Written by: Jared Casazza, PT, DPT
In the past I’ve written several articles on the financial advantages of being a travel therapist and how those advantages have allowed Whitney and me to embark on an alternative lifestyle full of international travel. In fact, I’ve always made it known that the financial aspects of being a travel therapist are the biggest reasons I was so dead set on going down the path of travel therapy even two years prior to graduation. However, there is one even bigger advantage that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately that is even more important to me than making more money… and that is flexibility.
The Many Faces of Flexibility
Flexibility as a travel therapist comes in many forms. There’s the flexibility to take extended periods of time off.
- I’m currently writing this after last working over 6 months ago.
There’s the flexibility to try out different settings for a three month stint to see if you have any interest in that area.
- I’ve now worked in outpatient ortho, acute care, home health, skilled nursing, and wound care while traveling.
There’s the flexibility to choose to invest money instead of paying down student debt.
- This is primarily due to travel therapists having lower taxable income meaning a lower monthly income based payment due each month. And this is the path I’ve chosen for my own finances.
There’s even the flexibility to decide if pay or travel location is more important to you for the next three months and to change your mind about that decision after each assignment.
- Occasionally these two coincide, but generally higher paying contracts are in less desirable areas.
Flexible Time Off
Starting out traveling as a new grad, I was most concerned about making as much money as possible to offset my student loan debt (and in my case, start investing heavily early in my career). For that reason, pay was the primary consideration for me, but I’ve recently found that the flexibility to take time off is even more important. These things go hand in hand to some degree, because without making so much more money as a traveler, it would be difficult to take extended time off of work, but the flexibility goes beyond that.
If I had taken a permanent job out of school, there’s little doubt it my mind that I also would have saved a large percentage of my income despite the lower total pay at a permanent job. After a couple of years, I would have likely had enough saved to take an extended trip out of the country, but because of the nature of a permanent position this would have been impossible. After all, it’s difficult to find a permanent employer in healthcare that is willing to let an employee take two consecutive weeks off, much less 5 months! So to me, the flexibility in time off allowed by travel therapy is huge.
Flexibility to Try New Settings
The flexibility to try out different settings is something that I didn’t know at first would be a benefit of traveling. I was always most interested in outpatient ortho as a student and undoubtedly would have taken a permanent job in this area had I not decided to travel. Whitney with her Athletic Training background was 100% in agreement with me in this area. To my surprise, after taking a couple of contracts in other areas, I found that I actually really enjoy home health and even wound care!
As a student, wound care was something that I was terrified of, and I would have never willingly taken a job with that requirement if it wasn’t for knowing it was only for three months. Home health is an area that I started to become interested in, but I most likely wouldn’t have taken the leap into trying it out at a permanent job due to fear of the unknown. As a traveler, it is much easier to get over that fear when you have a predetermined end date that you know will be there pretty quickly if it turns out you really don’t like the job (this was skilled nursing for me).
Flexibility to Invest Instead of Paying Down Debt
I’m not sure if investing instead of paying off my debt is something that I would have done if I had taken a permanent job, but there’s no doubt that it’s more feasible as a travel therapist. The biggest reason is that with a lower taxable pay as a travel therapist comes a lower income based student loan payment. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but when using the REPAYE income based repayment plan, this becomes more important.
The reason is that under REPAYE, half of the accumulated interest each month is subsidized, which ends up being a massive benefit for travel therapists who choose an income driven repayment plan. For me, this is the difference between having an effective interest rate of 6% on my loans versus an effective interest rate of 3.2%. Or, to put this in different terms, it’s the difference between my student debt growing at $500/month versus growing at $266/month.
If you take into account that the stock market returns on average 7-10%, then you can see why investing your money to get that return instead of paying off low interest debt at 3% would make sense. Having the interest accumulate much more slowly makes investing instead of paying down my student debt a no-brainer in my current situation.
Flexibility to Choose Between Pay and Location
Since the primary motivator of travel therapy for Whitney and me was pay, to this point we’ve always chosen to take higher paying travel contracts in rural areas. In addition to the higher pay, we like the slower pace, caring people, and lower cost of living that goes along with traveling to rural areas. Although rural areas are great for us, they lack the excitement of being closer to bigger cities and more desirable areas.
In the future, as money becomes less and less of a motivating factor for us as we approach financial independence, location is likely going to become more important. For example, we’ll likely sacrifice pay and low cost of living at some point to take travel assignments in Hawaii and southern California, which is something that we would never have done three years ago when starting out.
Take Home Points
It’s inevitable that priorities change throughout one’s life. The many different forms of flexibility offered by travel therapy have made pursuing these changes in desires and priorities much more feasible for Whitney and me. Starting out, we never would have guessed that some day we would value being able to take 5 months off to travel around the world, being able to experiment with different settings, or being able to try out the city life without committing to it long term. Travel therapy has given us the ability to do all of the above due to the flexibility, and that has been priceless!
Author: Jared Casazza, PT, DPT – Traveling Doctor of Physical Therapy – Aggressively seeking Financial Independence early in his career
