Top 10 Destinations for Travel Nurses in 2025

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10 Best Destinations for Travel Nurses

For travel nurses, choosing the right destination can make all the difference in your assignment, from your pay down to your overall enjoyment. Basically, some places have better facilities and even higher compensation, depending on the task you’re assigned.

Regardless of whether you are a seasoned travel nurse or a beginner in the field, you need to stay up to date on the top destinations other nurses prefer. This will give you a strong understanding of where you can offer the most value comfortably and wholeheartedly.

For this reason, this article will explore the 10 best destinations for travel nurses, revealing where offers the best opportunities for growth and exploration. Let’s dive in!

Top 10 Destinations For Travel Nurses

Without further ado, here are the top places you may want to keep in your radar when going for your next assignment. They include:

1. Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington is surrounded by amazing natural beauty, from the snow-capped peaks of Mount Rainier National Park to the waters of Puget Sound and has a unique blend of professional growth as well as personal adventure.

As a travel nurse working in some of the nation’s most renowned hospitals, you’ll also have access to a thriving coffee culture, iconic attractions and unique neighborhoods to explore.

During your vacation or days off, consider venturing to Pike Place Market, taking a ferry to the San Juan Islands, or hiking in the lush Pacific Northwest terrain.

With its unique blend of professional growth and personal adventure.

2. Austin, Texas

Traveling Nurses are flocking to Austin these days, which makes it one of the top travel nursing destinations. The city boasts a variety of excellent healthcare facilities, offering opportunities to gain valuable professional experience.

Places like Austin, Houston, and Dallas all come with a vibrant population with several healthcare facilities, which give you a lot of opportunities to advance your travel nursing career. What also makes this location excellent is the low cost of living and no state income tax, which ultimately lets you save more of your travel nursing income.

It’s also worth mentioning that you can work without needing extra licensing in Texas if you have a multistate nursing license. However, if you don’t have that document, you can apply for a tax nursing permit with the Texas Board of Nursing.

3. San Diego, California

Nurses will definitely satisfy their wanderlust in California because it offers some of the country’s most iconic attractions and comfortable weather. But the cost of living there is expensive, having 49.9% higher cost of living than the national average.

Another factor that makes California an excellent place is its population size, which naturally means more healthcare facilities. The presence of these institutions makes it much easier to find travel nursing jobs of any kind, whether opening for a medical surgeon or an operating room assistant.

4. Atlanta, Georgia

This location strikes the perfect balance between professionalism and enjoyment. Its variety of healthcare facilities and job opportunities across multiple nursing disciplines gives it the leverage to be considered one of the top cities for travel nurses.

In Atlanta, travel nurses can keep themselves busy, both with work and during their leisure time. There’s so much to see and do, considering the rich and charming southern environment with an active community.

5. Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas has been known as the City of Fountains since around the 1950s, and it became an official part of the city’s emblem in 1992. Regardless of this fun fact, Kansas has a lot to offer visitors and residents alike, including affordable living, a buzzing nightlife, and a history that’s rich with jazz and baseball.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of opportunities, and a higher level of demand especially for nurses with Cath lab, NICU, PICU and med/surg experience in Overland Park and Independence, so you can consider looking for residents within those areas.

6. Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado, is a splendid choice for travel nurses looking for a mix of urban excitement and outdoor adventure. Whether you’re a seasoned nurse or just starting your travel nursing career, Denver is packed with experiences that make it a standout travel nursing destination.

When you’re off duty, there’s so much to explore. If city life is more your style, then downtown Denver has everything from trendy restaurants to art galleries.

7. Florida

If you have a licence from the NLC, you can work in Florida with ease as this state is a part of the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC). In other words, you can practice here without needing additional travel licensing permits, but if you aren’t part of the NLC, you can apply for a Florida RN license through the Florida Board of Nursing.

Nevertheless, Florida presents travel nurses with the opportunity to work any type of travel nursing job in a state with no income tax and a vibrant lifestyle. The only drawback might be the pay as it’s slightly lower than other states, but that doesn’t stop Florida from being an excellent place for travel nursing assignments.

