She began her career on Off-Broadway theater, before her first leading screen role in the ABC television miniseries Harem opposite Omar Sharif.

Travis has starred in many films, including Internal Affairs (1990), Air America (1990), Passed Away (1992), Chaplin (1992), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), Greedy (1994), and Fluke (1995).

In 2002, she played a leading role in the ABC miniseries Rose Red, and later joined the cast of the CBS sitcom Becker for its final two seasons.

[5] After that, Travis appeared in a stage version of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs and was a founding member of the Off-Broadway theater company Naked Angels.

In 1985, Travis made her screen debut playing a supporting role in the made-for-television biographical film Malice in Wonderland starring Elizabeth Taylor.

In 1987, Travis made her big screen debut playing Sylvia Bennington in the comedy film Three Men and a Baby starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson.

[9] Travis also starred with Peter Gallagher and Isabella Rossellini in the Tom Cruise-directed episode of the Showtime neo-noir anthology series Fallen Angels in 1993.

The following year she went to star in the box office bomb fantasy drama film Fluke,[10] the action-comedy Destiny Turns on the Radio with Dylan McDermott, and the HBO crime thriller Body Language opposite Tom Berenger.

In 2002, Travis had the leading role of psychology professor Dr. Joyce Reardon in the four-hour television adaptation of Stephen King's Rose Red.

She appeared in the 2005 comedy-drama film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the 2007 ensemble romantic drama The Jane Austen Book Club adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by Karen Joy Fowler.

In 2009 she starred in the Hallmark Channel film Safe Harbor, about a happily married couple, Doug (Treat Williams) and Robbie Smith (Travis) about to retire and spend their days cruising the world on their sailboat.

[20][21] Travis also was cast in the same time in The CW medical drama series Hart of Dixie as Emmeline "Mrs. H" Hattenbarger, but due to her commitments with the 20th Century Fox-produced Last Man Standing left the show after two episodes.

In 2018, Travis was cast as a female lead opposite Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method, created by Chuck Lorre.