Traveling Massage Therapists

One of the most amazing and unique aspects of a career in massage therapy is the flexibility it allows you to design the kind of life you want to live. It can open the doors for opportunities to travel, live in foreign and exciting places, meet and work with interesting new people, and have new and fulfilling experiences. When Annie Garcia-Roberts went to massage school, she wasn't sure where her new career as a massage therapist would take her. Her passion for travel and adventure led her down a unique and exciting path, and her skills as a massage therapist helped make her dreams a reality.

"Becoming a massage therapist opened so many doors for me. My college degree was in archaeology and while I loved working outdoors in the wilderness, I knew I wasn’t fulfilling my full potential of working with people in a healing setting. After attending massage school in New Mexico and passing my licensing exams, I began looking for jobs in wilderness lodges in Alaska, a place I had always wanted to live."

Annie was hired for a summer to work at a retreat center on an island in Alaska as an LMT, where she was able to have adventures in the beautiful Alaskan wilderness while also working at a job she loved and enjoyed each day.

While her massage career has taken her to places such as Thailand, Seattle, and Hawaii, three years later Annie is still living in Alaska, a place she says she "fell in love with." She has progressed in her career to working in a salaried position as a full-time medical massage therapist at a hospital which serves all Alaska Natives. "In my job I have the opportunity to work alongside doctors, midwives, chiropractors, counselors, acupuncturists, and other health care professionals to address the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental wellness of the whole person. I never though a job like this was possible as an LMT, and it is continuing to open doors as I begin to navigate further in the healthcare field, equipped with a deeper understand of holistic wellness."

Annie says that opportunities are abundant as an LMT in her greater Alaskan community, where many of her friends work as LMTs in women’s clinics, birth centers, and hospitals.