Tag: travel

5 Reasons to Pursue Travel Physical Therapy in 2024

~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ Leave a comment

At the beginning of each year, we here at Travel Therapy Mentor get a surge of interest from physical therapists who want to start travel physical therapy. It seems that when January rolls around, it’s human nature to reflect on the past year and consider embarking on an exciting new journey in the new year.

As far as physical therapy jobs go, there’s nothing more exciting than the thought of taking a high paying job in an exotic location. Meeting new people, going on fun weekend adventures, and being able to take long periods of time off of work, all while setting yourself up to be in a good financial position in the future– what’s not to be excited about?

Since we first started Travel PT as new grads in 2015, we’ve done all of the above. While we’re clearly biased, it’s hard to deny the benefits of the travel physical therapy lifestyle.

If you’re on the fence about jumping into travel physical therapy in 2024, here are five reasons why you should give it a shot.

1. Very Strong Travel Physical Therapy Job Market

The Travel PT job market has been strong for a couple of years now, and 2024 looks like it will be no exception. We work closely with the management and owners of more than a dozen different travel therapy companies, and they are all very optimistic that the strong job market will continue for at least another year.

In our most recent travel therapy job market update, we covered the number of open Travel PT jobs, and they’re at or near all time highs currently. While the PTA, OT, and COTA job markets still haven’t fully recovered after 2020, the Travel PT market is back and better than ever.

After watching the trends and being heavily involved in the travel therapy world for almost a decade, we’re continually shocked at how many great job options are out there for Travel PTs currently.

2. High Travel PT Pay Packages

A byproduct of the strong job market is a plethora of high paying travel physical therapy jobs. Travel PT pay is heavily influenced by the supply and demand dynamics at any given time. When there are a lot of therapists looking for jobs and not many jobs available, pay rates decrease quickly. When there are a lot of open jobs and not many therapists to fill them, pay packages can skyrocket in order to entice applicants. This is also when Travel PTs have the most ability to negotiate to get the pay or terms that they want.

When we first started traveling in 2015, it was unheard of to find a Travel PT job paying more than $2,000/week after taxes almost anywhere in the country, with the exception of home health jobs in California. Now, there are jobs paying more than that all over the country in a variety of different settings.

Our hot travel therapy jobs list is filled with Travel PT jobs paying over $2,000/week after taxes, with some even close to $3,000/week right now! Taking a travel therapy contract paying $2,500/week or more in a low cost of living area is a great recipe for saving a lot of money in order to either invest or pay down debt. If you’re unfamiliar with how pay packages work for travel physical therapists, this article breaks it all down.

3. Opportunity to Try Out New Settings

Some therapists get into Travel PT to try out a new setting without having to commit to a job for the long term This is especially the case for PTs who have worked in the same setting for many years and are nervous about jumping into a setting they aren’t familiar with. This is also beneficial for new grad PTs who aren’t sure which setting is best for them yet.

Fortunately, when there is a high demand for Travel PTs, facilities are more willing to bring on and train travel physical therapists without experience in that setting. If a facility has had a job open for a long time and hasn’t been able to fill it, then training someone to fill the need becomes a much more attractive option.

We find that home health is usually the most intimidating setting for therapists to jump into without experience, and right now there are home health agencies all over the country willing to train if it means getting their travel job filled. For new grads, this can also mean additional mentorship at a travel assignment location.

4. Taking Travel PT Contracts in Desirable Locations

While there isn’t always going to be a Travel PT contract in exactly the location that you want to go at the time you want to be there, we’ve seen a lot more open jobs in locations that are highly desirable lately. It used to be very difficult to find a travel job in places like Hawaii or the coast of California where many people want to go, but now there are openings pretty regularly.

When we first began our travel physical therapy careers, we were all about working in low cost of living areas to save as much as possible, which landed us in some fairly average places in the US. But for the past couple of years, we’ve been much more willing to take contracts in our bucket list locations, even if that meant it wasn’t the most lucrative option. In 2021 we spent three months in Hawaii, and in 2022 we spent the summer in Alaska, both of which were unforgettable experiences. If you’re a PT who is considering travel therapy more for the experiences, then now is the time!

5. Time Off to Travel for Fun Between Contracts

Let’s face it, life is short. Almost everyone says that they want to spend time traveling all over the world at some point in their lives, but very few people ever actually do it. A big reason for that is at a normal, permanent job, it’s very difficult to have more than a week off of work at a time. That makes taking international trips very difficult, especially to far away places.

The longer we’ve worked as travel physical therapists, the more we’ve grown to appreciate the awesome amount of flexibility that comes with it. When a Travel PT contract ends, you can take as long as you want off of work before you start the next one.

