Victoria is a mid-sized city in south Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. It's sometimes called "The Crossroads of Texas" because of the many South Texas highways that crisscross through it, and because of it's proximity to Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Galveston. You can get in your car from here, and be in any of those places within a few hours. It's not a fancy vacation destination, but it's certainly on of those places that puts a lot of activities within your day offs reach.
First of all, the assignment outlook here is pretty good. There are three major medical facilities here. Detar Navarro, Detar North, and Citizens Medical Center. Citizens is the largest and most active facility, with a busy ER. Detar Navarro and Detar North are sister hospitals, with the North campus being a women's and children's center, however their ER sees all patients. I have no personal experience with Citizens or with Detar North, but have talked to nurses that work at both, and they say the work environment is good.
Detar Navarro is a full service ER with a 13 bed ER department. The staff at Detar Navarro has been very traveler friendly for me, and it is a well run department with a excellent Nursing staff and the physician's staff in the ER is great. I haven't had any experience in other areas of the hospital, but the ER has thus far been a real pleasure to work in. If you get the chance to come to Detar Navarro, I highly recommend it. It's not one of those "work a million hours" places, their staff here is too stable. But if you're happy with 36 a week, you're not going to find an assignment where the work portion is much more enjoyable than here.
On your off days, you havea lot of decisions to make. Depending on your idea of fun, you can visit Austin or San Anotnio for big city tourism where you can see the State Capital, enjoy the night life, or visit Sea World and Fiesta, Texas. Of course, no visit to San Antonio is complete without a visit to the Alamo, and then spending time on the river walk.
If you like the outdoors, then you're in luck here as well. Some of the best fishing on the gulf coast is within an hours drive from Victoria with both bay fishing and off shore excursions easy to arrange. Avid bird watchers flock to this area at certain times of the years to see an amazing gathering of avian, some quite rare. The Aransas National Wildlife Refuge is a short 30 minute drive away from Victoria, and is one of my favorite ways to spend a few hours on a day off. It has many trails to choose from and winds along the coast for about 7 miles, then through a diverse collection of Texas' habitats as the loop goes inland. On my last trip I saw too many birds to even mention, ferrel hogs, white tailed deer, alligators, wild turkeys, and some very humorous ground hogs.
If the beach is more your style, then Corpus Christi is about 90 minutes down the road, and you can spend your day on a crowded tourist beach, or venture onto North Padre Island in a 4-wheel drive vehicle and spend the day exploring an undeveloped coastal barrier island on your own. Corpus is also the home of the Texas State Aquarium, and to a Casino Cruise ship with daily excursions for those who want to place a bet.
There's a lot of Texas history around here, and those who enjoy visiting Spanish missions, or historic battle fields and monuments will find something to keep them busy here as well.
Victoria may not be a glamorous place to spend 13 weeks itself, but it puts you in reach of a lot of activities and offers a very pleasant work experience, at least it has for me. So if a Texas assignment is what you're looking for, you might want to talk to your recruiter about Victoria, TX.
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