8. New York

For nurses looking for the best pay and high demand for their services, New York might be the best place. Besides these benefits, it also offers diverse travel nursing jobs like critical care and pediatrics, all in urban hospitals with modern facilities.

Another perk that makes New York excellent for travel nurses is that it offers several conferences and educational programs that allow participants to attend and network with other experts. Although New York is not part of the Nurse Licensure Compact, getting an RN license through the New York State Education Department (NYSED) is an easy task.

9. Portland, Maine

Portland is an ideal destination for those looking to experience and an inspiring spot for travel nurses to call home for a while. Nurses on assignment in Maine have an enriching experience surrounded by historic sights and beautiful views.

Cost of living is another benefit that makes travel nursing worthwhile in Portland since essential items are affordable here. Therefore, you can save money on transportation, utilities, housing, accessories, and much more. So by working at Portland, you have the opportunity to take more of your travel nursing earnings home.

10. San Francisco, California

Ready to thrive in your healthcare career and explore job opportunities in 2025? San Francisco might just be the place for you as it’s one of the best cities with the highest pay for travel nurses throughout the country.

Travel nurses in San Francisco can expect competitive wages and benefits like signing bonuses and completion bonuses for assignments. These perks add to your earnings, making it much easier to explore the city without worrying about eating too much from your income.

Conclusion

In the end, cities like San Francisco and Seattle are best for receiving bonuses and other perks as a travel nurse. But when choosing the right city, you have to consider housing, balancing work and life, exploring the city’s vibrant culture, and more.

So, to make the right choice, you need to consider these options or research others and see which has the best benefits that meet your travel nursing needs. You can also reach out to travel nursing agencies for their take on the best cities to work in, along with their pros and cons.

Happy travels!

Healthcare organizations face some of the toughest workforce challenges: tight budgets, lean IT teams and limited tools for sourcing, hiring and onboarding staff. Add in manual scheduling, rising labor costs and high burnout, and the pressure grows. Rolling out complex systems can feel out of reach without dedicated tech support. Even simply evaluating new technology can overwhelm already stretched-thin teams.

These challenges make it clear that technology isn’t just helpful; it’s essential for healthcare organizations. Especially when they’re striving to do more with less. Not only are healthcare organizations falling short on implementing new technology, but they’re struggling to update outdated systems. A 2023 CHIME survey found that nearly 60% of hospitals use core IT systems, such as EHRs and workforce platforms, that are over a decade old. Outdated tools can’t integrate or scale, creating barriers to smarter staffing strategies. But the opportunity to modernize is real and urgent.

Tech in Patient Care Falls Short

In healthcare, technology has historically focused on clinical and patient care. Workforce management tools have taken a back seat to updating patient care systems. Yet many big tech companies have failed when it comes to customizing healthcare infrastructure and connecting patients with providers. Google Health shuttered after only three years, and Amazon’s Haven Health was intended to disrupt healthcare and health insurance but disbanded three years later.

Why the failures? It’s estimated that nearly 80% of patient data technology systems must use to create alignment is unstructured and trapped in data silos. Integration issues naturally form when there’s a lack of cohesive data that systems can share and use. Privacy considerations surrounding patient data are a challenge, as well. Across the healthcare continuum, federal and state healthcare data laws hinder how seamlessly technology can integrate with existing systems.

Why Smarter Staffing Is Now Essential

These data and integration challenges also hinder a healthcare organization’s ability to hire and deploy staff, an urgent healthcare priority. The U.S. will face a shortfall of over 3.2 million healthcare workers by 2026. At the same time, aging populations and rising chronic conditions are straining teams already stretched thin.

Smart workforce technology is becoming not just helpful, but essential. It allows organizations to move from reactive staffing to proactive workforce planning that can adapt to real-world care demands.

