In the video below, I am joined by Julia Kuhn from The Traveling Traveler, and we’re going to talk a little bit about traveling therapy positions.
To learn more, watch the video below:
To learn more about how to get started with travel therapy, check out Julia’s course called “Guide to Travel Therapy” here.
Video Transcript:
Karen: All right. Today, I am joined by Julia Kuhn from The Traveling Traveler, and we’re going to talk a little bit about traveling therapy positions.
So can you start off by just telling, you’re telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Julia: Well, thanks. Hi. It’s nice to finally meet you, Karen, and be here.
So thanks for having me. I’m so, like you said, Hi, I’m Julia. And I’ve been a traveling speech therapists on and off for 10 years now.
I started in 2010 so when I started, I just dove into the system and learn as I was going. And about five years ago, I started this brand that you mentioned called The Traveling Traveler, which teaches other clinicians how to be a traveling therapist and how to do it.
So I’m super excited to talk about that today and talk about my career in traveling.
Karen: So when you said that you’ve been practicing for 10 years. Have you been, you said you’ve been traveling that entire time?
Julia: No, I’ve been traveling, it’s about 10 years now. I started working in 2009 so I had about a year of experience before I went into travel and it just kind of happened organically that I was working a job in this thing.
And I kind of was a little stuck in my career. I didn’t know where to go, and I wasn’t like a really great applicant to places in my area and I just found travel and kind of went with it and went like just started traveling. So I’ve been doing the travel now on and off for 10 years, been a clinician about 11.
Karen: Okay. So when you’ve took that first travel position, did you intend it to be a temporary thing or did you think, okay, now I’m going to just go and travel around from place to place?
Julia: I absolutely thought it would be temporary. I had kind of a list of places I wanted to go and I thought once I do these things, I’ll be set.
Or once I pay off my loans, I’ll be set. I had all these things I wanted to do and in reality, like I didn’t meet any of my initial goals, I don’t think, other than I’ve just created this kind of life of freedom as I like to call it. Like, I don’t particularly care so much. Like where I’m like, what town I’m working in per se, or about some of the more specific things.
But I love that I can work a couple months and take time off and I can be with my family who lives on the East coast and travel the country. And my home base for the past couple of years has been Hawaii, so I can’t complain about that. So I just kind of created this life of freedom while being an SLP.
And I really loved that.
Karen: So what was, where were you working when you had your initial position where you felt stuck and where was your first travel position?
Julia: My initial position was in a skilled nursing facility. And it was a CF job and I felt like I wasn’t really being challenged or utilized there like I thought I would have in my SLP career.
I was just seeing patients who weren’t making progress were very long term care and I felt like I wanted to learn more. I was young in my career, I wanted to know more. I was going to a lot of CEUs, but I didn’t feel like I was using them. So when I first started traveling, I was working in similar facilities, skilled nursing facilities, but yet they were a lot different from the one I started in.
They had more, short term patients or more stroke patients. They had different patients. So even though it might be the same building, same type of setup, I was still learning more cause I was working with different patients and different coworkers who knew different things. So even though I worked in SNF for basically like three or four years in a row in the beginning of my career.
At the end of that, my resume was so much more appealing to permanent hire positions with those travel jobs and just that varied experience than when I just had that one job.
And I learned that firsthand because about after three or four years of travel, I did apply to permanent positions and I got accepted to like two places that didn’t even read my resume when I was just working in one SNF.
But that travel experience and those kind of interpersonal skills tied into it and the varied experience that I think it made my resume just pop and stand out compared to others.
Karen: Was it just the, your soft skills that you had developed with being able to get in, or was it the actual things that you had on your resume and the types of patients that you were seeing and things like that?
Julia: It’s both. I definitely think it’s both because when I redeveloped my resume, I wrote in my introduction the different populations I worked with.
And at that point I got to say like I was seeing trach patients, I was seeing Parkinson’s patients, I was doing this, I was doing that.
And when you’re just in one place, you might be kind of pigeonholed into seeing like a certain type of patient. That just might be the environment of the building. But all these different buildings, I saw such a variety of things that it’s hard to say you’re seeing in just one place unless you’re in like a huge medical center and have the access to that.
But I also think the soft skills helped a lot. Like, I think when managers look at a Traveler’s resume, yeah, there’s that fear that like maybe they’ll go, but I think that’s minor compared to looking at a travelers resume and thinking, “Wow, like this person is independent. This person can go to another place across the country and work with new people and make recommendations.”
Like I think the soft skills you build as a traveler really transfer over, and in managers can see that when they’re hiring you.
Karen: So when you mentioned that there could be a fear or a perceived fear that, “Oh, this person’s just traveling around. They want to come here for 13 weeks and leave.”
In your experience, have managers been more open to the idea of, “You know what, I have this position to fill and I need somebody in here now.”
Do they care one way or another or are they kind of like, “You know what, it’s worth the risk of that they’re going to leave because I need to fill this position as soon as possible”, or are they more likely to say, “You know what, I want to hire somebody who I think is going to stay here.”
Julia: I think for permanent positions there is a benefit to being local and being able to kind of show you have roots and want to stay, but it can really go either way. I even just went permanent job about, I guess about two or three years ago, and it was a job I was a traveler at, and I told my manager up front, I’m probably only gonna stay here for a year, which I did.
And she was like, okay, that’s fine, we just need somebody. So like, I think if you’re a good clinician, they’ll take you for 13 weeks, they’ll take you for a year. But yeah, I think everybody is kind of looking for that, like local roots or somebody rooted, but they also will look at other candidates too.
So if you’re a traveler, then going back to your home community, that’s like really great too. Cause then you can say, “Hey, I’ve traveled, I have all this experience and now I’m coming home. So I want to be here” and sell yourself that way.
Karen: In your experience, have you seen similar types of situations? Cause we’re talking about skilled nursing, but there’s also a lot of pediatric positions available in schools and things like that.
Do you think that those rules apply to those types of positions as well? What we’ve been talking about?
Julia: Absolutely, I think it’s the same. The only big difference between the schools and the skilled nursing facilities, I think, are that schools try to hire you for the full nine months of the year. Sometimes they’ll do a maternity leave, but for the most part, they try to get you in for the whole contract.
And for the most part, what I hear try to get you to stay on to, versus cycling through a new SLP every year.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. I imagine that they at least want somebody for the school year, somebody to come back for repeat school years.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: I know that when I was hired in my position, it was November and they didn’t have somebody yet, so they were like, “I’m so happy you’re here.”
