The Traveling Therapist Podcast

Kym Tolson
  • 4.9 (39)
  • Places & Travel
  • Updated Weekly

Hi, I'm Kym Tolson, and I'm the traveling therapist. It's my passion to teach therapists how to navigate online private practices and multiple income streams so they can travel the world. I'm a digital nomad. With a virtual insurance based private therapy practice and a multi six figure coaching business. I'm obsessed with entrepreneurship and developing tools that can help therapists live an adventurous lifestyle. In this podcast, I will discuss my journey as a digital nomad. I'll chat with other traveling therapists and help you navigate the complexities of running an online insurance based practice. I'm so glad to have you with me on this journey.

  1. 14h ago

    231. How to Financially Prepare for Your Next Hire with Carla Titus

    Before you post that job listing, you need a plan to financially prepare for your next hire, and that's exactly what today's guest walks us through. Carla Titus is a CFO who works with therapy practices of all sizes, and she breaks down why so many owners jump into hiring before they've actually looked at the numbers. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, Carla and I dig into what it actually costs to bring on a new clinician, from the ramp-up period to tracking performance once they're on your team. If you've ever hired someone and then panicked three months later wondering where the money went, this one is for you. In This Episode, We Explore… Why the ramp-up period costs more than most owners plan for.What cash runway actually means before you bring on a new hire.How to track a remote clinician's performance without living in the dashboard.What to do when a clinician isn't hitting their numbers.How to know when it's time to cut an underperforming vendor or team member.Connect with Carla Titus: Website: https://www.wealthworthwithin.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wealthworthwithin/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthworthwithin/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wealthworthwithin YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wealthandworthwithin Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ceo-financial-clarity-corner-podcast-money-strategy/id1818238749  Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    231. How to Financially Prepare for Your Next Hire with Carla Titus

  2. Aug 12

    230. What Therapists Need to Know About Mandated Reporting with Michelle Burlin

    Figuring out which state's rules apply to your client can feel like a moving target, especially once you're crossing state lines. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Michelle Burlin, a therapist and attorney who spent months combing through every state and territory's reporting laws so the rest of us don't have to. She's been practicing for 26 years, mainly in the forensic realm, licensed in Oregon and Alaska. Along the way she went to law school and now runs a forensic private practice where she does risk assessments, expert witness work, and trainings for clinicians. She breaks down what mandated reporting actually requires state by state, what changes when you're doing telehealth across state lines, and why she says to always err on the side of caution. In This Episode, We Explore… Why treating sex addiction is its own specialty, separate from other addictions.The three categories that show up again and again across state reporting laws.What "reasonable cause" actually means when you're the one deciding to report.Why the client's location, not yours, determines which state's rules apply.How age of consent differences between states complicate telehealth mandated reporting.Connect with Michelle Burlin: Website: https://veritasconsultingservices.com/ | https://mbhglobalenterprise.org/ Book - A Clinician's Guide to Mandated Reporting: https://a.co/d/00W9SVEf Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    230. What Therapists Need to Know About Mandated Reporting with Michelle Burlin

  3. Aug 5

    229. Building a Life You Don't Need a Vacation From with Jennie Blackwood

    If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to start building a life you don't need a vacation from, this episode is going to give you the real, unfiltered version. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Jennie Blackwood, who went from barely covering her bills in a corporate marketing job to running a seven-figure business built on multiple income streams. Jennie walks us through the moment that changed everything, the leap she took when her family's income disappeared almost overnight, and how she's structured her business so it actually supports the life she wants instead of running her into the ground. We also get into the mindset work it took to keep going when things got hard, and what building a life you don't need a vacation from really looks like day to day. In This Episode, I Cover… The middle-of-the-night idea that turned into a business almost overnight.The moment she realized she was doing all the work and keeping almost none of the money.Why she built a team around her instead of staying the face of the business.How one course led to a coaching program with 300+ women in eighteen months.The human design concept she uses to work just three days a week.Connect with Jennie Blackwood: Website: https://www.jennieblackwood.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialgraze.charcuterie/ https://www.instagram.com/girlwhynotyou_  Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    229. Building a Life You Don't Need a Vacation From with Jennie Blackwood

  4. Jul 29

    228. Build a Therapist Website Using AI in 2026 for $36 in Under Two Hours

    You can build a therapist website using AI now, and it does not have to take nine months or cost five thousand dollars like mine did. I spent years bouncing from Weebly to Brighter Vision to a developer who farmed my project out and disappeared, and honestly, I regret most of that money and time. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I'm walking through the exact process I used to build aifortherapists.com for about $36 in under two hours, using Claude to plan the site and Manus to actually build it. I'm also opening up my live AI website workshop on August 4th, 5th, and 6th, where we build a site from scratch together, plus a few lessons I learned the hard way about domains, contact forms, and email that you'll want before you start. In This Episode, I Cover… Why Weebly, Brighter Vision, and a $5,000 web developer all fell short before she found a better way.The real cost of being locked into a website you cannot update yourself.How to use Claude or ChatGPT to plan out your website before building anything.What Manus does differently, and how she built aifortherapists.com there for about $36.What to check before transferring an old domain, including contact forms and email.Mentioned in this episode: AI for websites training https://kymtolson.kartra.com/page/AIwebsite AI website I made: https://aifortherapists.com Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    228. Build a Therapist Website Using AI in 2026 for $36 in Under Two Hours

