Travel Therapy Job Market Update: January 2026

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026 ~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ Leave a comment

We’re kicking off 2026 with a deep dive into the travel therapy job market, combining data from our recent conversations with top travel therapy staffing agencies plus our own insights and recommendations. If you’re looking to hit the road as a travel therapist this year, here’s what you need to know.

Status of the Travel Therapy Job Market

Good news first: the job market is running at full steam. After the usual holiday lull, January 2026 has brought a significant surge in new travel therapy job orders across all therapy disciplines. This means more opportunities for you to explore. The job market has remained very solid over the last several years with high demand for travel therapists all over the US. If you’re thinking of getting started as a travel therapist or continuing your travel therapy journey, now is a great time!

However, on the flip side: competition is high for desirable jobs. January is a popular time for therapists to make the change from perm jobs to travel therapy, and for new grads to start their careers by taking travel therapy jobs. While the volume of jobs is there, securing the right contract requires speed and strategy, especially when you’re looking at the more desirable locations!

Current Volume of Travel Therapy Jobs

The number of available jobs for travel therapists is continually fluctuating as the needs of facilities across the US change daily. But based on polling about a dozen travel therapy companies, below are the current ranges of available travel therapy jobs for each discipline. Keep in mind that smaller staffing agencies tend to have less job openings, while larger companies have more, thus the wide range.

Travel PT: 200-1300 jobs
Travel OT: 100-300 jobs
Travel SLP: 100-700 jobs
Travel PTA: 80-250 jobs
Travel COTA: 50-175 jobs

Pay Rates: Stability Over Spikes

If you’re chasing those sky-high “crisis rates”, you aren’t going to see as many options as we did post-pandemic around 2022. The consensus among travel therapy staffing agencies is that pay rates have largely stabilized and leveled out. We’re not seeing massive spikes, but the job market remains strong enough to offer competitive pay that generally keeps pace with inflation. You may see some jobs paying in the $2500-3000 net weekly pay range, but the majority of travel therapy jobs are going to be hanging more around $1900-2200 weekly net for PTs, OTs and SLPs, with typical pay more in the $1200-1500 range for assistants.

When searching for the highest paying jobs, a key insight is to pay attention to how your assignment is contracted, whether it’s a “direct” or “VMS” job. We’re seeing a significant impact from Vendor Management Systems (VMS) due to the fees imposed cutting into pay rates. Assignments through these large job portals often result in $100-$200 less per week in take-home pay compared to “direct-contract” roles. Always ask your recruiter about the contract type and see if you can secure a direct contract with a higher net pay.

Where to Find the Action: Hot States & Settings

Let’s talk geography and specialty!

Top States: California, Washington, and Massachusetts consistently lead the pack for volume of travel jobs. Oregon, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, and Missouri are showing consistent growth in travel job opportunities as well.
PT Settings: Outpatient continues to have the most job openings for PT. For PTs looking to maximize earnings, Home Health often offers the highest weekly take-home pay, though it comes with its own demands. Rural Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) are also consistently in high demand. And there’s plenty of hospital based PT jobs as well!
SLP Settings: For our Speech-Language Pathologists, the School-based market is where it’s at! February and March mark the beginning of the “early bird” contract season for the 2026-2027 school year, so keep an eye out for opportunities for next school year if you’re a peds SLP. For medical SLPs, SNF has the highest demand followed by hospital and home health.
OT Settings: Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) continue to dominate the needs for travel occupational therapists nationwide, followed by schools and hospitals. While the availability of OT jobs is lower overall compared to PT & SLP, you can still find great opportunities if you are somewhat open on settings and locations.

Travel Therapy Opportunities for New Grads

Good news for the Classes of 2025/2026! While the job market is competitive, new grads can absolutely find travel therapy jobs.

New Grad PTs have the easiest path starting off their careers as travelers, due to high volume of open jobs and overall highest demand for PTs nationwide.
New Grad OTs are also finding success as travelers, though it can be slightly more competitive.
SLP-CFs face the biggest challenge, as placement hinges on securing sites willing to provide clinical supervision. Schools are your best bet if you’d like to do travel therapy during your CF year. Once you get your CCC’s, there are many more opportunities in all settings for Travel SLPs!

Our advice for new grads: Prioritize clinical support and mentorship over the highest dollar figure for your first contract. A supportive facility that helps you build confidence and experience is invaluable. Be flexible on location and setting; getting that first contract under your belt unlocks many more opportunities down the road. We want for you to have the best experience possible in your first placement as a new grad travel therapist. Then, once you get that first experience and feel more confident as a travel therapist, you can start chasing higher paying contracts and those bucket list locations. Keep in mind that some facilities may offer slightly lower rates for new grads, knowing that you may need more ramp up time. This is not always the case but for certain clients it is!

