Start here: what the club covers on pay, housing and contracts
Travel Therapist Club is for travel PTs, OTs and SLPs who want plain notes on pay, housing, contracts and life on the road, and the place to begin is the five pieces listed below. The issues are written by the club team, while a few parts, such as the quoted answers in the home page FAQ and the dates on each issue, are filled in from data files that name their sources.
Who is this site for?
The club is for physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists who already travel or are weighing a first contract, and for the assistants who work alongside them. It reads like a newsletter: each issue takes one subject travelers argue about, such as how a housing stipend works, what counts as a tax home, or what happens when a facility cancels a contract, and walks through it in plain language.
It is not a job board and it does not rank agencies. If you want open contracts, the site links to them; if you want to understand an offer before you take it, the issues are where to read.
Where should you start?
These five pages cover the questions that decide whether a contract works out for you, and each one links its official sources where a rule is involved:
- Tax home rules: what the IRS means by a tax home, the duplicate-expense test, and the mistakes that turn stipends into taxable income.
- The housing stipend math: how GSA per diem rates set the ceiling on a tax-free housing stipend, and what you can actually keep.
- Contract cancellations: what happens when a contract ends early, what to do in the first day after the call, and why health coverage is the hidden risk.
- How big an emergency fund should be: a recent piece that builds the number from your own weekly costs, with federal sources on leave, health coverage and deposit insurance.
- Your retirement plan when you change agencies: a recent piece on vesting, rollovers and withholding, from the IRS and the Department of Labor.
If you are new to travel altogether, read the tax home issue first. The stipend math, the cancellation plan and the emergency fund all assume you have a tax home that holds up.
What on this site comes from data, and what is written?
The issues are written. They are the club team’s reading of how pay, housing and contracts work, and where a rule is involved they link the agency that sets it, usually the IRS or the GSA. Read them as explanation, not as a figure for your own contract.
A few parts are filled in from data files that carry their sources, so they are not retyped by hand:
- The home page FAQ quotes its answers word for word from IRS Publication 463, the PT Compact Commission and HealthCare.gov, each with a link and the date it was read.
- The published and updated dates on each issue come from the page’s own history, so the updated date moves only when the page’s content changes.
- The weekly pay medians in the emergency fund piece are the Travel Therapy Pay Index figures for October 2026, a pinned snapshot of advertised weekly gross pay, named with its month.
- The lines on the request forms are approved wording, the same wherever the form appears.
How do you reach a recruiter?
Issue pages and the home page carry a short form headed Find Travel PT Assignments. It asks for your name, email, phone, discipline 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.” The home page also 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, in one state or anywhere. ProTherapy Staffing, which publishes this site, is owned and run by licensed physical therapists.
If you would rather talk your next move through with a person, tell a ProTherapy recruiter what you want: Find my next contract.
What should you read after the first five?
The other issues go deeper on single subjects: the pay snapshot, where contracts are in demand, a first-contract playbook for new grads, and what agency benefits are worth. Read the benefits issue before you compare two offers, and the health insurance page before your current coverage ends, since coverage tied to a contract can stop when the contract does.
The club is one of a family of sites on travel therapy, linked at the foot of each page. Separate sites cover agency profiles, reviews, pay, tax, housing and licensure in more depth, so when an issue touches one of those subjects, the sister site is the next place to look.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to sign up to read the club?
No. Every issue and guide on the site is open to read without an account. The request forms and the job alerts page are only for when you want a recruiter or contract alerts.
How do I know whether a figure in an issue is still current?
Check the updated date at the top of the issue and the source it names. Rules such as the GSA per diem rates change each federal fiscal year, so look up the current rate for the county where you will sleep on the official page before you rely on an older figure.
Is the club the same as an agency?
No. The club is a reading site. It is published by a travel therapy staffing agency, and the forms on it go to that agency’s recruiters, so a request you send is a request to one agency.
Sources
- IRS Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, read October 25, 2026
- HealthCare.gov, COBRA coverage when you’re unemployed, read October 25, 2026
- Travel Therapy Pay Index, October 2026 (pinned), read October 25, 2026