Travel Optometry: Redefining What's Possible
In Optometry school, I was told that I had two choices: associate or practice owner. 1 or 2.
After burnout, I was thinking of leaving the profession when I discovered travel optometry, which challenged everything I thought I knew about optometry.
Here are three fundamental assumptions I had about optometry that turned out to be wrong.
1) I must live and work in the same city.
One of my biggest assumptions was that I had to work and live in the same city. Travel optometry flips the script.
I live in Ontario, but I travel to the Maritimes once or twice a month to provide optometric care. There are so many underserved communities all across Canada, so there is a huge need for travel optometrists.
After flying so often in the past few years, I can confidently say that traveling within Canada has never been easier. Most trips are simple — often a direct flight and a couple hours of driving.
As an added bonus, most flights have Wi-Fi onboard. It's my guilt-free screen time to binge shows.
Working and living in different provinces comes with challenges, but it's a lot easier than you might think.
2) Locum is not a real career option.
Just last week, I was filling out an optometry survey when it asked this question:
"Choose one. Are you an associate or a practice owner?"
As a locum doctor, I was neither.
That moment made me realize how unknown alternative optometry paths really are.
Freelance optometry is certainly not for everyone. But travel optometry showed me that being a full-time locum OD is absolutely a viable career.
I love working across multiple clinics because I thrive on variety — new clinics, new teams, and new towns. And having complete control over my schedule is a major bonus. It lets me prioritize important life events without finding coverage.
3) I need a regular schedule.
After graduation, I immediately took an associate job with a regular schedule because that's what everybody around me did.
I stayed in that repetitive schedule for years.
But through conversations on my podcast, I realized that some of us thrive on an irregular work schedule. Some people are energized by a short burst of intensity followed by adequate time to recharge.
Since every clinic I travel to has hundreds on a waitlist, clinic can be intense, but also incredibly rewarding. It's what rekindled my passion for optometry.
I’ll often work hard for one or two weeks, help a lot of patients, and then take a few weeks off. That on-and-off rhythm keeps me energized every time I return to clinic.
Be a designer of your life
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett was one of the most insightful books I read.
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Its core idea is simple: when designing your ideal life (and career), don’t limit yourself to what seems “realistic.” Be creative without constraint.
And part of this process is to question our assumptions.
The assumptions I had about optometry weren’t bad — they were just incomplete. They only reflected one version of success.
Which assumptions about your own work or life might be worth re-examining?
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