Personal and professional growth-not to mention a chance to explore the country-are awaiting nurses who decide it's time to give travel nursing a try.

MAYBE YOU'VE ALWAYS HAD a secret yearning to see the country, to take off in search of adventure, wherever it might lead you. Maybe you've always stifled that urge because you thought you were tied down by your job.

Maybe not anymore.

Now is the perfect time to reconsider, reconnect with your dreams, and realize that as a travel nurse, you could have both: the adventure of travel and the career rewards of nursing.

With the nursing shortage deepening, health care facilities nationwide are scrambling to fill vacancies. Many are turning to travel nursing companies for help-and that could make you a hot property. You know what you have to offer in travel nursing; maybe you're wondering what travel nursing has to offer you. Here are just a few reasons to consider becoming a travel nurse.

1. Expand your skills and knowledge base. Travel nursing "makes nurses better nurses," says Brian Hekman, director of corporate communications for Cross Country TravCorps. No matter where you work, he says, you'll be exposed to different ways of looking at nursing practice and you'll acquire new skills and knowledge that will put some muscle into your curriculum vitae. As a travel nurse, you'll have access to a variety of assignments around the country, from small rural hospitals with only a few beds, where you'll be a jack-of-all-trades, to large urban teaching centers, where you can specialize in the nursing area of your choice. Each experience helps you grow as a nurse: At one hospital, for example, you could be learning the latest technique in negative-pressure wound therapy; at another, you could be mentoring staff nurses unfamiliar with this technique.

2. Take control of your career. Feel as if you're stagnating in your present position? Tired of the hospital politics? Travel nursing may be the perfect opportunity for you to get a needed change of scenery, literally. You're in the driver's seat as a travel nurse: You have the freedom to decide what you want your next assignment to be.