Travel nursing means building a life in three-month installments. When a new contract takes you from Arizona to Massachusetts to Florida, your car has to come along — and driving it yourself isn't always the obvious answer. A coast-to-coast drive can burn four to six days of travel time, add thousands of miles of depreciation, and leave you arriving at a new city already exhausted before your first shift.
Shipping your vehicle turns that into a hands-off process: your car is picked up near your current housing and delivered near your new one, usually while you're flying ahead and settling in. Here's what traveling nurses should know about doing it well.
Why shipping usually wins between assignments
The math is simple. A drive from Phoenix to Boston is roughly 2,300 miles — that's hotels, gas, days of driving, and real wear on a vehicle you may be financing. It also means arriving in a new city a day or two before orientation just to recover from the road, which eats into the very time you moved across the country to earn.
Shipping flips the sequence. You fly ahead, start orientation on schedule, and your car arrives while you're already working. For assignments where you'll be somewhere 13 weeks or more, the convenience almost always justifies the cost — and for shorter stints or one-way relocations, it's usually not close.
Timing it around your contract
Book one to two weeks before your start date for open transport — two to four weeks for enclosed, where carrier capacity is thinner. Your pickup window is usually a few business days wide, so schedule it for the days after you check out of your current housing and before you fly, or coordinate pickup with a friend or complex office if you'll already be gone.
Door-to-door delivery matters more for nurses than almost anyone. You'll likely be in an apartment complex or a housing placement with limited parking — flag that at booking. Carriers plan around apartment access, gate codes, and loading zones all the time; what they can't plan around is finding out on delivery day. Your coordinator will confirm access details in advance so delivery day is a handoff, not a negotiation.
What it costs and how to budget
Cost depends on the distance, the season, your vehicle, and open versus enclosed transport. Long cross-country runs price well per mile thanks to corridor volume; shorter regional moves cost more per mile but less overall. If your contract includes a travel stipend or housing allowance, check whether vehicle transport qualifies — many travel nurses apply part of their travel reimbursement to shipping.
One budgeting note from the road: ship during your off days, not your first week. Last-minute bookings pay premiums and shrink your carrier options, while a booking made the week you sign the contract gets the same truck for less.
Open or enclosed?
For a daily driver, open transport is the standard and the sensible choice — it's how the overwhelming majority of vehicles move, including new cars delivered to dealerships. Enclosed transport is for vehicles where condition is the point: the classic or sports car you keep at home, the fresh detail before a sale, the low-mileage car you're storing between contracts.
A middle option worth knowing: some nurses ship their daily driver open and leave the weekend car at a family member's home — no rule says both cars have to travel with you.
Choosing a company you can trust on a deadline
Your assignment start date is the hard constraint, so choose a company that treats dates seriously. Look for: a firm, all-inclusive quote (not an estimate that grows at pickup), verified carrier insurance and operating authority before dispatch, a named coordinator you can actually reach, and documented condition reports at both ends.
It's also fair to ask how the company handles delays. Weather and mechanical issues happen; the difference between a good company and a bad one is whether you hear about a slip proactively with a new plan, or find out by silence. Three generations of transport experience taught us that communication is the product as much as the truck is.
"Your license travels with you. Your car should travel this well too — picked up at your door, delivered at the next one, on a date your coordinator confirmed in advance."