By Geraldine Mills

May 3, 2024

2358 Views

ADVERTISEMENT

How to Create Your Own Travel Nurse Blog to Document Your Journey

Blogging is a great way to express yourself and is even better at documenting your travels, especially from a unique perspective as a travel nurse. If you’re interested in starting a travel nurse blog, this article can show you what you need to start. But first, let’s discuss the importance of creating one.

Importance of documenting experiences through blogging

travel nurse blog

Starting a blog is a personal prerogative, so you can begin regardless of whether people think your experiences are meaningful enough to warrant your blog. However, unlike other niches, a travel nurse’s unique experiences make for a unique perspective that can be valuable on a blog.

Even if you’re not a travel nurse, blogging can be a personal project you enjoy, especially if wordsmithing and taking pictures are your hobbies. Also, you don’t need any physical items to start a travel nurse blog, so there isn’t any equipment you need to bring as an extra item to keep up with this hobby.

By documenting your experiences through blogging, you can relive your past more colorfully than your photos and videos. Being able to articulate what you went through and supplementing that with pictures or videos you shot can serve as a creative avenue and a personal journal detailing how you felt in more vivid terms.

When you create a travel nurse blog about being a travel nurse, you can also enjoy connecting with people with similar experiences. You can talk to other travel nurses and even create a community. It’s a great way to bond with different travel nurses about experiences unique to your group.

Choose a blogging platform.

Now that you know the importance or relevance of documenting your experiences through a travel nurse blog, it’s time to kickstart your new blogging journey. The first thing you should consider is your chosen blogging platform. Some examples of popular blogging platforms are the following:

  • Blogger
  • Drupal
  • Joomla
  • Medium
  • Tumblr
  • Weebly
  • WordPress

WordPress is a reliable blogging platform for many blogs due to its scalability and various features. However, you’re free to choose your preferred platform.

When choosing a blogging platform, you should consider how easy it is to use, especially when you need to learn how it works. Customization options should also be a factor, especially if you want to personalize your travel nurse blog as much as possible.

Another critical element to consider when choosing a blogging platform is its monetization and management costs. Some platforms are cheaper, while others are more straightforward to monetize. However, if you’re doing this as a hobby, monetization might not be your priority just yet.

These factors should narrow your options based on the platform’s capabilities, preferences, and abilities.

Select a domain name and hosting provider.

Once you’ve settled on a blogging platform and are eager to get a website up and running, you should choose a domain name and hosting provider.

The domain name is your website’s URL or address. It’s what you type in when you look for a website. A good rule to follow is to keep it short and sweet. Also, avoid hard-to-spell domain names. Some people even opt to get a domain name that can quickly determine what their blog is about, but that can pigeonhole your content, so be wary.

travel nurse blog

Your website needs a hosting provider or web host to exist and be viewable on the Internet. The web host provides a server to store the information on your website and serve it to people looking for it or have found it on the Internet.

When shopping around for a good web host, you will primarily consider the cost. You want to ensure the price is reasonable enough so you can at least not monetize your site during the first few months.

Aside from the price, it would help if you also looked at their uptime. They should keep a 99% uptime at all times so that your website rarely is down when someone tries to access it.

You should also ensure that your web host provider has a good reputation and customer service. If their previous customers aren’t pleased with certain things, you’ll know through reviews to avoid them. Also, you want to see that they have reliable customer service so that you won’t have difficulties finding a representative should you encounter issues with your website.

Please set up your travel nurse blog and customize its design.

Now that you have your website’s foundation, it’s time to modify it to your tastes. While there are tons of free plugins and themes that you can install, they might not fully accommodate your tastes unless you get paid options.

According to Sytian Productions Web Developer Philippines, hiring a web designer can be the better choice if you want your travel nurse blog to have more customized features and designs. While it’s a costlier investment than free plugins, at least you know that your website works and is in the design you want. This choice is beneficial if you have no coding experience or aren’t a very “techy” person.