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: It wasn’t a travel position. I actually wasn’t intending on staying as long as I did, but, I think at that point they were like, “We need somebody in here.”
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: So where have, again, obviously you don’t need to share specific facilities and things like that. Geographically, where were you when you started and where have you gone in your, in all the years that you’ve been traveling?
Julia: I started in Massachusetts and that’s where I went to grad school, so I was familiar with the area. Then I decided to make, on my second contract, a huge move, and go to Texas. At the time, the job market there was really good. So I drove down to Texas, did like two jobs and realized it was actually like too much of a culture shock.
Wasn’t for me like I was still learning about working with different cultures and being independent. It was just too far, too different, too fast. So I came back to Mass and I did a lot of jobs in that state. Actually from like, north to south, east to west. I was working Connecticut. Then I got licensed in California a couple of years later.
I was like, I’m finally ready to go out and really try to go far again. And then I went to California and for the past like four or five years, I’ve been working between California and Hawaii. So my home base is now in Hawaii and I like to kind of travel between those two States. It’s what I like. I like big mountains.
I like water and beach and pretty good weather. So I’ve found my niche kind of working in those two spots.
Karen: So when you are going from one place to another and there’s a totally different cost of living and you’re figuring out rates and things like that, what kinds of things have you done to figure out how to negotiate not just pay, but other things so that you’re actually getting something that is, commensurate with your skills, considering, you know, like for example, I live in central Illinois right now. The rate that I get in Illinois would I do pretty, would do okay here if I were to get a skilled nursing position in Illinois.
But if I were to get that same hourly rate in San Francisco, I’d probably be struggling because it’s a lot more expensive to live out there.
So how do you negotiate that? How do you know how to, what to ask for and how do you work through that process?
Julia: Well, I guess some of the maybe problems with travel is that a lot of the rates are actually set. So like a lot of the schools, the skilled nursing facilities, they have basically agents that work for them and their management teams.
Their agent teams we’ll just say like, “This is our set rate.”
Like every SNF in California is this amount. Every SNF in Illinois this amount. So unfortunately you don’t get a lot of room to negotiate like youkind of either have to accept your walk as far as like kind of the actual rate. But then there’s this difference of the actual agency that represents you, that you work for.
They might be maybe trying to like keep more in their profits. They might be giving more to you. So you can search different job boards. There’s actually a lot of places where you can just see what the price of going rates are online. Facebook groups have a ton. There’s a group called Travel Therapy Job Opportunities.
Like every day there’s a hundred posts of jobs and what they’re going for. There’s a decent job board called Wanderly that has rates. Therapy Fly also goes by, Nurse Fly, another one. So you can look and see what the rates are and then see like, “Okay, is this what I’m getting in the ballpark?”
You know, unfortunately it’s a lot harder to negotiate because there’s so many middleman.
Like if I was just applying to a hospital, it would be me in the hospital. And I’d be saying, “No, this is my rate” and me and them, we’ll be going back and forth. In travel, there’s three people in between, like you and the facility. So it’s really hard to negotiate higher rates, but it is possible to make sure you’re represented by a company that is giving you a good percentage.
And, you know, generally agencies will keep like a 20, 25% profit margin other than, we’ll pay for things like your insurance, your medical malpractice.
So things, things that are coming out of your paycheck, that you won’t see. So that’s about standard.
Karen: So do they sometimes have where one company, it’s like regardless of where you’re working, if you work for that contract company, this is what you get versus if you work for this company in this state, this is what you get. Is it like that or…?
Julia: It can vary. It can vary like that. I know some of the big SNFs, the SNFs chains are just putting out lately one flat rate, especially after PDPM, which changed the payment for SNFs, but how…
Karen: Is that a Medicare thing?
Julia: Yeah, it’s a Medicare thing.
California has like tended to be a little higher just because the cost of living there is high and there’s a desperate, desperate need for therapists. But yeah, for the most part it’s like nationwide. Like we’re paying this rate sort of thing.
So that’s why sometimes you can be a traveler and notice your pay rate is always the same. Like you do a job after job for the same company, even at different places and you get the same amount. But then it also could vary.
Like you could get a place that is paying higher or lower, maybe, a place that knows they have a great job and they don’t have to pay well to get people in.
So they put out a low rate, you know, you get unfortunate things like that, or a place that may be is a great building, but in a bad geographic location.
And they’ll put out a really high rate. So you’ve get variants. But that’s actually one of the things that I’ve seen change the most over the 10 years that I’ve been working, is that there used to be a lot of variants and a lot of room for negotiating.
They’re used to only be like kind of two people in between you and the hiring manager. And now over the 10 years, it’s just become far more standardized and far more like just segmented and difficult to negotiate for yourself. So…
Karen: What is, how often is it that people will take a 13 week position and stay there and ended up working for that facility, or at least end up working contracts repeat?
Julia: I don’t know what the percentages are on that. Well, it just depends on the person and what their kind of reason is for traveling. Some people are traveling to pay off bills. So if your main goal is to pay off a loan and you scored a high paying job, you probably want to extend there time and time again up until about a year is when you can collect like tax free money for your housing stipend money.
You know, you might want to stay there a year and just bank that every week. You have the solid paycheck. You’re not taking any time off to move. Others want to go a new place every three months. Some people have a short timeline. They want to travel for a year or two. They want to see as many places as possible, so it depends.
Karen: So in theory, let’s say that you knew you negotiate as much as you can, you don’t like what you get, or like you get there and you realize like, I really don’t like this facility. I mean, it’s, is it typically 13 weeks? So you just have to kind of tough it out for that time, and then you can kind of move on to the next one if you realize you kind of, you know, get out of that situation.
Julia: You can tough it out, or the contracts will have some sort of, termination policy. So you could give a notice or terminate the contract. And unfortunately, we as travelers can actually be terminated pretty easily. Most states are, most states are like, I forget what the law is that’s like kind of freewill work.
Okay.
So if an employer says you’re not competent to work, they can cut the contract. So, yeah, you can get out of contracts and unfortunately kind of goes both ways for good or bad.
Karen: Yeah. So in theory, let’s say that you want to try traveling and all of this whole, like, what’s, what do I ask for this and that?
I mean, there’s a little bit of a risk, but it’s not a crisis or the end of the world not getting what you wanted. Or if you get there and realize, you know what, I should have asked for this, or, you know, this situation isn’t great you can, there’s ways out.
