It’s a certainty that somewhere down the road, travel nurses will start to miss their families—but now, thanks to Skype.com, any vacationer or on-the-go professional can access high quality communication that’s almost as good as being there. Skype.com proves we’ve come a LONG way since Alexander Graham Bell hooked us up with telephones. Travel nursing careers are compelling stuff, and as good a reason as any to utilize Skype’s services. When traveling nurses want to share tales of their daily adventures, Skype (rhymes with pipe) almost makes it possible to literally “reach out and touch someone� for free! Skype’s video conferencing feature was developed in January of 2006, and has gained much of its notoriety from use on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Talk show hosts and traveling professionals alike use Skype to do everything but clink coffee cups with the person they’re video conferencing; the quality is that crystal clear—in fact, examples of what Skype can do include, from Oprah.com, in progress music lessons, wherein the teacher and her pupil are on opposite sides of the world! But Skype doesn’t have to be that high-tech. You can also use it to make voice calls over the internet and [+]

Because you stay busy as a travel nurse, financial analysts recommend the more hassle-free approach of automatic, consistent contributions to your travel nurse job benefits, such as IRA and 401K savings plans; reading the fine print on your next credit card statement is a good way to get started. See if they offer a Retirement Rewards Program! Here’s an example of how it works at Fidelity Investments Retirement Rewards (American Express): you earn 2 points for every dollar charged on the card; once you rack up 5,000 points—equivalent to $2,500 in charges—Fidelity will funnel $50 into your IRA as a current year contribution. The Ameriprise Financial Mastercard offers a similar program. Considering that 78% of Americans under prioritize their retirement savings, reward programs like these seem like a good way to go—the only caveat: pay off your balances on time, or suffer the ding of a higher (than traditional credit cards) interest rate. Travel nursing jobs pay well. The U.S. Department of Labor reports earning potential for RN’s as anywhere from the upper 50’s to 110K per year; good news for nurses looking to salt away ample retirement funds. With the goal of staying in [+]

Travel nurse job benefits, just like us, come in all shapes and sizes. Some perks stand out more than others, like health and wellness incentive programs that cut back on your sick days and boost morale. If you’re a traveling nurse in the western region of the US and looking for healthcare with stay-fit resources, Kaiser Permanente has work-out tips you can download on your way to the gym. Since traveling nurses enjoy free private housing, often with on-site amenities like well-equipped fitness centers, pricey gym membership isn’t something to worry about—with health experts recommending up to thirty minutes a day of good cardiovascular exercise, a treadmill just paces from home is a built in perk for travel nurses. If you’re a traveling nurse with a wellness incentive you’d like to share with the world – well, please leave us a comment. We want to know how your fitness center compares with featured housing offered to travel nurses, and how you stay lean…but not mean. Cheers! [+]