When designing your website or travel nurse blog, make sure that you stick to a color scheme. If you share your blog posts on other platforms like social media, consistent branding is essential to make it memorable. That’s why having a set color scheme is something you should consider.

Set up the main pages.

First, work on the main pages once you have a website. These would be:

  • Homepage: This is the first thing a website visitor will usually encounter, so it should let visitors know immediately what your blog is about.
  • About page: This page should describe your travel nurse blog’s goals, mission, and values in more depth.
  • Contact page: If someone wants to send you feedback or collaborate, they should go to the contact page.
  • Blog page: This page should cover the different blog posts you’ve already made, if any. Usually, the most recent post is at the top, but you can format it however you like.

While you might be a travel nurse blog since it’s the start of your website, you should prioritize these main web pages before creating blog posts.

Write engaging and informative blog posts.

You can start creating your blog posts now that you have the main pages.

It can be as short or long as you want. However, adding images and proper formatting can be valuable to keep your readers engaged. There are no set rules here for writing a blog, but pulling from your experiences can ignite your creative flames, so tap into that whenever you feel stuck on a blank page.

Utilize social media platforms to promote your blog

You can create a separate social media platform or use your account to promote your blog post. Either way, publishing a blog and not promoting it on other platforms can be a missed opportunity to get more eyes on it. So, make it a habit to create a promotional post every time you publish a new blog post.

Conclusion

At this point, you should be the proud owner of a travel nurse blog that will be your companion during your entire journey. All that’s left is to live your life so that you can document it and share your experiences through this new creative avenue. We hope these tips will help you on your travel nurse blog journey. Have you started a travel nurse blog? Are there any tips you would share with fellow travelers? Comment them below.

Find Your Next Travel Nurse Assignment with Our Job Board!

Are you on the hunt for your next travel nurse gig? Look no further than our job board! Click here to explore all our current opportunities.

Discover the Perfect Housing for Your Next Assignment

Need somewhere to stay on your next travel nurse assignment? We’ve got you covered. Check out our housing page to find your ideal home away from home. Click here to start your search.

By Jen Fox

November 9, 2018

19086 Views

ADVERTISEMENT

Wanderlust Nurse: A Travel Nurse Volunteer in Shanghai, China

What happens when a Travel Nurse Volunteers in China? One of our FB Group Members is currently in Shanghai. With tons of interest and questions from the group, we asked her if she would provide a run-down of what it took to get there and her initial thoughts on being a Nurse Volunteer in China.

Guest Post: Wanderlust Nurse

I’m currently in Shanghai, China, volunteer teaching nursing to students. Here, I’ll talk about how I ended up here, what was required, and challenges I’ve experienced. You can also read more about my adventures over at Wanderlust Nurse!

“How did you get to go to China to teach nursing?!”

It wasn’t something I actually thought of doing, ever, well at least not up until I applied. Just pick up and move to a foreign country where I don’t speak the language to teach nurses? I have taught clinicals, some staff classes, been a primary preceptor, and really enjoyed all of that. I reserved the thought of university teaching for much later in my life. But sometimes things happen in our lives at the right time, and you just think, “Why not?”

I was on Facebook one day and saw one of my GVSU nursing school classmate’s pictures from a volunteer project with Project Hope. For some reason, I decided to visit their website, and “China-Volunteer Nurse to teach at San Da School of Nursing” jumped out at me. I had the minimum qualifications (MSN, two years of nursing education-related work experience; no Chinese language skills required) so I talked it over with my wife, and applied on August 1st. I thought I’d just put it out into the universe and see what happened.

Project Hope contacted me a week later, asking for my availability. I was caught off guard, and had a million questions for them. We emailed back and forth for 4 months, and I finally bought my ticket on New Year’s Eve 2014.

“What did you need to do to prepare to go to China?”