Julia: Absolutely. Nothing’s permanent. And I think that’s something that a lot of the newer travelers are missing.
Because there’s so much information out there now, and if you’re, like, a lot of people think they have to be super informed and do everything like, like the right way. but there kinda is no right way. Like a lot of us who’ve been doing this a long time, we just learned through all the mistakes.
That’s how we’ve kept him going is just kind of realizing, well, that didn’t work. We’re not going to do that again. So there’s no right or wrong way to travel.
And if you get taken advantage of on a contract, then you kind of learn for the next contract and you know where to look and how to compare prices.
Karen: Yeah. So when it comes to that, you’ve mentioned trial and error. What mistakes have you made along the way, or what mistakes do you see other travelers making when it comes to working through that process?
Julia: I think one of the bigger mistakes is like talking to one travel agency to represent you. So that’s a big mistake I see people making is then that’s another way they kind of maybe don’t maximize their money is because they’ll meet an agency at ASHA or meet somebody on the phone and they’ll think, I’m just going to talk to this one person.
Then unfortunately, if they get somebody who’s trying to make a buck off of them, they might take a larger percentage of their pay thinking, well, they’re not gonna negotiate. They’re not going to know.
But if you’re talking to at least two agencies, these agencies pretty much all have the same jobs. So you can bounce the jobs off of each of them and say, well, there’s this job open. What are you going to offer me? What’s your pitch? Do the same thing to the other company and who comes in with the best offer overall could get you the job versus just talking to one agency that doesn’t have any competition to get you a job.
Karen: So would this be comparing two jobs or two different agencies trying to get you the same job?
Julia: Two different agencies trying to get you the same job.
Karen: Okay. Okay. Do a lot of people realize that that’s an option or because that’s something that people kind of miss.
Julia: It might be 50/50 I think a lot of people come in and think like they sign on with one agency, but you really don’t.
You really don’t sign on with anybody. You’re a free agent. Really. You can go with whoever gives you the best offer at any time. There’s probably eight or nine. Maybe even 10 agencies out there that have me like on file, like have all my references, all my resumes, everything done.
But, you know what, at one point or another, I could go with well or go with another. So it’s kind of up to you to find the best deal for you and be your own best advocate.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that they, those agencies follow up with you a lot and give you the calls, like, “Hey, I know you are you available for this position?”
Do you get those calls?
Julia: I don’t anymore because my goal in 2019 was to get off of all the call lists.
Karen: Oh my gosh, I’m on so many of them.
Julia: Yeah.
So I’ve now pretty much gotten off all of them and they just, the ones that I stick with just know, like, they know exactly what I want and if it comes up, they’ll probably email it to me. But yeah, they just know not to waste my time. Don’t tell me about like this SNF in Wyoming, like it’s not, I’m not going to go.
Karen: Yeah. What I’m curious about, since we’ve been talking about negotiation and salary and like just figuring out where you want to go, I’m curious how housing works because I’ve seen situations where they say that they’ll pay for housing or pay for something. How does that work with travel positions?
How are you going to figure out where you’re going to live regardless?
Julia: Yeah, that’s the, that’s really the tough part. And it’s a part that’s getting harder with time. The price of housing’s just going up and up. So unfortunately this is getting a little harder. So, what happens is, like I mentioned before, a school or a SNF will pay X amount of dollars to bring a traveler in per hour.
So that’s what they’re paying your agency who represents you. From there, your agency takes a cut, they pay for your insurance or you know, whatever of them. All the money that’s leftover is going to be given to you one way or another, either in a weekly paycheck or through housing or through tax-free stipends.
They’ll kind of explain that. So if your company provides you housing, it means that it’s coming out of all the money they’re getting from like the school or the SNF. So if they provide housing, they, keep in mind, they have no idea. They have no, like intention to necessarily do it like in a cheap way.
Like they might just look at corporate housing in the area, find something for like $3,000 a month and say, okay, this is where you’re going. So if they pay that $3,000 a month for your corporate housing, that means that that’s basically kind of deducted from the top of your pay. So then what you get weekly is like basically minus that amount.
So if it’s like $3,000 a month is like six 50 a week ish. So whatever your pay could be, it would be minus that amount. That’s what you would get. So it kind of brings down the overall take home, although it’s nice because there’s no liability of the housing, they’re funding it. It’s done for you.
So there’s that option. And then the other option is there’s all the money, basically at the top. Again, we have all this money. Then instead of getting that housing deducted, it’s given to you tax free. So it might be $3,000 a month tax free given to you instead of like pulled out and put in your housing, it’s given to you and said, you can use this to find your own housing.
Pay for food, pay for gas, like you don’t need to show receipts for it. It’s already approved because you have a home and you’re traveling for work. So this is the government, you know, rules for money. So then you can have that money on top of the money that you make. So it’s, it’s an either or.
You either get housing and make less money, or you get the tax free stipend and then have the ability to find your own housing, then, get paid your hourly rate on top of that. So most travelers I know, do the tax free money because it ends up working out in their benefit. Most people, you know, like myself, I’m actually, I have a roommate right now. So I’m, you know, I’m in a shared rooming situation.
Doesn’t cost anywhere near $3,000 a month, which is what the, which is if I would have taken company housing in this area where I am in the desert of California, they would have pulled out $3,400 a month for housing. So what I’m paying is like, not even like a quarter of that for my place. So I got to use the other money for other expenses.
So I would say most travelers take the stipend and then try to find their own housing. Which is hard, but you get better at it. I actually have a little short course on how to find housing as a travelling healthcare professional. I haven’t talked about that a lot to many people, but it’s just like an hour course when we can link it in the course notes and if it goes over like kind of every website, Furnished Finders is a good one.
Airbnb, just ways to find housing as a traveler with assignment.
Karen: So really, essentially the money is not part of like the, it gets taken out of your paycheck, but sometimes it just goes right to the housing and sometimes it goes to you and you typically, people want to have control over it because then it’s their own housing.
Julia: Yeah
Karen: So really the benefit of having the housing taken out is that it’s taken care of. But the drawback is that what if you can find something better
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: And you want to control how that money’s used.
Julia: And if you’re new to traveling or in like just a pinch for time or money, having the housing done for you, it can be really nice.
Because but it costs money to, you know, maybe put like a down payment on an apartment. Maybe you need to have, maybe a credit check needs to be run and you have bad credit. So there’s things to consider that maybe it’s not always the best option to find housing on your own, but you, the good news is you can choose every assignment, what you’re going to do.
