If you are traveling to a conference, particularly one where you are presenting a paper, you can often get your advisor to pay for the expense of the transportation, lodgings, conference registration, and even food while you are there. There are a variety of ways to handle this. Some advisors will allow graduate students to ask their administrative assistant to make travel arrangements. This is wonderful, because the administrative assistant can then charge these expenses directly to your advisor's grant. If this option is open to you, you avoid having to pay these expenses out of pocket and wait to be reimbursed. You will still need to submit receipts for these purchases, though. If you make the arrangements yourself, just keep track of your receipts as with any other purchase you want to get reimbursed for. If your advisor will pay for your food, ask what the amount per day that you can get reimbursed is (there is usually a limit). Sometimes you can just get a per diem amount paid out to you in advance, which usually means you don't need to keep track of food receipts.
If your advisor is not able to pay for you to go to a conference, you still might not have to pay for it yourself. The Graduate School offers travel grants to pay for transportation to conferences. The application is quite simple and most grant applications that meet their eligibility requirements are funded. You must be a registered graduate student, have a paper or poster that you are presenting at the conference, and not have received a travel grant already during the previous cycle July 1-June 30 (except under extenuating circumstances). See the website cited at the end of this section for more information and the travel grant form. Be aware that applications must be received the first day of the month BEFORE the conference (e.g. if the conference is May 23, the application must be turned it April 1).
If you are on a fellowship, it may pay for travel to a conference as well. You should contact the funding agency, or check the materials they gave you, to determine what they will pay for and how to get reimbursed.
The Graduate School will also give some travel awards to pay for research-related travel within the United States. The grants are available only to students who have passed their A exam before the date of travel, and the travel must be dissertation related and several weeks or months in duration. If you need travel support to do research at a location outside the United States, you can also apply to the Einaudi Center at Cornell for funding. More information about research travel awards and online application forms are available at CLICK HERE.