Raising the Bar: Professionalism as a Travel Therapist in 2026

Mutual respect and clear communication are paramount to the therapist-recruiter relationship in the travel therapy industry. Recruiters are real people who invest significant time and effort into finding you opportunities, often sacrificing personal time and working after hours to accommodate therapists’ schedules. “Ghosting” on interviews or submissions creates unnecessary stress and confusion.

Here’s what we recommend: If you’re no longer interested in a position or a company, a simple “thank you for your time, but I’ve found another opportunity” goes a long way. We also recommend that you never “double submit” for the same job through two agencies. This maintains your professional integrity and fosters stronger, more honest partnerships within the industry. Your recruiter is fighting for you, handling pay negotiations and advocating for you with facilities. Let’s make communication a two-way street and maintain professionalism with the travel therapy recruiters that we work with.

For more information and advice on how to handle working with multiple travel therapy recruiters in a professional way, check out this article: Why and How to Work with Multiple Travel Therapy Companies and Recruiters

Your Next Steps

The 2026 travel therapy job market is strong, but dynamic! Being on top of your game will help you to succeed as a travel therapist this year. Here’s what we recommend:

Do your due diligence before getting started. Research the ins and outs of travel therapy so you know what you’re getting into. Our Travel Therapy 101 Series, plus other articles, videos and podcasts are a great place to start!
Start talking to recruiters 2-3 months ahead of when you anticipate beginning your first travel therapy job. Fill out our Recruiter Recommendation Form to get personalized recommendations from us for your situation!
Get your state licenses ahead of time, and have all your information ready to go for the recruiters so you can get your onboarding and credentialing done in a timely manner and avoid delays with your start date.

To hear our full update on the travel therapy job market for 2026, check out our Job Market Update Video here: January 2026 Travel Therapy Job Market Update on YouTube

We’re here to help you navigate it all. What are your biggest questions about the current travel therapy job market? Let us know in the comments below, or send us a message here.

Additional Resources:

Written by Whitney Casazza, PT, DPT – Whitney has been a traveling physical therapist since 2015. She has become an expert in the field of travel healthcare through her experience, research, and networking over a decade. She and her husband and fellow Travel PT, Jared, are the Travel Therapy Mentors.

10 Lessons Learned in 10 Years as Travel Therapists

June 25, 2025June 25, 2025 ~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ Leave a comment

May 2025 marks a decade since Whitney and I embarked on our first travel physical therapy contracts. What started as a five-year plan to pay off student loans and explore the country has evolved into ten years of incredible experiences, unexpected turns, and a deep dive into the travel therapy industry.

In our 10 years as travel therapists, we’ve worked in five different states, practiced in several different physical therapy settings, visited all 50 U.S. states and all 63 U.S. National Parks via trips during and between contracts, as well as traveled to over 55 countries and all 7 continents for fun in our free time! Throughout this journey, we achieved financial independence and semi-retired before the age of 30!

Along the way, we created Travel Therapy Mentor to educate and inspire current and aspiring travel therapists. Over the years in this role as mentors, we’ve worked closely with travel therapy companies, recruiters, and thousands of fellow travelers. This unique perspective as travelers ourselves and leaders within the industry has given us invaluable insights.

Whether you’re a seasoned travel therapist, new to the game, or just curious about this dynamic career path, here are 10 crucial lessons we’ve learned over the past ten years:

1. Your Plans WILL Change (and That’s Okay!)

We started with a five-year plan: pay off student loans, get into real estate investing, and slowly traverse the country in our RV from coast to coast, before settling down into perm jobs. Needless to say things didn’t go exactly as we planned! We stayed on the East Coast for longer, taking back to back contracts while focusing on savings rate and prioritizing our goal of achieving financial independence. We decided not to pay off our loans in favor of investing and utilizing income driven repayment plans. We then semi-retired and started traveling all over the world while working only 1-2 contracts per year. Our five years turned into ten, and we never took permanent jobs as originally planned. We unexpectedly became entrepreneurs and built a thriving mentorship business. We now have a family but continue to live a flexible lifestyle where we don’t work full time.

As a travel therapist, we learned it’s important to be flexible, embrace the unexpected, and allow life to open up opportunities you never envisioned.

2. There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Company

This is perhaps our most important lesson for aspiring travel therapists to help you have the best experience overall with your job searches. With over a hundred travel therapy companies out there, there’s no single “best” one. Each company has its pros, cons, and specializations. Which company is best for you depends on your discipline, preferred setting, desired locations, and what benefits you value. Working with the wrong company can lead to a frustrating experience, making you believe travel therapy isn’t for you, when in reality, you just haven’t found the right fit.

Your wants and needs dictate the best company for you.

3. Recruiters Change Over Time – And So Should Your Approach

Just like companies, travel therapy recruiters aren’t static. A fantastic recruiter today might become overwhelmed, change their focus, or have life circumstances that impact their responsiveness down the line. A recruiter who’s great for an experienced traveler who knows exactly what they want might not be the best fit for a new traveler needing more guidance.