You can choose company housing or finding your own housing. So you’re not locked into a decision.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. Do sometimes people take housing or take travel positions in the general area where they live so that they can stay in their same housing that they’re already in?
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve done that a bunch.
The only difference is that you don’t get the tax free money. It’s basically just working a short term contract in your area. Yeah. But I’ve done that a lot just to stay at home to kind of maintain my home relationships and work relationships. Yeah. You absolutely can do that.
Karen: Yeah. So when it comes to navigating all of this, we’ve talked about mistakes that people are making, but what are some of the biggest myths or misconceptions out there about travel therapy, travel positions and how that works.
Julia: Hard to say what some of the biggest myths are. I think one of the biggest ones that I hear is that it’s like huge bucks. I don’t know if that’s still going around, but there’s this idea that travel is like huge, huge, huge money. And if you’re a traveler, you’re making big bucks. Like sometimes you can even get bullied on an assignment.
Like your coworkers will say, “Well, you’re making the big bucks. Go and do this.”
Well, you’re not always making the big bucks. It depends on, you know, where you’re living. Like if you’re living somewhere in your housing costs 2, $3,000 a month, plus you have maybe expenses at home. Or maybe the rate isn’t that great on your job, but you’re there anyway cause you want to be there.
With the cost of housing going up and kind of are our hourlies not really going up to compensate for that, I don’t really think that travelers get like the big bucks.
It all depends on where you’re coming from and where you’re going and what your expenses are. But I would say that’s just one of the big overall myths. And I would say the travel because you want to because you enjoy it. You want the freedom, or you want the experience.
You want to change your career. Don’t travel per se, to think like it’s gonna solve all your financial problems. And, I would say the other myth I hear is just that like travelers are like the weirdos and the losers. I hope we’re not. It’s, one thing I’m advocating for is that travelers are some of the best clinicians in the school or in the SNF.
And when I started, it was more of a like a rumor myth that travelers are like the burnouts that couldn’t get jobs. So they had to float around and I hope that’s changed and it’s more like, no, these are the adventurous people and they can contribute to your school and we can learn and help you and teach you, and you can do the same so…
Karen: So is that, that’s the perception you’ve gotten from people that you’ve worked with that have been receiving you as a staff or just like in professional SLP groups?
Julia: I feel like in professional, I feel like in professional SLP groups and in different staffing areas, like travelers aren’t taken as seriously.
So that’s something I’ve been trying to, like I said, advocate for a change is that we’re taken seriously. Just cause we’re not devoted to one place all year round doesn’t mean that we’re not super knowledgeable and, you know, aren’t good at what we do.
Karen: What have you done and if people are experiencing that when they go into a travel position.
What have you done to work through that?
Julia: Well, I face it a lot to be honest. Like I’ll show up to a lot of jobs and the first thing the staff will do is like complain about the last, like travel SLP that was there like, “This person is terrible.”
So unfortunately, no, it is maybe kind of still out there to some extent, but I just try to start on a fresh slate and, not be too pushy.
Just show the staff like what I know and I’m ready to help. I can do my job and just be a positive, face for travel SLPs and hope that the next travel SLP they get is positive too.
Karen: So essentially you’ve got to walk in there and other people, you know, we’ve, a lot of people have been in their positions for a year or a couple of years, or many years, and they’ve already you know, they know about their coworkers, extended families, and they have more, and they’ve had these patients, you know, depending on if you’re in the schools, that’s the case.
Where you’ve had these kids on your caseload for multiple years, but when you’re a traveler, you’ve got to come in and establish that rapport immediately.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: What tips do you have for people who want to be able to do that quickly so that they can be a part of the team?
Julia: I would say focus on the job and the patients and their families. Like I don’t try to like communicate too much with like my coworkers per se. Like, I don’t, I’m not showing up and being like, “Hey, like, tell me about your life.”
I’m more showing up and being like, “Hey, this is me. Like. I’m going to do my job and I’m going to do it well.”
And then, you know, they kind of will start to notice and it takes a couple of weeks. But I feel like people open up to you more when they see that you’re really serious about your job and your work, and you’re good at it.
So that’s my advice, is just always focusing on the patient and their needs. And the nice thing about being a traveler is you don’t have to get involved in like the drama and the politics. So you can just be that clinician that’s there for the patient or the child, you know, and show the rest of the staff.
Like that’s who you are and that’s why you’re there. And I think that goes awhile. And if, like a family member, like a child’s parents says like, “Well, you’re a traveler, what does that mean?”
You can be proud of yourself and say, “Well, this means that I consult at a different school every year and I’m really skilled in this. And like, I’m happy to be here this year and maybe I’ll be somewhere else next year.”
And just use it to your advantage.
Karen: Do you think that there’s a little bit of a, what’s the, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like a different perception when it comes to other medical professionals or even in the education field as well.
Other professionals compared to therapists. So for example. do you think a doctor who’s traveling around who seen as like, “Oh, this is a person who goes around and gets to treat all these different patients.”
Are they seen differently than a therapist as a traveler? And why do you think that is?
Julia: No, I think it might be about this, the same from what I’ve seen I’ve worked with a lot of traveling nurses in it. It seems like people kind of understand and respect that about the same from what I’ve seen.
Karen: Yeah. Because when you think about it, a doctor, it’s kind of expected, like it’s certain medical professionals expected for them to, you know, be in and out and like only be here for certain things versus other people who might be considered more of a regular person, therapist or anybody else who’s in rehab.
Julia: Yeah. I mean I feel like the places I go to really, they don’t want to have a traveler. Like they’re desperate to get somebody in full time and maybe they want to be that way so much with like a nurse. Cause like on a nurse, you’re one out of maybe 10 on a floor or, but you know, they, they want, that one speech therapist.
But I don’t feel like I get treated too differently because of it.
Karen: And if, I guess at a school, if you were there for at least the entire nine months, at least it would be the entire school year.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: If you were, if a parent were to come in, they’d expect their kid to have one teacher for that entire speech pathologist for that entire year, and then maybe a different one the next, would it be that…?
Julia: Yeah that probably wouldn’t be, yeah. It wouldn’t be too difficult to wrap your head around that. Yeah and the schools.
Karen: They’re seeing this person who’s kind of floating aimlessly.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: So when it’s, going back to when you were first starting out and when you were feeling stuck, were there any times during this whole process when you did something and it seemed like a total failure at the time, career-wise, and then later on you’re at, you’re like, okay, that actually set me up to succeed at something later on.
