Is Travel Physical Therapy Lonely? How to Make Friends & Find Fun in a New City
Meeting new friends at a pool party at The Traveler’s Conference – the biggest event of the year for healthcare travelers – held each September in Las Vegas.
One of the main concerns potential travel therapists come to us with is...
“Is travel physical therapy lonely?”
Of course it can be lonely at times.
One of the scariest (but also most beautiful) things about travel therapy is that you leave everything you’ve ever known behind.
You’ll be forced out of your comfort zone in so many ways. And one of those ways will be the sense of isolation you experience.
When you move to a new contract location every 3-6 months, you better get used to starting over. New city, new job, new routine, new gym, new friends, new coworkers. Not gonna lie – it’s a lot!
When we first started traveling, we went through a period of loneliness even as a travel couple (we at least always have each other).
We started traveling at age 26. At that point, a big portion of our college friend group was living in Kansas City and having a blast every weekend. At first, it was hard watching the group texts blow up and seeing all the snapchats and Instagram stories.
We also have a HUGE amount of family back home. It’s hard being away from our parents, siblings, cousins and all their kids (who are growing up way too fast!)
And because we like to keep it real with you guys – know that you WILL have to sacrifice missing big events when you’re living hundreds or thousands of miles away from home.
BUT, I also want you to know that taking the plunge into travel physical therapy will be worth every single bit of sacrifice.
You will also have your most treasured life experiences, grow into a new and better version of yourself, and meet some of the dopest human beings on the Planet 🌍 (no, seriously!).
We truly believe the benefits of travel physical therapy far outweigh the cons.
Keep reading to find out how to make friends and have fun with life on the road.
Connect with travel therapists, travel nurses, or other healthcare travelers in your area
MedVenture
We wish MedVenture would’ve existed when we first started traveling.
It’s completely free to use and it makes it SO EASY to connect with travelers near you.
All you have to do is create a profile and you’ll instantly be matched with other healthcare travelers near your location.
You can also look up traveler meet-ups/events hosted near you, read facility reviews posted from travelers, and post to a “wall” that all travelers near you can communicate on.
They also just rolled out a feature where you can opt in to say you’re interested in dating. OOOOHLALA. 😘
Travel Therapy Facebook Groups
There are so many travel healthcare Facebook groups out there.
Travelers frequently post their location to reach out to other travelers to meet up.
These groups also include a ton of other helpful information as well on housing, insurance, negotiating contracts, etc.
Just use the search bar to search the topic you’re interested in (see magnifying glass below).
Here’s some helpful Facebook groups to help you get started:
Believe it or not, we’ve met most of our friends on the road through Instagram.
Travel therapists and van lifers are always hitting us up to hang out after watching our posts or watching our instagram stories and seeing that we’re nearby.
Create an instagram account and click hashtags like #travelPT, #travelphysicaltherapy, #travePTlife, #travelOT, #traveloccupationaltherapy, #travelOTlife, #travelSLP, #travelnursing, etc. to find your people.
In addition to meeting up, it’s a great way to get inspired by other travelers’ adventures and collect trip ideas for your own bucket list.
![𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗔𝗡 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗘
Tag a friend or 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 with someone you know would be interested!
Tap our [𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙆 𝙄𝙉 𝘽𝙄𝙊] to see a full overview of what's included in this van build!
•
•
•
•
#](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60c90d25e488272adf82eb4c/1647117841297-L6V9B47F6IIDX9U6Z9LH/image-asset.jpeg)
Click any of the pictures above to check out our van fam or our van build on Instagram.
Make friends with your coworkers
Goofin’ on my last day of contract #3 with my coworkers in Santa Maria, CA in 2019.
I’d recommend making friends with your coworkers from day one of your contract for many reasons.
For starters, if you make a good impression from the start, your coworkers will be more willing to take more time out of their busy work day to help you get adjusted to their clinic/hospital (e.g. help you navigate the electronic medical record).
And who knows, they may end up being some of your closest friends during your assignment.
I’m still good friends with multiple staff therapists I met while on assignment.
Here are some good ways to become friends with your coworkers quickly:
Eat lunch with them. Lunch is the perfect opportunity to break the ice with your coworkers. Resist the urge to hide away (at least for the first week or two!) and eat your lunch in the break room or wherever else the staff congregates.
Communicate with coworkers about patients you share. They will appreciate your communication and it will often lead into other conversations.
Show interest in their lives and find out common interests. Ask them about their families, hobbies, and their favorite sites to see in the area. Don’t JUST talk about work – boring. 🥱😴💤💤
Go to after work happy-hours, holiday parties, or other events. I always come out of these types of events way closer with the staff members. These are the little things you can do to increase your chances of being offered an extension or of returning to the facility in the future for another contract if you really enjoy it!
Ask if they want to hang out over a weekend. Obviously, get a vibe check before you jump right into this. More people will be down than you’d expect!
PRO TIP: If you’re working in the outpatient setting, be sure to make an extra effort to befriend with the front office staff from the very beginning. We all know they basically run the place, after all!
Meet friends at the gym (CrossFit, Orange Theory)
We know several travelers who sign up for a CrossFit or Orange Theory gym wherever they go.
Some will even only accept assignments where these gyms are located. Now that’s commitment!
Gyms that thrive on the community aspect like CrossFit and Orange Theory are an amazing place to meet people.
