post that you are in search of housing, or you can review posts from hosts who post their housing. A nice thing about these groups is that you can search for keywords, making it easy to find old posts. Therefore, if you search for
Travel Nursing Housing – The Gypsy Nurse
Gypsy Soul Travel Nurse Housing Options
Travel Nursing: Places/Rooms For Rent
Wait To Secure Housing Until You Get There
It can be a challenge to find housing online. You may not fully understand the distance and traffic between work and home. Or, you may be concerned that you could get caught in an online scam by booking sight unseen. I highly recommend securing a very short-term place to live for a couple of days so you can look for housing in person for your assignment. You could stay at an Airbnb, traditional hotel, or extended stay hotel for a couple of days while you seek out more permanent arrangements. In that time, you never know what will come up. I have gone to hospital orientation and met people who rent to travelers and offered me (cheap) rooms. You can also talk to co-workers and see what they recommend for travelers. More options can arise when you physically arrive in a location and talk to people, versus solely looking online.As a travel nurse, you may choose to take company-provided housing or find your own housing. Using online and in-person resources, you can find accomodations that work for you. Do you have any tips for finding housing as a travel nurse? Leave them in the comments. 🙂
