Travel Nurse Takeover Named Nurse.org’s Best Community Initiative 2025
The travel nurse and newly-minted psychiatric NP encourages nurses to enjoy the journey, not just the destination—and he's helping them to do just that with his online and IRL travel nurse community.
Every year, Nurse.org awards the Best of Nursing Awards for different categories, from content creation to conferences, recognizing influential leaders in the nursing industry. And every year, tens of thousands of Nurse.org readers vote on who they think deserves these coveted nursing awards.
This year, Nurse.org is proud to recognize Ryan Sendow (@ryseblends), RN, the founder of Travel Nurse Takeover (@travelnursetakeover), with the Best Nurse Community Initiative award.
About Travel Nurse Takeover
Sendow founded Travel Nurse Takeover as a way to create a community for travel nurses that he found lacking in his own experience as a travel nurse.
"There was no resource online to connect us, and I felt that likely other people might be feeling the same way, so I decided to make my community during a time when all those reasons converged, and I figured I would try making something that could connect people," Sendow tells Nurse.org.
His decision to make a community for travel nurses took off, becoming Travel Nurse Takeover, with 12.4K followers on Instagram, city-specific groups across the country, and even organized international retreats all over the world where travel nurses can meet up and enjoy new experiences together.
We're thrilled to see any type of community initiative that brings nurses together, which is why we're especially excited to honor Sendow this year. We got a chance to learn more about his nursing career, what future plans he has, and what's coming next for Travel Nurse Takeover.
Forging His Own Path
Sendow tells Nurse.org that he never set out to become a nurse, but in "true first-generation fashion" was encouraged by his parents to choose a "safe" career route. After seeing a few of his siblings go the physician route, Sendow realized that he wanted something that would get him out into the world a little more quickly.
"I thought 4 years to get my BSN was much faster and I could get on my own feet quicker," he explains. "I ended up going for my MSN, but I was able to do some travel nursing and be independent before then."
His foray into travel nursing sparked the foundation for what would become Travel Nursing Takeover. He explains that while traveling, he found it difficult to make friends, especially when positioned at the hospital for such a short duration of time.
"It’s already difficult to adjust to a city or hospital; finding people you connect with is just as hard," he says. "I was feeling a deep sense of lack of community or connection where I was."
Finding no online resources to connect with other travel nurses, Sendow simply decided to start his own. He started Travel Nurse Takeover (TNT) on Snapchat, asking fellow travelers to "take over" the channel to share their adventures on and off assignments. (Yes, that's where the name comes from!) Since those humble beginnings, Sendow has grown Travel Nurse Takeover (TNT) into an international community.
Highlights
He gave Nurse.org some of the highlights he is most proud of with TNT:
- In the span of 3 years, TNT had >200 takeovers between Snapchat and Instagram.
- TNT was able to connect with many travelers at TravCon, a healthcare conference for traveling nurses. This year, Sendow was invited to speak for the first time at the conference and will be speaking on mental health in the inpatient psych setting and the traveling healthcare community.
- During COVID, TNT started Zoom meetups to hang out with travelers while social distancing.
- In 2021, TNT helped initiate the Medical Mission trip in the Dominican Republic, which Stronger Together continues presently.
- Started a TRVL NRSE clothing brand.
- TNT took three group trips to Bali, with between 35-50 travelers each year.
- Took ski trips to Sundance and Banff.
- Hosted and facilitated travel nurse group chats around the country—"These are a huge connector for our community," Sendow notes.
- Hosted and participated in events all over the country, including intramurals, hikes, and boat parties.
- Given away $1000s worth of giveaways and prizes throughout the year.
Sendow is proud of what he has done through TNT and shares that had he not become a nurse, he thinks he would have had a career in filmmaking.
"I would love to create films/short stories," he says. "I think that’s why I liked building TNT when I started. When people would 'take over' our TNT Snapchat/Instagram account, I was able to give people a platform to share their stories and experiences as travelers. And now we meet in real life. How cool is that?"
Best Community Initiative
With all that Sendow has done and accomplished through TNT, it's probably not a surprise that he and his organization were chosen as Nurse.org's Best Community Initiative Award, but Sendow is still gracious about receiving the award.
"It’s an honor to be recognized by peers and those who see the significance of the community that we’ve created," he notes. " It’s something I don’t take lightly, and I am committed to making the best community that people can believe in."
Clearly, community is the name of the game for both Sendow and TNT, and he explains that cultivating that sense of togetherness is always his priority.
"It’s important to find community wherever you go," he says. "As humans, we naturally look for that, and if I can contribute to someone’s lived experience as a traveler, I would love to contribute to that. I think what makes life worth living is serving others and making the world a better place. I think that’s why I’m so passionate about this community, because it’s making an impact."
Building His Own Community
Sendow has done a lot for the travel nursing community, and now, he shares that he's also turning some of his attention inward, in cultivating his own journey after experiencing burnout as a nurse. While he says that becoming a travel nurse "helped a lot," he has also been working on diversifying his skills outside of direct patient care.
After returning to school to earn his Nurse Practitioner license, Sendow is now in what he calls a "transition" phase. He has the goal of working in telehealth psych as a Psych NP, and continuing to travel while calling San Diego his home base.
Until that happens, Sendow is focusing on making TNT sustainable by involving agencies and businesses to support and sponsor the incredible travel community he has created.
"I hope we continue to help current and future travelers find community and create connections all over the country," he says. "I want to build a community that has humans who are genuinely helping others along their traveling nursing journey, both currently and those who will eventually want to travel."
And speaking of those humans in their travel nursing journey, Sendow encourages any current or prospective travel nurses to reach out to the TNT community for support and connection. The group specializes in taking in nurses considering travel nursing or those just curious about the process.
"I think many of us would say travel nursing was one of the best decisions we made and would love to help those who are considering becoming one," he adds.
No matter where nursing leads, Sendow is passionate about encouraging his community to enjoy their journeys.
"One of my fav quotes goes, 'It’s always good to have an end to journey towards, but it’s the journey that matters, in the end,'" he says. "Travel the world while we can and make the most of it."
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