Start here: what travel therapy is like to live, contract to contract
Travel Therapist Life is for PTs, OTs, SLPs and assistants who want to know what traveling is like to live, not only what it pays, and the five articles below are the place to begin. The articles are written by the site’s team, while a few parts, such as the pay median on the travel-versus-permanent comparison and the home page FAQ, are filled in from data files that name their sources.
Who is this site for?
The site is for therapists doing travel work or thinking about it: physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists and the assistants who work with them. Its subject is the life around the contract: the first weeks in a new city, loneliness, health care away from home, the weeks between contracts and the money decisions that follow you from one assignment to the next.
If you want licensing steps, tax rules or open jobs in detail, the articles point you to the sister sites and official pages that cover them.
Where should you start?
- What I wish I knew before my first contract: lessons from a first contract, from setting up a tax home to the emotional reality of the first weeks.
- The weeks between contracts: why gaps happen, why health insurance breaks first, the two-lease problem, and what to arrange before your current assignment ends.
- Travel therapy or a permanent job: money, growth, lifestyle and who each path suits, with the travel PT median from the pay index.
- Medical care on assignment: a recent guide to using your plan far from its network, what the No Surprises Act covers in an emergency, and when you can switch plans.
- Travel therapy and PSLF: a recent guide to why a contract at a nonprofit hospital usually does not count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and what to do if PSLF is your plan.
Read the first-contract piece before your first contract and the gap piece before your current one ends. The rest can wait until the question comes up. Once those are done, two older articles are worth a look: handling the lonely weeks of a contract, and traveling with a pet, which covers pet-friendly housing and vet care on the road.
What on this site comes from data, and what is written?
The articles are written. They include first-person pieces, comparisons and a worked example, and the student loan piece says plainly that its person and its numbers are made up to show how the decisions work. Read them as experience and explanation, not as figures for your own situation. Where an article leans on a rule that changes each year, such as a GSA rate or a plan’s enrollment window, check the official page before you act on it.
Some parts are filled in from data files and kept in step with them:
- The travel PT median on the travel-versus-permanent comparison is the Travel Therapy Pay Index figure for October 2026, a pinned snapshot of advertised weekly gross pay, and the page names the month beside it.
- The home page FAQ quotes the Department of Labor, HealthCare.gov and the IRS word for word, each with a link and the date it was read.
- The two recent guides list their sources at the end, among them Federal Student Aid’s PSLF page and HealthCare.gov on plan and network types.
How do you reach a recruiter?
The articles end with a short form under Ready to Start Your Travel Therapy Career?, asking for your discipline and your email, and the home page has a Find my next contract link. If you would rather have contracts come to you, the job alerts page emails new contracts in your discipline, daily or weekly.
ProTherapy Staffing, which publishes this site, is owned and run by licensed physical therapists.
When you are ready to try the life for yourself, tell a ProTherapy recruiter what you want next: Find my next contract.
What do the articles not do?
They do not give tax, legal or medical advice, and they do not rank agencies. When an article touches a rule, such as the tax home test or PSLF’s employer requirement, it names the agency that sets the rule so you can read it there.
Your own numbers will differ from any example on the site, so run them yourself before you sign: your pay split, your housing, your loans and the cover you need between contracts.
Frequently asked questions
Where should I start if I have never traveled?
With the first-contract article, then the comparison of travel and permanent work. Both cover the decisions that come before a contract: your tax home, choosing an agency and what the first weeks feel like.
Does the site give tax advice?
No. Articles that touch tax, such as the tax home or PSLF, name the agency that sets the rule and link to it. For your own situation, ask a tax professional.
How current is the pay figure on the comparison page?
It is the Travel Therapy Pay Index median for October 2026, and the page names that month. When the pinned figures move, the median and the month on the page move with them.
Sources
- Travel Therapy Pay Index, October 2026 (pinned), read October 25, 2026
- Federal Student Aid, Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), read October 25, 2026
- HealthCare.gov, Health insurance plan and network types, read October 25, 2026