  5. Jul 22

    227. The Realities of Being a Digital Nomad Therapist with Sonia Jaeger

    Being a digital nomad therapist looks like freedom from the outside: laptop open somewhere new, sessions running from a different country every few months. But the reality involves a lot more paperwork than postcards. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Sonia Jaeger, who has been running her practice from all over the world for over a decade. We get into what it actually takes to work internationally as a therapist, from navigating shifting regulations across Germany and France to building the kind of support system that keeps you from doing it all alone. In This Episode, We Explore… How online therapy regulations in Germany have changed since Sonia started in 2014.The legal difference between working as a counselor and a licensed psychotherapist abroad.Her routine for settling into a new location before taking on client work.How she manages client sessions across time zones while keeping a small caseload.What led her to co-found the LIT community for location-independent therapists.Connect with Sonia Jaeger: Website: https://www.sonia-jaeger.com | https://locationindependenttherapists.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsoniajaeger/ Get 25% off the first payment of LIT Community membership (monthly or annual plan) using the code THETRAVELINGTHERAPIST Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    227. The Realities of Being a Digital Nomad Therapist with Sonia Jaeger

  6. Jul 15

    226. Why PTO Doesn't Fix Burnout (And What Does) with ShannonElaine John

    If you've ever come back from a vacation still running on empty, you already understand why PTO doesn't fix burnout on its own. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with ShannonElaine John, a licensed therapist and EMDR specialist who spent over a decade in the travel industry before founding Travel To Retreat, a travel advisory built specifically for burned-out healthcare and service professionals. ShannonElaine unpacks the guilt and savior complex that keep so many of us from actually stepping away, why the balance between rest and fun determines whether time off actually works, and how that same thinking is showing up in her work with ancestral travel and retreat planning for other practitioners. In This Episode, We Explore… Why guilt and a savior complex keep healthcare professionals from truly taking their PTO.The two-part balance between rest and fun that actually resolves burnout.How a decade in the travel industry shaped ShannonElaine's approach to burnout prevention.What ancestral travel is and why it's becoming a meaningful way to reconnect with identity.How ShannonElaine helps other practitioners plan and run their own retreats.Connect with ShannonElaine John: Website: https://traveltoretreat.com/ | https://alongyourjourney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonelaine-john/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShannonES.John/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happychani | https://www.instagram.com/traveltoretreat Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    226. Why PTO Doesn't Fix Burnout (And What Does) with ShannonElaine John

  7. Jul 8

    225. My Experience Using a Travel Agent for the First Time with Sally Riggs

    Planning a trip can go from exciting to overwhelming fast, and that's the spot I was in when I finally brought in a travel agent instead of doing it all myself. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Sally Riggs, a fellow therapist who works as a travel agent, to talk about what changed once I handed the planning over to her. We get into the hotel mixup that almost put me in the wrong place entirely, how she handled my CPAP machine for my first trip traveling with one, and the perks that showed up on my bill without me asking for them. I also ask her about travel insurance, refundable rates, and what happens when your plans change at the last minute. By the end of this one, you'll understand why I'm never booking a trip on my own again. In This Episode, We Explore… How two hotels with nearly identical names almost caused a booking mixup.What it actually takes to fly internationally with a CPAP machine, including the extra bag rule most people don't know about.The perks that came free with booking through an agent, from airport shuttles to early check-in.Why booking a fully refundable rate matters, especially if you live with a chronic illness.How points and miles can get business owners into business class without spending more money to earn them.Connect with Sally Riggs: Website: https://www.sallyssafeandconnectedtravel.com/ Points and miles offerings: https://www.sallyssafeandconnectedtravel.com/pointsandmiles Freebie - How to visit Japan without crashing on Day 2: https://mailchi.mp/fora/eh0ztkgo8z Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    225. My Experience Using a Travel Agent for the First Time with Sally Riggs

  8. Jul 1

    224. Leaving the Platforms for Out-of-Network Private Practice with Karen Ann Schmid

    Getting recruited by a platform, telling them flat out that you live overseas, and then getting cut off anyway is a special kind of frustrating, and it's a big part of why an out-of-network private practice starts to look like the smarter move. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Karen Ann Schmid, who came out of retirement at 70 and has been piecing all of this together from a 32-acre farm in New Zealand. Karen has been through it. A handful of platforms, a cease-and-desist, and a lot of late nights trying to keep seeing her clients while living abroad. We talk about what actually shifted for her once she stopped trying to credential with insurance panels, and what she's building in its place. In This Episode, We Explore… Why so many platforms started cutting off therapists located outside the US.What happened when Karen got a cease-and-desist after years of full disclosure.The realization that opened up once she stopped chasing insurance panels.How superbills let her keep working with clients out-of-network.The AI tools she leaned on to build her website, logo, and outreach from scratch.Connect with Karen Ann Schmid: Website: https://www.seensevicesusa.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-ann-schmid-7998ab75/ Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/ Connect with me: www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kymwww.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/www.thetravelingtherapist.comThe Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by: Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym

    224. Leaving the Platforms for Out-of-Network Private Practice with Karen Ann Schmid
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4.9
out of 5
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About

Hi, I'm Kym Tolson, and I'm the traveling therapist. It's my passion to teach therapists how to navigate online private practices and multiple income streams so they can travel the world. I'm a digital nomad. With a virtual insurance based private therapy practice and a multi six figure coaching business. I'm obsessed with entrepreneurship and developing tools that can help therapists live an adventurous lifestyle. In this podcast, I will discuss my journey as a digital nomad. I'll chat with other traveling therapists and help you navigate the complexities of running an online insurance based practice. I'm so glad to have you with me on this journey.

Information

  • Creator
    Kym Tolson
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    229
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Traveling Therapist Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Traveling Therapist Podcast