Is there anything like that?
Julia: Yeah, there’s been a couple. The job I worked in Texas was one of them. It was a bad job. I showed up in a SNF and had to see like 20 patients a day, which in a SNF where everyone’s pretty much seen one-on-one, you can think that’s like crazy.
Karen: Yeah.
Julia: And I stayed with it pretty long.
I actually, I think I ended up working there almost like the whole 11 or 12 weeks. They actually cut me short a little bit cause they found somebody but working that job, it was so bad at the time. And I woke up every day and I hated going into work and I hated being there and it was so stressful.
But it just taught me more about like what I wanted and just saying no to what I didn’t want. So even though that job was bad, I haven’t had a job like it since, so in a lot of ways that’s a win. Then, well, so I did lose a ton of money on housing. I signed like a three month contract and a job cut me and I lost like somewhere like $4,000 on housing expenses to break a lease.
So I learned about just ways to book housing that wasn’t with all these leases like Airbnb and furnish finders and just learn about better ways to go about things.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. So nothing, something that was annoying at the time, but nothing couldn’t recover from learn from later on.
Julia: Right.
Karen: Yeah.
Julia: That’s a lot of what travel is like learning from your mistakes and being better because of it.
Karen: Yeah. And I’m curious, you’ve said earlier, you said sometimes people travel because they want to travel and they like living in different places and experiencing different things. But you also said that sometimes people do it for financial reasons.
So why is that the case? How does that, what’s process behind that?
Julia: The pay, I would say the payment for SLP is the salary across the US. It’s just so varied and I don’t even know for what reason, like. Like one SLP in like one area might make so much more like less than different areas. So a lot of speech therapists, like they just might be in a place where they can’t get paid well and but their area’s saturated.
They don’t have a lot of job options. So they might use travel to go to a place that has maybe a lower cost of living and higher needs for SLP. So they might pay really well and they might be able to save a lot of money in the time that they’re there. So people definitely travel for money. They paid, they traveled to save up and pay off their bills.
But if you’re doing that, you have to be really aware of this is why I’m doing it and I have to find my jobs that meet this qualification, this reason. Like there are school jobs in California, like, in lower cost of living areas, that pay per week after taxes, like $2,200 a week, $2,300 a week.
Like, that’s good money, especially if you’re not paying a lot for housing. but if you’re taking a job, say like in Seattle, that’s paying like $1,500 a week after taxes and you’re paying 2000 for an apartment, then it’s not going to be as lucrative. So you have to think like, “Where am I going? What’s the cost of living and am I gonna make money that’s gonna put me ahead or is it going to set me back?”
Karen: Yeah, so the geographic region plays a factor, but it’s not always a direct correlation. Like it’s a high cost of living. You’re guaranteed to make more versus like. It’s, you know, you know you’re making last year more, that’s not always a direct correlation, right?
Right,
Julia: like if it’s, if it’s a saturated area by clinicians that has a high cost of living, you’re probably going to see like mediocre pay. If it’s high cost of living, but there’s a desperate need for therapists, like the Bay area, you’re going to see higher pay.
Karen: What are the hotspots? I remember seeing it on travel therapy websites there were like hotspots where they’re like, we need people here now you know.
Are there places you can go to find that out? What are the places that…
Julia: Well, it’s right now it’s like the whole state of California’s pretty desperate. The Bay area, especially.
But yeah, some of the hotspots, it just changes. Like there’s always different needs, but, and you can go to those, like Facebook groups, like travel therapy job opportunities, Nomadicare is a website that does job outlooks based on states. So it’ll say, what are the top three hot States of the month.
A lot of times they think Hawaii might even make that list. Hawaii is actually really desperate for speech therapist if anyone wants to go there. They just don’t really pay that well, but, but yeah, California is usually hot. Massachusetts is usually hot. Hawaii.
I forget which other ones.
Karen: Yeah, I’m sure they have.
I’m sure they’re updating it all the time.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: California was a hotspot. Even when I graduated back in 2004. I remember it being a hot spot, and, I’m not sure what the other ones were, but, but yeah, that was definitely, was Las Vegas on there for awhile?
Julia: It might be. Vegas definitely needs SLP is from what I heard.
Karen: Do they help you, so I assume the company will help you with licensure and things like that when you go to different states.
Julia: Yeah, to some extent. Like I mentioned earlier, your money kind of all comes out of one place. So if you’re getting a license reimbursed, it’s probably kind of coming out of the money that they were planning to give you for the assignment.
So you can get it reimbursed and help with the jobs to some extent.
Karen: What about just the process? Because isn’t there sometimes like there’s all kinds of different paperwork you have to fill out. Do they walk you through what you need to do for that?
Julia: I’ve always done my own licenses. I know some companies will help you, but I’ve just always done it myself.
Karen: So it’s not getting too much of an issue for you?
Julia: It’s a hassle, but I just prefer to do it myself and know where it is and follow that timeline. But yes, it’s one of the hardest thing about travel is getting all your licenses done.
Karen: Yeah. How long, how far in advance do you have to start that process so that it’s timed right, so that you actually have the license when you start your job?
Julia: The hard thing is, it depends on the state. So like the state of Connecticut for whatever reason, took me six months.
Karen: Oh my God.
Julia: The state of Hawaii took me three weeks. California took me two months. It just, it depends on the state who’s working, what their timeline is, when they get your stuff. So it’s so varied.
My recommendation is only accept job if you have the license, but some states, more so Midwestern ones I know, I get really desperate for quick licenses, so they’ll do some quick turnarounds. Like I heard Kansas and Kentucky might, but yeah, my recommendation would be just apply with the license in hand, not having to get it.
Karen: So what happens if you don’t apply. Let’s say that some recruiter woos you into a job and they say, “We’ll help you with licensure.” and then you don’t have the license and you’re supposed to start your job. What happens then? Do they just cancel the contract or reach out or…
Julia: Yeah, it can kind of be a loss, like it could get canceled.
It could get held, but you wouldn’t get paid if it’s getting held. So either way, it’s kind of, it’s kind of a loss for both ends, cause you’re not going to get paid. You’re not going to get money. Then the place isn’t going to have a therapist. Like they’re desperate too. So yeah, it’s kind of a lose lose, which is why a lot of places will only look at you if you have the license.
Some if they’ve worked with a lot of travelers in the past and they know that their state’s efficient, they’ll accept you. But, it depends on the state.