We’ve taken huge advantage of that flexibility over the past five years– traveling to more than 50 countries internationally, all 50 of the US states, and all 63 of the US National Parks, for fun between contracts!

We accomplished these major bucket list trips in our 30’s, between contracts, while still earning a great income. There’s no way that would have been possible for us if we’d taken permanent jobs right out of PT school.

The higher pay that comes with travel contracts, combined with the ability to take so much time off, is a great recipe to be able to travel the world. In many cases, you can earn as much in six months as a Travel PT as you would in a full year at a permanent physical therapist job, so it’s possible to just work half of the year and spend the other half checking off bucket list trips or pursuing other passions. This is a very underrated perk of Travel PT!

Conclusion

If you’re considering travel physical therapy, 2024 is a great time to go for it. The job market is strong, pay packages are high, and there are more options than ever in terms of settings and locations. You can make more money while having new experiences all over the country and can even take time off between contracts to travel around the world or pursue other interests. While we were certainly hesitant to start traveling as new grad PTs, it’s by far the best decision we’ve made in our professional lives!

If you’re ready to get started with travel therapy, fill out our Recruiter Recommendations form, and we will connect you with great travel therapy recruiters to help you begin your job search! You can also check out the resources we offer to learn more about travel therapy, such as our Travel Therapy 101 Series and our Comprehensive Travel Therapy Course! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us! We’d love to help you get started on your travel therapy journey!

Jared Casazza Travel Therapy Mentor

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.

House Hacking to Reduce Expenses as a Healthcare Traveler

~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ 5 Comments

If you’ve followed this website or our blog Fifth Wheel PT for any length of time, you probably know that I have spent a lot of time learning and writing about personal finance and investing since graduating from physical therapy school in 2015. This focus on maximizing my finances led to me reaching financial independence at age 30 and retiring from full time work as a PT.

Pursuing Travel PT as a new grad to earn significantly more than at a normal permanent job was a huge part of achieving that milestone as such a young age, but even more important than that was keeping my expenses as low as reasonably possible while traveling. As a travel therapist or other travel healthcare provider, you have to look at your savings rate, which takes into account not only your income but also your expenses, to see the big picture on how to come out ahead financially.

As a traditional travel healthcare provider, traveling with a tax home in order to receive tax free stipends, often the biggest monthly expense is housing, and this was no different for me. This is because having to pay for short term housing at the travel assignment location in addition to paying for housing expenses back home can really add up quickly.

There are some ways to reduce the expense of short term housing at your travel assignment location, but for the most part options are usually pretty limited depending on the area of your travel job. On the other hand, there are a variety of ways to reduce the total cost of maintaining your permanent tax home while on assignment by house hacking. Using some of these techniques allowed me to save a lot of money over the years, so I want to share some insights with you to help you better reduce your expenses and make travel healthcare more lucrative.

What is House Hacking?

House hacking is basically utilizing a portion or all of your house to earn income or offset expenses. Chad Carson does a great job of explaining all of the various ways of house hacking in this article. Anyone that has ever lived with a roommate has done a version of house hacking in the past. Having a two bedroom house or apartment split between two people is always going to be cheaper than having a one bedroom house or apartment to yourself, due to not only being able to split the cost of the rent or mortgage, but also utilities and any additional costs/fees.

Personally, I’ve been learning about ways to “hack” my housing costs since high school. I can remember looking at duplexes for sale when I was 18 and doing calculations on how much I could reduce my expenses by buying one, living in one side and renting the other, while also having a roommate in my side. I determined that not only could I reduce my housing costs, but I could actually live for free while simultaneously paying down the mortgage on the property by doing this in my hometown. Although I never ended up doing this after graduating high school due to going away for college, followed by PT school and then travel therapy, it’s something I still think about doing in the future.

House Hacking for Travelers

There are a few different ways that a travel healthcare provider might choose to house hack their tax home to reduce costs.

The first and most simple way is by simply renting a room in a house as their tax home, instead of having an entire house or apartment. Realistically, most travelers spend very little time throughout the year at their tax home due to spending most of the year working travel assignments or traveling for fun domestically or internationally. For my and Whitney’s entire travel careers prior to COVID, we never spent more than 6 weeks at home in any given year. Having a house or apartment sit empty for most of the year seemed wasteful to us, so for the majority of that time we each chose to rent a room in our family’s house as our tax home instead. We still had a place to keep all of our stuff and stay for the short periods while we were home, but it cost much less. We also had someone to collect our mail and keep an eye on things while we were gone.

