travel therapy recruiter Archives

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.

Written by Jared Casazza, PT, DPT

If you’ve read some of our prior articles or watched any of our weekly Facebook live videos, you’ve undoubtedly heard us mention how we’ve always made sure to have a 40 hour guarantee in all of our contracts. We also recommend 40 hour guarantees to every current or prospective traveler that contacts us. To us, it’s not worth the uncertainty with pay to not have that guarantee in place before taking a travel contract, especially now that we are only working a couple of contracts each year. We need to be certain we will be getting our full pay every week! Even with the clear benefits of having a 40 hour guarantee in your contract, I still think this perk of travel therapy is underrated.

What is a 40 Hour Guarantee?

In travel therapy contracts, therapists are hourly employees. This means they usually only get paid for the hours they work, unlike a typical salaried employee. A 40 hour guarantee, otherwise known as a “Guaranteed Work Week,” is a clause in the contract that states the therapist will be paid for a full 40 hours each week, regardless of how many hours they actually work. The guarantee typically covers things that are out of the therapist’s control, such as being called off work or leaving early for the day due to a low facility census or low caseload, or sometimes missing work due to the facility being closed for a holiday or inclement weather. It does not cover if the therapist asks off for work, for example to take a long weekend trip or for a doctor’s appointment.

Sometimes, a “Guaranteed Work Week” will only cover 32 or 36 hours, or another specified amount. Whatever amount is stated in the contract is how much the therapist will be covered for in regards to pay for that week, regardless of how many hours they actually worked. But, we always recommend trying to get the full 40 hours covered in the contract when possible. The amount of hours guaranteed can vary by facility and by travel company, as can what actually qualifies (for example, some cover low census, but not facility closure for holidays).

Hourly vs. Salary Pay

I often see debates between therapists looking for permanent jobs about whether they should try to get a position that pays a salary, or go with hourly income instead. There are pros and cons on both sides of this argument, which means there’s no one answer for everyone. With hourly pay, the biggest advantage is that if you work over 40 hours per week then you’re legally obligated to receive overtime for those hours. On the other hand, as an hourly employee you’re only paid for the hours you work, so if you work less than 40 hours then you won’t get your full pay for the week. For salaried employees, they’re always guaranteed to get their full paycheck each week, but they often end up working over 40 hours with no additional compensation.

I’ve considered both sides, and if I was looking for a permanent PT job, I’d prefer an hourly pay situation as an employee to ensure that I’m being compensated for every hour that I work. I can appreciate the security that comes with a salaried position; but, who wants to work 50 hours per week, but only be paid for 40 hours?!

Luckily for us, in the travel therapy world, at least with 40 hour guaranteed positions, it’s possible to get the pros of both an hourly and a salary position without the downsides! I’ll have my cake and eat it too, thank you very much!

The Best of Both Worlds

A 40 hour guarantee means that you get the security of a salaried position (always getting your full paycheck even if there’s a low census or a lot of cancellations) with the benefit of getting paid overtime if you have to work more than 40 hours in a week. That’s something that just doesn’t exist in the permanent therapy job world and is one of my favorite parts of being a traveler.

Let’s look at some real examples of how much this benefits us as travelers. Below are the hours I worked during a 5 weeks span at one of my outpatient contracts. The caseload was really sporadic at that contract, with some very busy weeks (especially when other therapists there were out sick or on vacation) and some really light weeks with lots of cancellations.

Week 1: 44 hours
Week 2: 37 hours
Week 3: 36 hours
Week 4: 36 hours
Week 5: 45 hours

Now let’s look at how many hours I got paid for here compared to how many hours I would have gotten paid for as both an hourly and salaried employee in this same situation.

As you can see, as a traveler with a 40 hour guarantee I got paid for 209 hours of work, about 10 hours more than an hourly (198 hours) or salaried permanent employee (200 hours) would have in this 5 week span. Multiply this extra pay out over the course of a year, and it can mean being paid for many more hours than the permanent staff at these same facilities on top of the already much higher pay that we make each week as travelers! That’s a huge benefit that shouldn’t be overlooked or discounted.

Over the years, I’ve been paid for hundreds of hours that I didn’t actually work due to the 40 hour guarantees in my contracts, which wouldn’t have happened with a strictly hourly position, while also getting paid for hundreds of hours of overtime at various facilities, which wouldn’t have happened with a salaried position. Ultimately, that means thousands of extra dollars in my bank account each year, which is one of many factors contributing to me being able to reach financial independence so quickly!

Do you always ensure that you have a 40 hour guarantee in your contracts? Let us know in the comments!

If you need help getting in touch with recruiters that will have your back, then fill out this form and we’ll help you out! If you have questions about 40 hour guarantees or anything else travel therapy related, feel free to send us a message.

You can also follow along with our travels on Instagram @TravelTherapyMentor (with occasional giveaways!) and tune into our weekly Facebook Live videos on the Travel Therapy Mentor Facebook page to learn more about travel therapy!

Tag: travel therapy recruiter

10 Lessons Learned in 10 Years as Travel Therapists