Karen: Yeah. So really the process is you know, figure out where you want to go, figure out what you need to do in order to start the process of getting a license and if you want to do, you know, adults, pediatric, figure out where the hotspots are and where’s good, a good place, and then, start talking to the companies.
Then once, you know the timeframe for that so that you’re ready.
Julia: Yeah. Absolutely kind of get all that in order first then think about looking for the jobs.
Karen: And do they talk in those, some of those resources and websites that you’ve mentioned, is there information about which companies are good to work for and which companies are good to talk to?
Julia: Yeah, and it just, it varies a lot like there’s a couple of kind of big names out there that have been doing this for years and years and years and people like to work for them.
Some people prefer like a smaller agencies. So yeah, if you go to my website, I’ll connect you with the companies I work for and give you contacts. If you go to the Nomadicare site I mentioned, they’ll connect you with companies.
Karen: Yeah, we can add, cause you’ve mentioned a lot of different things here.
We can make…
Julia: And all of the things.
Karen: Yeah. And I know that you probably have some resources to share that probably have some of this in there so we can list that.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: …In the notes below this,
Julia: There’s a lot.
Karen: I was gonna ask something else about, oh, yeah, the company. So when you’re talking to a recruiter on the phone, and I have talked to some recruiters before, I didn’t actually end up taking those positions because obviously I went in the direction of self employment, but I’ve noticed that there’s a varying level of knowledge amongst some of the recruiters.
Some of them seem to be reading from a script that you did and some of them seem to really know about the company and how it works, or maybe just be better at selling. What’s your experience with that? How do you tell if the company is good and if the recruiter that you’re working with is a good recruiter?
Like what are some ways that you can navigate those conversations so that you’re asking the right questions and so you can figure out if this is a recruiter or company that you want to work with?
Julia: I ask them a lot of the harder questions that are things that I know from being in the industry so long.
And I think it’s important for recruiters to know, like I asked them about what are their, like what are their requirements for giving tax free stipends? Cause there’s been issues in the past or companies have been giving out tax free stipends, but their, travelers didn’t really qualify for them and like that could lead your travelers to get like audited by the IRS for back taxes.
So I asked kind of the hard hitting things like what are your policies like, you know what, what do you pay for over time? Cause a lot of agencies will try to short you on overtime. Yeah. What’s your contract like? Who are travelers you worked with? Like how long have you been doing this and…
Ultimately, like, you know, I could potentially kind of give anybody a try, but like I’m my own best self advocate. And unfortunately, like, I think a lot of recruiters have learned the hard way. Like, don’t mess with me.
And I’ve had a lot of people come at me with like, different offers or things that I’m like, I know this is like false or this isn’t right.
So, at this point, I just, kind of know, like, I know probably more than most recruiters.
But I wanna work, you know, I want to work with the people who like align with, with my values and, and seed their job.
More as like servicing, like the therapist, like customer service versus sales.
Karen: Yes.
Julia: So the recruiters I work with now, like I might take a job with them, I may not.
Like, they don’t care or they’re not trying to sell me like when I’m there for a job, I’m there. They work with all senior recruiters who’ve been doing this forever and ever. So the benefit of like a senior recruiter is that they tend to just really know their stuff and they want everything to be done quickly.
So they’ll just generally speaking, throw out like their best pay package from the top. Like they’ll just, they might have 50 or 60 travelers working for them and everybody just gets like the best deal. They don’t want to spend any time on it. They have so many people to manage. A downside of that is he might not get really close, like one on one attention versus some of the newer recruiters like the ones who are making those cold calls who are calling you.
They’re trying to learn the industry. They’re trying to get travelers. They might have all this time to spend talking to you even if they don’t necessarily know all the ins and outs. But they also, they might not throw you like the best pay package because they might only work with 10 or 20 therapists and they have to keep maybe a little more on the pay as a commission to kind of make things work.
So there’s different factors when it comes to recruiters and agencies. And there’s been a lot of talk in the industry about like, is everything is going to go to tech. And there are some tech startups that are working to kind of eliminate the recruiter position altogether, where, like instead of an agency having recruiters, they would have an app or website and you would apply directly through there.
And there would be one pay package that would be it and you could apply or not apply.
And in some regards, like this will be good for a lot of people, especially if they’re not necessarily good at negotiating or reading the industry. For people like me, I might actually take a pay cut because like I know my recruiters kind of give me probably more than they should, but they just do it cause they know I give a lot of referrals or like, you know, I do a lot of content for the industry and.
Karen: You probably should be getting that.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. So, I forgot to mention that earlier in the ways to make more money, but you know, you can absolutely help try to make more money for yourself, advocate for yourself to make more money.
If you’re essentially giving something back to the travel company, like if you’re a loyal traveler, if you’re referring a lot of people to that the company, if you’re promoting them, it’s definitely worth your time to say like, “Hey, can I get more?”
And the worst that they can always do is say no and everybody kind of has their max. They have, everyone has to make a profit.
But I’ve definitely gone up over the years just, and I know at this point, my recruiters probably don’t make any money off of me per se on my contracts, but they get money just by having me around.
But I know I’m not the only one. Yeah, I know. I’m not the only one that does that there. I can name like 20 people who really max out their pays that way. So, that’s another thing as you’re a more established clinician that you could, a more established traveler to think about doing too.
Karen: So essentially you’re, I mean, helping other SLPs get positions in the company by helping them fill the positions.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: Spreading the wealth that way.
Julia: Yeah. So I would say agencies like they might, they tend to kind of, I don’t want to say low ball, but give like lower rates, maybe the new grads or newer clinicians. And, you know, and I think really if, whether you’re newer clinician or not, you can always try to get more.
And then if you’re really going above and beyond for company two, you can try to get them to lower their profit margins on you and get a little more.
Karen: Yeah.
Julia: But my, you know, my big thing is like, at the end of the day, you know, maybe I’m getting maybe like $50 a week more than somebody else, and I’m never gonna like ruin a relationship or ruin something I’ve worked a long time to build over like 50 bucks.
So, and I say that cause I see a lot of travelers do it. They’re travelers who will be like, I will never work with you again and I will bad mouth you on Facebook to the end of time, because you won’t give me $25 for a week. And I kind of laugh at that cause I’m like, you know, this is an industry and we all have to work together and we all have to do our own thing and profit.
And if an agency cannot give you like 25 bucks or 50 bucks, like it’s not worth ruining relationship over, and maybe they can next time, like maybe they just couldn’t this time.
