86. Travel Policies

Travel is the budget category federal reviewers and auditors scrutinize hardest, because it is the easiest place for unreasonable costs to hide. You will learn the rules of the road: travel must be necessary to the project, must follow the recipient's documented travel policy, and must be reasonable in cost. For federal awards, "reasonable" almost always means within the General Services Administration (GSA) per diem rates for lodging and meals, and within the federal mileage rate for personal vehicle use.

You will work through the three travel populations a grant budget typically supports. Project staff travel covers field work, project meetings, and required conference attendance, and must be tied to specific aims. Consultant travel is paid under a separate consultant agreement and must conform to the same rate ceilings. Participant support travel (a distinct category for trainees, beneficiaries, and conference attendees) is excluded from the MTDC base and has its own documentation rules. Mixing these populations into one travel line is a frequent error. So is budgeting first-class airfare, premium hotels above GSA, or alcohol-inclusive meals, all of which fail prudent-person review on sight.

By the end you should be able to build a travel budget that names each trip, the traveler, the purpose tied to the project scope, the GSA-aligned per diem and lodging assumptions, and the airfare basis (lowest available coach). Travel justifications written this way provide safe harbor on review and accelerate post-award reimbursement.