“Wait, you cook in your hotel room? How?” – A common question that I get when I post pictures on social media of the seemingly lavish meals I can produce in a hotel room on the go. I mean, yes, there’s a stove and you get used to it… Did you know, I’m not the only one?
When I started working as a new attending and a full time nomadic locum tenens provider, I had no idea how things worked in the hospitality industry and how large the world was of people that traveled a significant amount for work. At my very first job in Huntsville, Texas I met my very first travel nurses. They had come down from Illinois to work and opened my eyes to how big the world was of travelers that I had never met. Working in large cities that tended to be over-saturated with work as opposed to smaller more rural communities, I had never really met many people that traveled. I became fascinated with the existence of so many people that did the same thing I was hoping to do, and understanding the way that they did it.
I became great friends with the first General Manager at that Hampton Inn and I still stay in touch with him to this day. I spent hours and days at that hotel with not a whole lot to do in the town when i was on call, and got to know him well as well this group of rambunctious travelers. I learned that the world of people that travel for a large amount of their job extended way beyond what I knew and much farther than just healthcare personnel. There were traveling nurses, respiratory therapists, assistances, and with myself discovering the niche world of locum tenens, traveling doctors.
Furthermore, my eyes were opened to regional travelers that would go to sites for training or particular needs. In that same town of Huntsville, Texas I met many that came to work at the prison. In Deming, New Mexico I met immigration officers that were shipped in to take over stints patrolling the border. In Augusta, Maine I met many that worked for the department of transportation that came to either work in the area, or would use our location as a waypoint for other work around the state. With time, an entire world began to reveal itself to me.
There are those that travel occasionally for work, there are those that travel constantly, and so many leave their families to do so. Some electively and some out of force. Some temporary and some for days at a time. The longest stay I had been told of at a single hotel was close to 500 consecutive days. A large majority of the time, lodgings are covered by companies that operate throughout the state/nation, but with each day, the travel worker is racking up those hotel loyalty points. Some people bring their pets, some bring plants, and some even hang up pictures in their rooms, they stay for so long.
Taking a brief second to peruse Indeed.com results in finding over several thousand job positions that involve travel. While many travel by ground, some travel by air, and on an international scale, business of course tends to be the biggest driver, but sometimes people travel for more nuanced work such as geology – I once heard of a many traveling business class because he accrued so many points being flown to unique areas of Africa to study/investigate gems and rocks.
The world of at Traveler can be notoriously lonely, and isn’t for the faint of heart. Many of us have strained relationships or are so used to being alone that the solitude is more comforting. Some do it to run from problems or situations and some do it seeking something new. Most of us do it for the money, some the adventure, and we all develop our own routines for sleek movement from one place to the next. While some may travel for a weekend, others will travel for a life time and we are all just searching for the next pitstop along our lives. So the next time you go to an extended stay hotel, equipped with that little kitchenette, and see the trucks piled up out back or see scrubs in a whirl rushing out the door, just think of the slightly underground society of all of us travel workers filling in needs in places that are not always to find.
The Nomadic Pediatrician 