Another way to house hack as a traveler is to buy or rent a place bigger than you’d need, and rent out rooms or get roommates to help subsidize costs. This is exactly what I had in mind when we were looking at townhouses to buy in our hometown when COVID hit and we realized we would be at home much more. We purposely bought a place with a couple of extra bedrooms so that we could have roommates or short term renters while we were out of town. By buying (or renting) an affordable place and renting out extra rooms for part or all of the year, it’s easy to make a big dent in the monthly cost of your tax home.

The last main way to house hack as a travel healthcare provider is by renting out your entire house or apartment on Airbnb, VRBO, or Furnished Finder while you’re away on assignment. This will undoubtedly offset tax home costs the most, assuming you’re able to keep occupancy relatively high, but will also lead to the most hassle. Managing a short term rental can be very lucrative but hard to manage from a distance while working. But, with a good property manager in your area that you trust, it’s certainly possible to make it work. We considered doing this when we were looking at places to buy, but ultimately decided against it due to the potential headache and issues that could arise. We also didn’t really like the idea of renting out our whole place with other people having access to our stuff. I do know a couple of travelers that have done this in the past and had a good experience along with making a decent profit though.

What About Maintaining Your Tax Home Requirements?

You may be wondering how house hacking impacts your tax home status and eligibility for tax free stipends as a travel therapist/travel healthcare provider. This is an important question to consider, and the answer depends on which of the strategies above that you choose and how you structure it.

**I do want to put the disclaimer here that I am by no means a CPA or tax professional. It’s always worth consulting a tax professional before making any decisions on your personal tax home situation. Below is my current understanding of how this works based on research I’ve done and CPAs I’ve talked to in the past. We interviewed Joe Smith from Travel Tax a couple of years ago and asked him for his advice on this as well which you can find here starting at 1:05:30 in the video.

As a quick refresher, according to the IRS, these are the rules for maintaining a tax home:

  1. You must maintain a place of permanent residence and pay expenses there (i.e. rent, own/mortgage, pay bills, pay taxes, etc.) while ALSO paying expenses at your travel location. This is called “duplicating expenses.”
  2. You must not abandon your tax home. Generally speaking, you should return there at least 30 days per year but these days don’t have to be consecutive.
  3. You must still conduct business in the area of your tax home. For example, you have a PRN job there or maintain some type of other business there.

Ideally you’d want to meet all three of these criteria but at the very least 2/3.

If you’re renting a room in a house as your tax home to house hack and save money, there should be absolutely no issue with that from a tax home perspective. Many travelers rent a room in a house or apartment from a friend or family member in their home area, keep records of payment and a lease, return to the area at least 30 days per year, and keep all of their stuff there.

If you’re renting out rooms to short term renters or roommates in a house or apartment that you own/lease, there should be no issue with this either as long as you’re keeping at least one bedroom in the house as your own. Obviously if you’re renting all of the bedrooms out in your house for the full year then this would no longer count as your tax home because you aren’t personally meeting the tax home rules above.

If you’re renting out your entire house or apartment on Airbnb, VRBO, Furnished Finder, or something similar, then that’s fine as long as you aren’t renting it out for the full year. You need to leave open time in the year for you to return home without it being rented. Something like renting out the full place for 9 months of the year while leaving a month between each assignment where you go back home and stay for a while would be ideal. Even renting a place 9 months a year on a short term basis will likely be enough to cover nearly all of the expenses of the tax home depending on your area.

Should You House Hack Your Tax Home?

House hacking your tax home is a great way to reduce your expenses while traveling to improve your financial situation more quickly. This was a key part in my own journey to achieving financial independence. With that being said, there’s undoubtedly more hassle and potential issues that go along with sharing or renting out your tax home. For that reason, it’s definitely not for all travelers. If you’re the type of traveler that gets stressed and overwhelmed easily while on assignment, then adding in extra worry back home may not be worth it. On the other hand, if you’re the type of traveler that handles potential issues well and is looking to minimize your expenses as much as possible, then house hacking could be perfect for you.

Have you ever done some version of house hacking with your tax home as a healthcare traveler? If so let me know what you did and how it went in the comments below or in an email!

As always, if you have questions about your travel healthcare journey, you can send us a message. If you’re new to travel healthcare and want to get connected with travel therapy recruiters and companies we recommend, you can fill out this form as well.

Jared Casazza
Written by Jared Casazza, PT, DPT

Jared has been a traveling physical therapist since 2015 and has helped thousands of current and aspiring travelers along their own journeys. He is also a personal finance enthusiast and has used his career as a Travel PT combined with strategic financial choices to pursue financial independence and semi-retirement early in his career.