But it’ll be available in the future. So I always like to keep like doors open and try to be positive.
Karen: Don’t burn bridges.
Julia: Yeah, don’t burn bridges.
Karen: A rising tide lifts all boats.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: Yeah. So we’ve talked a lot about the actual job situation, but the fact that you have been able to travel. What has that done for your, what your life outside of being an SLP? Like what things have you been able to do because you’ve traveled around because you’ve known how to navigate this process?
What’s been possible for you outside of being an SLP?
Julia: Oh, I mean, so much. I’ve become pretty fluent in Spanish cause I spent like two months in Central America and Mexico learning Spanish. That’s something few adults can really say they’re able to do. I’ve traveled so many places in the world. I’ve been able to start my business, which is a Traveling Traveler and teach other people how to do this.
And in starting my business, like I took a month and I went to like a business blogging retreat. I’ve just, I’ve had so much time.
So I think that’s been one of the biggest things is that all these trips I’ve gone on like. I’ll be 35 this year, and I’ve done so many trips that people might only be able to do in their retirement, and you know, we don’t know if we’re going to make it through retirement or what kind of money we’re going to have then.
So just to kind of live my life before retirement and go on trips.
I’ve been to probably at least like 20 different countries, but I don’t really like to measure travel by like different countries or states you go to. It’s just more like the experiences I’ve had and people I’ve met. I’ve gotten into photography and like all sorts of hobbies.
I mean like hiking, rock climbing, scuba diving, like I’ve tried everything. Foodie stuff. Just, yeah, getting, just getting out of my initial space, which I think is huge. Like I grew up in a small town, and a lot of times you’d get in this mindset where you don’t realize things are different in the world.
Like you think it’s like your town, but just realizing that the country itself is so diverse and there’s so much to explore.
So I could go like off and on. But yeah, I’ve definitely gained a lot.
Karen: Yeah. So you learned Spanish as an adult. Did you learn it at all when you were younger or you learned it as an adult?
Julia: No. Yeah, I learned as an adult. I didn’t know, so I went to a Spanish school in Costa Rica at when I was 29 and I didn’t know a word of Spanish when I went down there. And to be fair, I didn’t know a word when I left either because I basically spent the whole trip, like breaking up with my longterm boyfriend at the time.
But that like prompted me to learn and I started learning online and then I went back to Mexico the next year to Spanish school for like a month.
And, yeah, I’m doing pretty well right now. I sadly, I don’t get to use it in Hawaii. There’s not any Spanish speakers in Hawaii per se, but I’m in Southern California now and it’s great. Like I, pretty much understand everything that you know, my patients and families are saying, and I don’t have the confidence to say a lot, so I don’t necessarily communicate back that much, but, you know, I use the interpreters, but yeah.
I’m pretty good. And just, I started learning at 29, so…
Karen: So it took, how long did it take for you to be able to understand basic conversations?
Julia: That’s hard to say, and I was trying to think about it too, and actually coming back to California this time in 2019, 2020. I noticed I understood so much and I said to one of my coworkers, like I don’t know where this is coming from because I, you know, so much of learning languages we know from being an SLP is like learning, you know, listening to examples.
And I’m like, I haven’t been listening to any Spanish. I don’t know why, but I understand so much. So I think, I think a lot of it is forcing yourself to be in the situation where people are only speaking that language, not speaking English.
You’re trying to speak back. And when I was in Mexico and I was doing that, I would say in like a week or two, I was really starting to pick up things. Yeah.
Karen: That’s impressive.
Yeah. That’s, probably, I think when you think about. Okay, I’m going to travel somewhere. One of the biggest things that pops into my head as far as the fear is I can’t speak the language.
Yeah. When you go down to Cancun, everybody speaks English at the resorts, and now
I’m like, ugh. I mean, it’s fun, but yeah. You know, I mean, that’s not really being in the culture and learning language.
So that’s fascinating. So with the, when you’re doing these travel assignments, so it sounds like that one, was that a work assignment you were down there for?
Julia: No, I just, I went down on my own. I had the time and I said, I want to learn Spanish. So I booked myself at a Spanish school and I stayed with the homestay family and I went down and just was there for the language. So it was totally for pleasure.
Karen: Wow. So in between, you do most of your traveling in between your positions or do you attack it on. I mean really the question is how do you find time to travel when you’re also working and things like that?
I mean, cause I would think, I thought to myself, “Oh, it’s interesting to go travel somewhere, but what if I get down there and then I’m just working all the time?”
I mean, how do you fit it in. And how do you budget for that?
Julia: And yeah, that, so that’s part of the problem is when you’re working a job, you kind of are working all the time.
So if you want to really explore, you need to take some time off before or after your job and just really be there. Otherwise you’re just going to feel unfulfilled.
Cause the weekends come and go so quickly. We do work a lot when we’re on our jobs, so a lot of the longterm traveling I’ve done, like when I’ve gone to Costa Rica and Panama, Mexico, I’ve just gone after my jobs had been over and said like, “I’ll take my next job in six weeks, but I’m going away for now.
Karen: Yeah, yeah. So basically you just kind of have to bank on those days and then you’re responsible so that you can go and stay for your extended leave.
Julia: Yeah. That’s what a lot of travelers do.
Karen: How many weeks per year do you spend working versus traveling?
Julia: Well, the past two years, I’ve worked about half of the year, about six months, but I haven’t been traveling the other part of it per se.
I’ve been working on my growing my business. so that’s a little different. But prior to that, for the past couple of years, I was working about nine months and then traveling maybe like two, two and a half.
Karen: So in theory, if you’re, I mean, you could piece it together with skilled nursing for nine months of the year or a school nine months, and then travel for a couple of months.
Julia: Yeah, and that’s what I’m talking about with the freedom. Like you, you can’t do that with like a lot of jobs or you only get two weeks off in a year. But as a traveler, you can work a job, maybe extend it, maybe finish it, and then say, okay, I’m off. Like I’m not working. , which is pretty cool.
Karen: Yeah. Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to find a job and you couldn’t, or have there always been options available to you if you really felt like, you know what, I need to go back to work for awhile to, for whatever reason, financial, what have you.
Julia: I’ve had a hard time finding a job. Recently I’ve just been picky, so I’ve been waiting for the job I want to kind of come up. But in the past, like the market for jobs kind of goes up and down and maybe like 2011, 2012, like there was nothing.
Like there might’ve been 10 SLP contracts in the whole US and I wasn’t licensed in any of those states medically speaking.
