(July 21) -- It's a truth of political life (not to mention, yes, an unforgivable bastardization of a classic TV catchphrase): Have seat in Congress, will travel. As if your job depends on it. Because it very well might.

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Interns and Pages: $4.4 Million
News and Research: $1.2 Million
Travel: $1.4 Million a Month
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About This Series

But as understandable as the House's peregrination is, it can also get expensive, as AOL News found when we crunched the numbers we dug up from the House's Statement of Disbursements. Collecting all the invoices generated by Congress every three months, that document was made available in digital form for the first time in December. Following the most recent update in June, the House's expenditures for the last six months of 2009 and the first three months of 2010 are now online, where the Sunlight Foundation has turned them into a searchable database sure to please the data-inclined, or the just plain geeky.

So how did Congress spend $12.7 million on travel over nine months? Here's how.

(For a rundown of what Congress spent on itself in other categories, please check out this series overview.)

Travel Reimbursements

Those flights back home mean the plane tickets really pile up. Especially if you're the delegate from Guam or Alaska's only congressman -- but they're hardly the only well-traveled lawmakers. Note: We've focused here on expenditures labeled travel reimbursements and commercial transportation, and have not included mileage, which is recorded separately.

$12.5M
Spent on travel for representatives and staff
21,760
Number of separate travel charges on the taxpayers' dime
45
Average number of trip expenditures for each representative

» More than one way to get there: The representative with the most individual travel expenses in the 9 months we looked at was Democrat Chellie Pingree of Maine with 197, nearly 50 of which were for under $100. Paradoxically, a Pingree spokesperson credits that to employing budget travel tactics, including flying out of Baltimore rather than one of D.C.'s two airports, which adds train tickets to BWI (among other modest charges) to the total items she's reimbursed for while saving money overall. Indeed, Pingree's travel bill was far less than other members'. For instance, Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas had a $82,000 travel bill despite submitting more than 50 fewer expenses than Pingree. [Editor's note: This entry was updated on July 28 to reflect new information not included in the original.]
» Traveling cheap: Around 158 representatives spent less than $20,000, but only 37 spent over $50,000. And distance plays a a factor with travel, too: House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., for example, spent a grand total of $297. D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, doesn't have much of a need for travel, either; she spent just $57.
» Costliest route: Madeleine Bordallo, the delegate from Guam, put in for $127,368 on 33 separate travel reimbursements or charges. (She didn't take all the trips herself, as some were listed under staffers' names.) Her average reimbursement was $3,859; one reimbursement, possibly for multiple flights, cost $22,000. The flight to Guam we found on Expedia would take 27 hours and have two stops.
» Flying to Alaska: Also not inexpensive, or fun: Alaska Rep. Don Young rang up $125,510 in travel charges in 113 separate travel expenditures during the period. The average reimbursement for his trips was $1,110.

Note: We've focused here on expenditures labeled travel reimbursements and commercial transportation, and have not included mileage, which is recorded separately. To see an overview of the charges Congress racked up in other categories, click here.

Ernie Smith is the editor of ShortFormBlog, a news site equally obsessed with numbers and bad jokes.