Updated July 2026 · Hub page

The Travel Nursing Hub — From First Contract to Tax Season, Mapped

Travel nursing is really three skill sets stacked on top of your clinical one: picking agencies and contracts like a negotiator, running stipends and housing like a small business, and staying clean with the IRS. This site has built guides for each layer, one contract question at a time, and this hub organizes all of them in the order a traveler actually meets the problems — from "am I ready?" to "where did my stipend go?" to the audit letter you hope never comes.

Getting started: from staff to traveler

The readiness question is mostly an experience-and-licensing question, and the first contract is where the expensive mistakes happen. These guides cover the runway: when you're ready, how licensing actually works across state lines, and what the first thirteen weeks feel like.

• How to become a travel nurse — requirements, timeline, and the honest readiness checklist
• ICU nurse to travel nurse — converting high-acuity experience into high-paying contracts
• ICU travel nursing — what critical care contracts actually look like
• Compact license guide — the NLC, walk-through states, and the licensing timeline
• Your first assignment — the first-timer mistakes and how orientation really goes
• Highest-paying specialties — where the acuity premium actually is

Agencies: rankings, reviews and how to work them

The agency is not your employer so much as your counterparty, and recruiters vary more than agencies do. The ranked overview is the place to start; the individual reviews go deep on pay transparency, benefits, and how each company behaves when a contract gets cancelled.

• Agencies ranked — the full field, ordered and annotated
• AMN vs Aya vs Cross Country — the big three, compared head to head
• Aya vs Vivian — agency vs marketplace, in practice
• Marketplace vs recruiter — the structural difference that changes your pay
• Clipboard Health review — the gig-app model examined
• Clipboard vs traditional agency — per-shift flexibility vs contract stability
• Fusion Medical Staffing review
• Host Healthcare review
• Medical Solutions review
• Nomad Health review
• TNAA review

Contracts and pay: reading the fine print

Every travel contract is a bundle of numbers designed to be compared badly. These guides teach the deconstruction: what the blended rate hides, which clauses bite, and when extending beats moving.

• Contract red flags — the clauses that cost travelers real money
• Contract calculator — turn any pay package into a comparable hourly number
• 1099 vs W-2 contracts — what independent status really trades away
• Crisis contracts — the high-rate, high-volatility end of the market
• Extension vs new contract — the math and the tax-home clock
• Highest-paying states — gross pay vs what you keep

Housing and stipends: the small-business layer

The stipend is where travel nursing becomes a business you are running whether you meant to or not. The GSA tables set the ceiling, the housing decision sets your margin, and the furnished-rental market sets your sanity.

• Housing stipend guide — how stipends are set and how to keep the spread legally
• GSA rates explained — the federal per-diem tables behind every stipend
• Furnished Finder guide — landing mid-term housing without getting burned

Money, insurance and protection

Variable income plus employer-hopping breaks the default financial setup most nurses run on. These guides rebuild it: budgeting on thirteen-week cycles, health coverage between contracts, and the malpractice question nobody asks until they need the answer.

• Budgeting for travelers — smoothing a lumpy income honestly
• Health insurance — agency plans, marketplace plans, and the gap between contracts
• Malpractice insurance — what agency coverage does and doesn't do
• Credit cards for travelers — putting the constant relocation spend to work
• Do you need a travel-nurse CPA? — when professional help pays for itself

Taxes: the dedicated library

Taxes are the deepest single topic in travel nursing, so they have their own hub: tax-home rules, the audit playbook, software, and a state-by-state library covering more than twenty states. Start with the tax home — it is the load-bearing concept the entire stipend model rests on.

• The travel nurse tax hub — every tax guide on the site, organized
• Tax home rules — the three-factor test that keeps stipends tax-free
• Surviving an audit — documentation that holds up

Keep going

Travel is one of several ways to sell nursing hours at a premium — weekend option vs per diem vs travel runs the three-way comparison honestly. If the road is a season rather than a career, the CRNA career hub and the federal nurse hub map the two highest-floor exits. And because contracts end but expenses don't, passive income for travel nurses covers building income that travels with you.

Educational content. Tax and contract details change — verify current rules with a qualified professional. Not financial or legal advice.