So yeah, I definitely like, there was times where I went like two months without work and it’s not because I wanted to and I was struggling cause I wasn’t prepared for it. But at the time at least I was able to do PRN work. I had that set up at the time. But right now in today’s market, I would be really surprised if anybody’s having trouble finding work.
They’re like over 400 SLP contract jobs open right now. At least, it’s a great market for us. So if you have any degree of flexibility, like you’re licensed in a couple states, you’re open to a school, you’ll find work.
Karen: Yeah. So people shouldn’t be, I mean, maybe it’s not. If they have, if they’re being super picky, that could be…
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: But really, if you’re flexible and open to going different places or trying new experiences…
Julia: You’re fine. Yeah. And if you’re licensed in any of those hotspots states like California, Massachusetts, there’s always work.
Karen: Yeah. So with the, a lot of the discussion groups for SLPs, when it comes to the job outlook in the market, it seems like there’s varying things being said, but, some of the conversations that I have witnessed have sometimes erred more towards the side of just the idea that the job outlook is dismal and things aren’t very good at the time.
Julia: Really?
Karen: I mean, what do you, what would you say to somebody who thinks that for whatever reason, whether it’s true or not. What advice would you have for somebody who’s just feeling frustrated with the state of our field?
Julia: I would say if you’re frustrated with the state of the field, you have to be okay with taking things into your own hands.
You can’t be reliant on somebody else. There is such a desperate need for us nationwide, like if your city is really saturated, and I’ve been to those cities, I’ve lived and worked in Boston for years, super saturated.
Maybe your city’s really saturated, but if you’re open to going someplace that’s like a little less saturated, you’re going to find work and maybe you don’t find work at a, like a clinic or a school, maybe you set up your own private practice.
Like I’m really into supporting people, setting up their own practices because like I work in the hospitals. I know when somebody discharges, if they go home half the time, I have no place to send them to.
There’s no outpatient clinics like taking people. In the Valley I’m working in now that has like 100,000 people in it, there’s like one speech clinic and they only take peds. So if you’re, if the market outlook is dismal, I’d say overall we’re needed. We’re really, really needed. There’s a lot of need for us. But, you might have to travel to find that need. We might have to relocate and that might be for the better.
If you end up in an area that really needs you, you can find a nice job. You could see patients on the side, you can even build your own practice. So I would say it’s there. Maybe if it’s not in your area, you could search a little bit and you’ll find out.
Karen: Yeah. And there’s also teletherapy as well if you can get licensed in multiple areas.
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: In theory, to be a provider for some of those hotspots or less saturated areas. I know in my area, I’m in Illinois and I’m about two hours away from Chicago. So obviously you wouldn’t want to be commuting up there, but a lot of the companies that I’ve talked to that have been teletherapy positions have been like, “Ooh, you’ve got an illinois license. Let’s talk”
Because I guess Illinois license, I don’t, or it’s more of a process. I don’t know because
Julia: I’ve heard that. Yeah.
Karen: That’s where I live. But there’s a big need in the Chicago area, the Chicago public school area. And so I don’t live up there. I don’t want to relocate up there, but I can still provide a need.
I can still provide services up there via teletherapy with certain patients, if I wanted to, that was something I wanted to look into.
So yeah, I think a lot of times people don’t, I honestly, I do think there are, as you’ve mentioned, a lot of different discussion groups and resources that are really good.
I think we do need to be more discerning about where we spend our time, because…
Julia: Yeah.
Karen: Discussions that get very negative and it seems like it’s worse than it is a lot.
Cause it’s like, “Oh really? It’s not that bad. It’s just that the people complaining are the most vocal.”
So maybe, you know what I hear from people like you who have actually navigated it and are able to travel for three to six months out of a year.
That’s sounds a lot better than what’s going on, what other people are describing and so.
Julia: Yeah, you know, it’s a tough question. I get asked often, like, do I recommend people go on to SLP? And no, I can’t answer that question because especially with what I’m doing, like I’m like, I work six months out of the year, like I created an awesome lifestyle, but you know, it’s taken me 10 years to do it.
So I don’t know if, you know, if starting out it would be the same or different. So that’s a tough question and I can’t, it’s hard. I can’t answer it.
Karen: Well in that, but that is encouraging that maybe there was a time that for whatever reason, there weren’t a lot of skilled nursing positions or travel contracts available, but clearly that’s not the case right now if you said there’s over a hundred available.
Julia: Yeah, it’s a great time. Yeah.
Karen: Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. So , I wanted to, you’ve mentioned a lot of resources, but I know you have some that you’ve created for SLPs, that maybe compile some of this.
So if people want to find out more about what you do and learn more from you about being a traveler, where can they find you and what resources do you have that you could share with them?
Julia: Well, my website is the thetravelingtraveler.com and I have so much free content on there. I put the search bar right on the main page because that’s, it’s impossible to find things unless you really search for it.
It’s all categorized too, but there’s a ton of great stuff on there. I’m on Instagram too, at thetravelingtraveler_ and I provide a lot of highlights to some of my best content on there.
But then, what I’m really proud of is I created a course called the guide to travel therapy, and I mean, it’s a beast.
And as you can imagine, like we talked about so much today, and we only really touch the surface, so it’s several hours of a course. It’s a six hour course, and I have that for sale on my website. It’s on Instagram, it’s everywhere. And that takes you from the really beginning steps of travel, like the, “Why do I want to do this? What are my goals? Are my goals realistic?”
And it takes you all the way through the organization phase, the finding a recruiter, applying for a job, finding housing. All the way through to like getting to the assignment and navigating, like how to find friends, how to have a lifestyle, how to engage socially.
So it takes you full circle in the travel journey. And I’m super proud of that. If you’re starting out in travel, like I couldn’t recommend that enough. I think that’s a good place to start.
Karen: So what we can do is, I can take some of these, we can share these below the video so that people can go and visit you on those, on your website and check out your, your training so that they can learn more.
Julia: Sounds great. Thanks.
Karen: Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. This has been super helpful.
Julia: Thanks for having me. This was fun. Yeah, definitely.
In this interview, Julia mentions a handful of great resources for SLPs who want to create more freedom in their careers by becoming a traveling therapist. She’s compiled most of them on her site on this page here.
You can follow Julia Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/thetravelingtravelerslp/
And on on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/thetravelingtraveler_/
To learn more about how to get started with travel therapy, check out Julia’s course called “Guide to Travel Therapy” here.