Due to gym costs and the ability to accept an assignment wherever (think rural areas with less options), we usually opt to go one of two routes:
Negotiate a short-term contract with a regular gym during our assignment (we have yet to be turned down) OR
Do home workouts if a gym isn’t near – we love doing Peloton hit workouts from home – especially the ones taught by Jess Sims!
Go to TravCon next September
Smiling big after meeting all these new allied travelers at our first TravCon (<2 months after beginning travel) in 2018.
We felt pretty lonely during our first month of traveling back in 2018.
But lucky for us, The Traveler’s Conference, AKA TravCon took place just 1.5 months after I started traveling.
By attending, we gained friends all over the U.S. and it helped us feel much more connected on the road.
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it 1,000,000 more times.
If you want to find your traveler healthcare family, go to TravCon next September. It’s in Las Vegas every year and it’s always an absolute blast.
The people you meet and the connections you make at the conference alone are well worth the price of the ticket.
But you also get:
To attend great conference sessions around topics varying from negotiation to tax homes to working with multiple recruiters to travel healthcare in an RV
Access to the exhibit hall with tons of recruitment agencies, products, and resources for travelers (& a chance win lots of free swag)
To earn CEUs for attending (last year I earned 14!).
A chance to take extra courses to renew your BLS, learn medical Spanish, or join in the on the Newbie Bootcamp for brand new travelers
All the while getting wine and dined by the recruitment agencies via pool parties, happy hours, open bars, and free meals.
We can’t wait to meet you there in 2022!
EventBrite & MeetUp
EventBrite and MeetUp can be hit or miss depending on your location – there are more event options listed near major cities.
But you can discover a huge range of fun and unique events on this app. You can find free and paid events including but not limited to:
Comedy and art shows
Live music
Yoga/meditation classes
Scavenger hunts
Outdoor movie showings
Game nights
EventBrite has a nice map feature so you can see which events are in the surrounding areas as well (see below).
Facebook Events & Groups
I actually didn’t know the Facebook Event feature existed until just a couple of months ago. FB is always changing and I can’t keep up!
Go to your Facebook page and type “events” into the search bar, then click “Events: find things to do”. Then click “local” to see all the events listed near you.
Facebook groups come in clutch here, too. There is a Facebook group for everything. For young professionals, for all different sports (including Quidditch), and for all kinds of hobbies/interests.
If you want to play some hoops or go LARPing, you can find a Facebook group for it.
Just search the name of your city/town and go from there.
Research your contract location ahead of time
This may sound obvious, but be sure to Google things to do in your assignment location before you accept a contract.
If the location looks too low-key for you, don’t accept it. A high pay package won’t matter if you’re going to be lonely the whole time!
As long there are fun areas within 2 hours (an easy weekend drive) of your contract location, you should be golden.
I’ve asked what an area is like during my travel PT interview several times. If they’re a local, your interviewer can often give you a rundown on what types of entertainment are popular locally, what the housing situation in the area is like, etc.
Ask your patients
The best recommendations have ALWAYS come from my patients.
The locals know best, after all!
Be ready to tell them what your hobbies/interests are (hiking, climbing, mountain biking, food/beer, sports, etc.) and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.
Hit the town and check out the nightlife
Halloweekend 2019 – Meeting up with other allied health travelers for a pub crawl in San Diego.
If you’re the type who appreciates some liquid courage, you can join a bar crawl to meet people.
Or you can approach it the old-fashioned way and strike up a conversation with people at a bar.
Obviously, this was much easier pre-pandemic times!
Any way you choose to do it – please be safe out there!
Use dating apps
We obviously don’t have personal experience in this realm.
But we have lots of friends that get on Tinder, Bumble, etc. and find people to hang out or Netflix and chill with 🍿😉.
Take it or leave it. 😅
Get involved in local community groups / organizations / events
Enjoying some 2v2 beach volleyball on a perfect winter day in L.A.
Whether your thing is sports, philanthropy, volunteering, beach clean-ups, culture, history, etc., find a local organization or group dedicated to your interest and start there! You’d be surprised what you can find with a simple Google or Facebook search.
Jazz and I personally LOVE playing volleyball together.
So we usually start by scouring Google and Facebook to try and find a local volleyball community.
We became a part of a beach volleyball community that played every weekend in Santa Monica, CA.
One weekend, we were driving scenic highway 101 and saw a beach with TONS of volleyball courts and a huge amount of people.
We decided to grab our chairs and watch them for a bit. Then we worked up the courage to ask them if we could play a game.
We ended up exchanging numbers, getting invited back, and playing with them almost every weekend with them for the two months.
It ended up being one of our favorite assignments to date!
It was such a blast getting our workout time, social time, and beach/sunshine time all in one place.
In Summary
If you haven’t caught on yet, you will HAVE to put yourself out there to meet people in the travel therapy world.
When you move across the country and don’t know anyone, it’s inevitable.
But remember – that’s one of the most beautiful things about travel therapy and traveling in general.
It truly forces you out of your comfort zone. And life begins outside your comfort zone.
If you’re feeling lonely while traveling and need a friend, feel free to hit us up on Instagram.
We love connecting with other travelers, we understand your lifestyle, and we know what you’re going through.
And chances are, after nearly 4 years of traveling, we might have a friend near you to connect you with!
