Here are a few trips to help travel nurses and professional healthcare travelers fit everything in your car if you happen to be driving to travel assignment. Hey, every little bit helps, right?

First of all, realize that unless you have a large vehicle, bringing any furniture is not really an option. Travel nurse assignments will include furnished housing since your assignment is temporary. Your recruiter will help you with all the logistics of your new home before you are hitting the road.

Before packing, take the time to deep clean your car. That way you will feel better about shoving all your stuff into every available spot. Don't forget all those extra spaces like under the seat, between the seats and any other nooks where you can fit stuff. Pre-planning will help you with this. You will be surprised, if you plan accordingly, how much stuff you can actually fit in. My husband was always much better at this. He packs the car like a puzzle.

If you must bring anything that will break, use your clothing and/or towels to pack it. That will save you space too. If you are bringing this stuff anyway you might as well put it to good use and not have to mess with packing materials.

The passenger seat beside you is the best place to keep anything you will need during your trip. If you have to travel for more than one day you may want to keep your overnight bag there too for convenience. If you do this you don't have to dig through everything to find what you need for just the night.

Try to avoid boxes as much as possible. They are not flexible to squeeze where they need to be and take up too much space. Anything you can pack in flexible bags will make your task much easier. Also, your pillows take up a lot of space as well. Do you really need them? If so, squish them in there where you can, but if not, you can always buy new pillows when you get there.

There are vacuum bags as well that can shrink some of your stuff into smaller packages and then they can be shoved in here and there. If you have to bring a lot of bulky stuff, this might be a good investment for you.

Of course, if you are transporting any liquids, make sure they are in waterproof containers. I double bag stuff too. Because if it's not meant to spill, then obviously that means it probably will.

Safe travels and Keep Smiling!

Mary Crawford, HealthCare Employment Network