Start here: the travel therapy handbook, from first questions to first contract
Travel Therapist Info is a handbook for PTs, OTs, SLPs and their assistants who are new to travel therapy or need one step of it explained again, and the five guides below are the order to read it in. The guides are written explanations, while the glossary, the compact counts and the home page FAQ are filled in from data files that name their official sources.
Who is this site for?
The handbook is for physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists and assistants who want to understand travel therapy before they commit to it, and for travelers who need one part explained again, such as licensing, pay packages or health insurance. In the site’s own words, travel therapy is contract work: an agency employs you and places you at facilities that need a therapist for a set term.
It is a reference, not a job board. Each topic links on to a deeper guide, sometimes on a sister site that covers that subject on its own, such as tax, housing or licensure.
Where should you start?
Read these five in order if you are starting from nothing, or pick the one you need if you are not:
- What travel therapy is: how the work is arranged, who can do it, how a pay package is built, and where the tax home rules come in.
- The licensure guide: when you need a state license, when a compact privilege will do, and why you start the slowest application first.
- Health insurance: agency plans, Marketplace plans, and what happens to your coverage between contracts.
- Vaccines, titers and TB tests: a recent guide to the health records a facility asks for, quoted from CDC and OSHA, and how to keep them from delaying your start date.
- The glossary: the terms you meet in offers, contracts and tax rules, each defined briefly, with the official source named where a term has a legal meaning.
The other recent addition is the guide to drive time and mileage on a home health contract; read it before you sign one.
What on this site comes from data, and what is written?
The guides are written. They explain how travel therapy works in plain language, and where a rule is involved they say whose rule it is. A few parts are rendered from data files instead, so they change when the source changes rather than when someone remembers to edit them:
- The glossary is built from a terms file. Every term with a legal meaning carries its source, its link and the date it was read.
- The PT Compact counts and the privilege fee range on the compact and licensure pages come from the PT Compact Commission’s own pages, and the list of states issuing speech-language privileges comes from the ASLP-IC Commission and CompactConnect. Those lines carry the date they were checked.
- The home page FAQ quotes the General Services Administration and the IRS word for word, with links to the GSA per diem rates and IRS Publication 463 and the date each was read.
Pay is the one subject where the handbook sends you elsewhere for numbers: the Travel Therapy Pay Index publishes median weekly pay by discipline, state and setting, and the handbook links to it rather than retyping it.
How do you reach a recruiter?
The guides carry two short forms. One asks for your name, your email and your discipline and is sent with the Find my next contract button; the other, headed Find Travel PT Assignments, adds your phone and where you want to work, and in its own words: “Tick the text box and a recruiter texts you right away. A recruiter emails you about your request.” If you would rather have contracts come to you, the job alerts page emails new contracts in your discipline, daily or weekly, in one state or anywhere, and you can add your number if you would rather hear by text.
ProTherapy Staffing, which publishes this site, is owned and run by licensed physical therapists.
When you are ready to turn the handbook into a contract, tell a ProTherapy recruiter where you would like to go: Find my next contract.
What will you not find here?
No ranking of agencies, no pay figure retyped from memory, and no promise about how long a license will take. Processing times belong to each state board, so the licensure guide sends you to the board or to your discipline’s compact commission for the current answer. Where a guide sketches a typical timeline, treat it as a planning aid: the board’s or the facility’s own answer wins.
The handbook also does not give tax advice. It explains the terms an offer uses and quotes the IRS where a rule decides the answer, and for your own return it points you to a tax professional.
Frequently asked questions
Is Travel Therapist Info run by an agency?
Yes. It is published by a travel therapy staffing agency, and the form on each guide goes to that agency’s recruiters. The guides explain how travel therapy works in general, whichever agency you choose.
Where do I look up a state’s licensing rules?
Start with the licensure guide, then go to the state board’s own site or, for a compact privilege, to the commission for your discipline. Boards set their own fees and processing times, and those change.
What does a word in my offer mean?
Look it up in the glossary. Terms with a legal meaning, such as tax home or per diem, follow the official source and say where it was read, and plain industry terms are defined in a sentence or two.
Sources
- PT Compact Commission (Physical Therapy Licensure Compact), read October 25, 2026
- GSA, Per diem rates, read October 25, 2026
- IRS Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, read October 25, 2026