Travel Nurse Stories

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Briana and Henry’s travel nursing story is already an epic on par with anything by Proust (he wrote the longest book according to the people at Guinness. We Googled it.)

Briana and Henry, both tele travel nurses with Aya, are two of the lucky ones whose reality actually lives up to their Instagram accounts. They’ve traveled for just over a year and it seems they are destined to check every picture-perfect spot in the western hemisphere off their bucket list. Whether striking a warrior pose after snowshoeing for the first time in Lake Tahoe, or canoeing across Lake Louise on a holiday in Alberta, they look good doing it. Working the same schedule leaves them plenty of time for excursions. When asked if they ever fight, Briana says almost apologetically, “Truthfully no. We are just really happy with what we are doing right now.” And as if these two weren’t already adorable enough… they just added Bailey, an 8-week-old golden retriever pup to the family.

Both originally from New England, they’ve long had their sites set on the West Coast and hit the road as soon as Briana got a year of nursing under her belt. Seeking lucrative assignments and stunning vistas, they found the best of both worlds in Reno, Nevada. Henry says “We really wanted to go to Reno and the company we were with at the time didn’t have the connections. Aya was able to get us wherever we wanted to go.” They were taken with the beauty of the surrounding mountains (not to mention the “not-quite a-mansion” they shared with two other travel nurses) and soon discovered that for them, travel nursing was about so much more than great pay. Briana says “The experience itself is so invaluable. Forget about the money.”

For this duo, travel nursing is about so much more than just the adventures they have on their days off. Traveling with Aya has allowed them to consistently add to their expertise and build their resumes into a veritable alphabet soup of new certifications. Their current hospital in Washington State is paying for an NIHSS course, which is just one of the ways this career has expanded their horizons. “There are all these different skills and certifications that we accumulate along the way,” explains Briana. “They help us go to new hospitals with confidence and say ‘Yeah, I’ve done that.'”

In addition to all the traveling, puppy training and professional development, they somehow still find time to indulge other passions – namely running and music. On their frequent road trips, they always make sure to have a kickin’ soundtrack since, as Henry says, the tunes “keep it entertaining.” It’s fitting that they recently ran the Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon (well Briana did – the 5K was more Henry’s speed) and they look forward to the Las Vegas race this November, where Henry plans to add the 10k to his repertoire. The pace of their lives tends to run just as fast off the track as on. They will soon be back on the highway, 90s jams on the radio, bound for the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park or some other natural wonder. Of their generally action-packed lifestyle, Briana says simply “We don’t rest too much. Sometimes we find ourselves a little sleep deprived, but it’s so worth it.”