Don’t be afraid to explore new recruiters or work with multiple ones as your needs and their circumstances evolve.

If you’d like help getting connected with travel therapy recruiters and companies that align with your own personal goals, you can fill out our Recruiter Recommendations form here and we will help point you in the right direction!

4. Housing is Never Perfect

We bought a fifth wheel thinking RVing would solve all our housing problems – easier moves, cheaper living. While there were some benefits, it wasn’t the “perfect solution” we imagined. We eventually sold it and have done short-term housing options for more recent contracts. Both housing options have their headaches. Overall, finding travel therapy housing options can be challenging no matter which route you go.

The “best” housing option for you depends entirely on your situation (i.e. traveling with pets/partner/family and your travel style). You’ll have to choose the “lesser of evils” that best aligns with your lifestyle.

5. Moderate Pay in Low Cost-of-Living Areas Can Be More Lucrative

It’s tempting to chase the highest-paying travel therapy contracts, but often these are in expensive metropolitan areas where your housing, food, and daily expenses will eat significantly into your take-home pay. We learned that taking a moderately-paying contract in a rural or lower cost-of-living area often allows you to save and keep more of your money at the end of the day.

When choosing contracts, always consider the net income after expenses, not just the gross pay package.

6. Traveling with Kids is Harder Than We Thought

Before having our daughter, we envisioned continuing our travel lifestyle with kids. Now, with a six-month-old who doesn’t consistently sleep through the night, we’ve had a humbling reality check. The logistics of finding suitable housing, childcare away from family support, and managing sleep deprivation on the road are immense. Not to mention packing and all the extra things you need!

While many families successfully travel with children, it’s a far greater challenge than we anticipated. You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of travel with a family if you’re considering it.

7. Job Boards Give a Skewed View of the Market

When we started, travel therapy job boards didn’t even exist. Now, they’re everywhere, and while they seem convenient, they don’t always represent the full reality of the market. Often, they highlight only the highest-paying jobs, which can be misleading regarding realistic take-home pay for most travel jobs. They also don’t show the full spectrum of available positions or the unique requirements of each. Relying solely on job boards can give you an inaccurate picture of opportunities, often overstating average pay or listing jobs that are no longer available.

Your recruiter is often a more reliable source for accurate, up-to-the-minute job information, which is why we recommend having solid relationships with 2-3 recruiters at different companies.

8. Working Internationally Doesn’t Make Sense for Most

The allure of working abroad as a travel therapist is strong, but we discovered it’s often not practical for most. International therapy jobs typically pay significantly less (50-70% of U.S. rates), come with complex visa and licensing hurdles, and lack the comprehensive staffing agencies found in the U.S. This is why we’ve never worked abroad as physical therapists. We only work in the U.S., then we use the flexibility of travel therapy careers to take time off and travel internationally for fun.

Our advice? Work in the U.S. as a travel therapist for 9 months, save aggressively, then take 3 months off to travel internationally for fun. This approach often yields more money and significantly less hassle, allowing you to see the world on your terms.

9. Be Selective to Avoid Bad Contracts

Travel therapy sometimes gets a bad rap, often from uninformed travelers. Some assume they must take whatever job a single recruiter offers, sometimes leading to miserable experiences in high-volume clinics or demanding settings. This is completely avoidable! You have to be selective. Research the ins and outs of travel therapy before starting, ask thorough interview questions, and have multiple options from different companies and recruiters.

By doing your homework, you can largely mitigate the risk of bad travel therapy contracts and genuinely enjoy your travel therapy career.

10. Your Ability to Negotiate Depends on the Job Market (and Your Leverage)

There’s a misconception that travel therapists can always demand top dollar. The reality is, your ability to negotiate pay and terms depends heavily on the current job market and your unique situation. If you’re a single traveler open to any setting in any location, your leverage is high. However, if you have specific criteria for setting and location, your options might be limited, reducing your negotiating power.

Negotiation isn’t about magic words; it’s about being in a position of strength. If a facility desperately needs your specific skills or immediate availability, and you have other attractive offers, you have leverage. If they have many qualified applicants and you have no other options, your power diminishes. Always work with multiple recruiters to create competitive offers and understand the dynamics of the situation.

Our journey as travel therapists has been full of learning, growth, and incredible experiences. While it’s not without its challenges, the freedom and opportunities that we’ve enjoyed from our travel therapy careers is unmatched. We hope that our insights have been helpful for you!

If you want help getting started as a travel therapist, check out the resources we have on our website and social media channels. You can start here with our Travel Therapy 101 Series and our Travel Therapy Recruiter Recommendations. Send us a message if you have any questions!

Additional Resources:

Written by Jared Casazza, PT, DPT – Jared has been a traveling physical therapist since 2015. He has become an expert in the field of travel healthcare through his experience, research, and networking over nearly a decade.