To prepare for my visit, I had a background check, and had to have a physician sign a statement declaring I was fit for international travel…really not much different from all the paperwork required for a travel nursing job. I did get a polio booster because there are active cases of polio in China. The other recommended vaccines were MMR, DPT, Hep A, Hep B, and Typhoid, which I’ve had because of my job, and from my previous travels in Southeast Asia. In addition to that, I had to apply for a Chinese visa, because it is required for stays longer than 72 hours. I am from Michigan, and the closest Chinese consulate is in Chicago. The visa application has to be delivered IN PERSON, so, we thought we’d drive, to Chicago, in the middle of winter…just to save a few bucks. It was FREEZING, and this is coming from a girl who grew up in Michigan. We even had to make 2 trips because they won’t issue the visa on the same day. Next time, I think I will just cough up the visa service fee.

“What type of compensation do you receive while you are in China?”

I think for a “volunteer position”, my compensation is very generous. Project Hope and San Da University reimbursed me for my RT flight ($1900) & Chinese visa ($140), provide a monthly stipend (about $300), and pay for my housing (a very nice 2 bedroom apartment). I also get a meal card that I can use on campus, where a cafeteria lunch costs $1.28. The Metro costs 48-80¢ per ride, and I take a free university shuttle bus to campus (about 40 minutes each way) on days I teach.

“What have you seen and eaten in Shanghai?”

We have visited many parks and gardens, some temples, and eaten a lot of dumplings. I find the food to be good, but somewhat bland. Shanghai is not known for spicy or extremely flavorful food. Think of a Chinese restaurant menu item with the white/light sauce, and that’s pretty much the flavor of a lot of things: salty, maybe a little sweet. What Shanghai is known for are their xiaolongbao, or “soup dumplings”: little pillows of heaven for your mouth that could scald you with their internal soupy goodness. Delicious.

“What cultural differences have you noticed?”

A city of 25 million people, Shanghai is surprisingly clean, and very easy to get around using the Metro. But there are A TON of people and the concept of personal space isn’t a reality here, so the metro rides can get interesting. We get stared at, a lot. They don’t pretend to just take a side look, they full on STARE, and then when I turn back to look at them again, STILL STARING. Yes, I am white, and I look different than you. So, little things like that are definitely a cultural adjustment.

I’ve seen a lot of personal grooming in public spaces: nose picking & Q-tip using on the Metro. Girls are all very touchy, so best friends hold hands. On the first day, my faculty mentor, Rong Rong, just linked her arm in mine, which caught me off guard. Not in a bad way, just in a, we-don’t-do-that-at-home way. Also, pedestrians are the lowest life form. Even when there’s a “Walk” symbol, you still have to look both ways the entire time you’re crossing the street. Cars just don’t stop.

“What challenges have you experienced in Shanghai?”

One of the biggest challenges is the language barrier. It was not a requirement for the position; however, day-to-day life outside of our apartment really requires some knowledge of the language. There’s a lot of miming and hand gestures to convey what we want. Also, that all of Google is blocked, including Google Translate & Maps, has been difficult.

At school, the challenge is creating all original content for my classes. I cannot use the school’s textbooks, as they are in Chinese. I did bring a CCRN book, as well as a couple of digital books to help, but it is just a lot of work. And I wasn’t really expecting that. My ‘Intensive Care Nursing’ lecture is a total of 160 minutes, and coming up with enough content and PPT slides is an enormous amount of work. At least with a nursing job, I can just work my 3, 12’s and not have to think about work again until I go back. Here, it’s like, when’s my next class, how long is the class, gotta make some more PPTs. Even on the weekends, I’m preparing for my Monday class. It’s a completely different workload.


Many Travel Nurses Volunteer in foreign countries. If you are a Travel Nurse Volunteer and would like to share your story, we would LOVE to feature it!  If you’re interested in sharing your experience and contributing to The Gypsy Nurse, please contact us.