Travel Nurse Stories

When a story begins at Disney World, you know it’s going to be magical. Aya travel nurse, Bealie, moved to Orlando from Canada with her family at the age of ten, when her mother, a travel nurse herself, accepted an assignment in the Sunshine State. The warm weather and beaches were big attractions, but it was Mickey Mouse and company that held the greatest appeal. The family still attends every major event, and as Bealie puts it, “We love Disney so much that we just stayed.”

The roots the family put down in Florida held fast until last year when Bealie decided to follow in her mom’s footsteps and head across the country as a travel nurse. This close-knit family was not about to let Bealie go alone, so her mom, little brother and sister all came along for the ride. They chose the West Coast to be near family and friends and became enamored with California. Bealie’s first assignment was in Santa Maria, and she lived nearby in Pismo Beach. “I got spoiled,” she gushes. “You can go anywhere from the beach to the mountains…it has everything.” The family put hundreds of miles on Bealie’s car visiting San Diego, San Francisco and everything in between. Bealie says, “Anytime I had time we would venture off. I told myself I would go to different states but no, I just decided to stay in California for a year. There was too much to see.” She found an additional, unexpected bonus from her year in Cali as well. “With the money I saved working in California I was able to visit my friend in Korea,” she explains. “I don’t think there is another job where you can take a month off like that.”

As if frequent travel and her work as an RN aren’t enough, Bealie concurrently goes through a nurse practitioner program. Now that she’s in her practicum, Bealie is back home, travel nursing part time and finishing up her degree. And if your head isn’t spinning yet, consider that she’s only 24. Bealie isn’t the only high achiever in her family, and chances are if you are treated in the Orlando area in the next decade you will run into a member of this assiduous clan. Her mother still works as a cardiac nurse, her brother is finishing a master’s in healthcare business administration, and her little sister dreams of becoming a biomedical engineer. Bealie laughs, “We have our nurses, the businessman, the engineer…We are definitely joking about starting our own hospital. We’ll put our last name on it.”

While it will be no surprise if that idea eventually comes to fruition, in the interim, concrete plans are being made. When her sister heads to college in two years, Bealie will hit the road full time again – this time with her mother in tow. Together, they will live out Bealie’s travel nurse motto, to seek “something new all the time.”