Business Travel

• Deductions for travel must involve business that takes you away from your home for a length of time that's longer than an ordinary day's work. Deductible expenses include the cost involved in reaching your destination and any recovery time required to meet the demands of your work. Meals and lodging also qualify for a deduction. If you spend part of your business travel time for personal sightseeing or other travel, you cannot include those expenses in your deductions.
  
  

Transportation

• If you require other modes of transportation such as rental cars or airplanes, those expenses are deductible if required for your business. Choosing the most expensive means of travel may cause the IRS to take notice, but you can travel first class and choose other transportation options beyond the cheapest available. If you use frequent flier miles to secure your seat, you cannot deduct an equivalent amount for the ticket.
  
  

Meals and Entertainment

• Meals bought for yourself while traveling overnight remain deductible. Meals involving clients require documentation as to what was discussed during the meal. For meals in the United States, you can take the standard meal deduction to keep bookkeeping to a minimum. But for travel outside of the country, you'll need to carefully document the event. If you take your client to some form of entertainment, you can deduct 50 percent of the cost as long as you talked about business right before or after the event.
  
  

Overlooked Expenses

• Expenses sometimes overlooked for deductions include dry cleaning and laundry at your place of lodging. You can also deduct the cost of shipping baggage and any display material between your place of work and your destination. If you take a cruise as part of your business, you can deduct part of the trip fees as long as you submit a written statement showing the number of days of the trip, the number of hours you spent handling business and a list of the scheduled business activities you participated in.
  
  

Documentation

• If you deduct travel and entertainment expenses, you need to carefully document each expense. Documentation needs to include the purpose of the business, the names of the people you entertained and the date and location. If you prefer to keep bookkeeping to a minimum, using a standard meal allowance may work instead.