Global Inspiration: Japan’s AI-Driven Workforce Model

Healthcare staffing shortages aren’t just a U.S. problem. So, how are other countries addressing this issue? Countries like Japan are demonstrating what’s possible when technology is utilized not just to supplement staff, but to transform the entire workforce model. With one of the world’s oldest populations and a significant clinician shortage, Japan has adopted a proactive approach through its Healthcare AI and Robotics Center, where several institutions like Waseda University and Tokyo’s Cancer Institute Hospital are focusing on developing AI-powered hospitals.

Japan’s focus on integrating predictive analytics, robotics and data-driven scheduling across elder care and hospital systems is a response to its aging population and workforce shortages. From robotic assistants to AI-supported shift planning, Japan’s futuristic model proves that holistic tech integration, not piecemeal upgrades, creates sustainable staffing frameworks.

Rather than treating workforce tech as an IT patch for broken systems, Japan’s approach embeds these tools throughout care operations, supporting scheduling, monitoring, compliance and even direct caregiving tasks. U.S. health systems can draw critical lessons here: strategic investment in integrated platforms builds resilience, especially in a labor-constrained future.

The Power of Smart Workforce Technology

In the U.S., workforce management is becoming increasingly seen as more than a back-office function; it’s a strategic business operation directly impacting clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Smart technology tools are designed to improve care quality, staff satisfaction, scheduling, pay rates, compliance and much more.

For example, by using historical data, patient acuity, seasonal trends and other data points, organizations can predict their staff needs more accurately. The result is fewer gaps in scheduling, fewer overtime payouts and a flexible schedule for staff. AI-powered analytics can help healthcare leadership teams spot patterns in absenteeism, see productivity and forecast needs in multiple clinical areas in real-time. Workforce management tools can help plan scheduling proactively, rather than reactively. It’s a proven technology tool that can help drive efficiency and reduce costs.

Why So Many Are Still Behind

Despite the clear benefits, many healthcare organizations are slow to adopt smart tools that empower their workforce. Several things are holding them back from going all-in on technology:

Financial Pressures

Over half of U.S. hospitals are operating at or below break-even margins. For them, investing in new technology solutions is financially unfeasible. Scalable, subscription-based and even free workforce management tools are available, but most organizations are unaware of or lack the resources to source these products. Workforce management tools can deliver long-term return on investment for most organizations. Taking the time to understand where the value lies and which tools to invest in needs to happen.

Outdated Core Systems

Many facilities still depend on legacy technology infrastructure that lacks real-time capabilities. Many large players in the healthcare workforce management industry dominate hospital systems. Other smaller, real-time tools that offer innovative solutions to scheduling, workforce hiring, rate calculators and more are available at a fraction of the cost.

Competing Priorities and Strategic Blind Spots

Healthcare organizations and hospitals have many high-priority business objectives and regulatory demands. Digital transformation naturally falls down on the priority list, which causes them to miss improvements that can lead to long-term stability. With patient care and provider satisfaction at the top of the priority mountain, technology changes can be easily missed or shoved to the side when other business objectives are perceived to “move the needle” more.

Poor Change Management

Even the best technology efforts can fail without the right strategy for adoption and support from senior leadership. Resistance from staff, lack of training, or poor rollout communication can undermine success. Effective change management—clear leadership, role-based training and feedback loops—is essential.

Faster than the speed of technology

Change needs to come quickly to healthcare organizations in terms of managing their workforce efficiently. Smart technologies like predictive analytics, AI-assisted scheduling and mobile platforms will define this next era. These tools don’t just optimize operations but empower workers and elevate care quality.

Slow technology adoption continues to hold back the full potential of the healthcare ecosystem. Japan again offers a clear example: they had one of the slowest adoption rates of remote workers (19% of companies offered remote work) in 2019. Within just three weeks of the crisis, their remote work population doubled (49%), proving that technological transformation can happen fast when urgency strikes. The lesson is clear: healthcare organizations need to modernize faster for the sake of their workforce and the patients who rely on providers to deliver care.