Fall, Sports and Travel Nursing
By Aaron Moore, MSN, RN-BC, travel nurse expert
Fall might be my favorite time of year in the Midwest. The heat starts dying down at night, and it’s slightly dark and cool on my bike ride to work.
This time of year travel nursing can really be a blast, as well. Especially if you are a fall sports fan and traveling the country on someone else’s dime!
After all, the baseball playoffs are getting underway, NFL football is on multiple days each week, and NCAA college football fills the airways every Saturday.
And no matter where your travel nursing assignments take you, you are likely to rub elbows with some other great sports fans. You may even be able to catch some games in person at a stadium you’ve always wanted to visit.
Memorable moments in travel nursing and sports
I started my travel nursing career in the fall. It was a scary but amazing time of my life.
It had always been a dream of mine to move away and try everything on my own! My wife and I took a risk and headed out West to the ocean while the leaves where just starting to turn brown at home.
I remember that sports gave me an instant talking point with new co-workers. It also was the first time I had lived in a city that had professional sports teams that I could see in person! I came from a small town in Iowa where this just hadn’t been possible.
Sports was often a common ground between me and the people I met while traveling.
I’ve been a fan of so many teams from my assignment cities, I can’t help but root for them when I see them on TV. I love sitting back with my kids watching a game and telling them, “Daddy was there once!”
One of my favorite sports memories was while we were living in San Francisco.
There was a Monday night Oakland Raider game, and my wife and I went hoping to score some cheap tickets. As I wandered around trying to find a decent price, the game started and we decided to take the train back home.
Walking back to the BART station, a man I had talked to earlier offered to sell me the tickets at a super cheap price since the game had started. We were pumped!
And as we walked into the stadium, we were even more excited to discover we had just bought tickets in “The Black Hole.” (Let’s just say Darth Vader sat next to me and some guy with spikes coming out of his black shoulder pads blocked my view for a while. But dang it’s a great story, and an even better picture!)
Another time we were in New York City: the melting pot of people from all over the world.
A nurse noticed I had an Iowa shirt on under my scrubs and we got to talking. Her boyfriend was from Ohio and there was a key matchup that weekend between our two teams. My wife and I were super excited to make new friends with some fellow sports fans.
I could go on and on about sports-related stories that I experienced while traveling, and many other fun aspects of traveling.
The truth is, travel nursing opened many windows of opportunity for me.
The things I got to do in just a few years might have otherwise taken a lifetime to experience. And that covers the personal, fun times as well as the professional experience I gained from a variety of travel nursing assignments.
What about you? Are you game to give travel nursing a chance?
Read more of Aaron’s travel nursing blogs today!