In 1986 I was awarded the Squibb Travelling Fellowship by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The funding this provided, combined with funding provided by the Henry Hutchinson Stewart Scholarship in Psychiatry awarded by Trinity College, Dublin, enabled me to spend a three month period in the summer of 1987 at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, doing research in the area of emotional adjustment in adolescents with chronic physical illnesses. The research will be the subject of a future paper. The purpose of this communication is to outline some of the steps en route between winning the Fellowship and starting on the project at Children's Hospital. The amount of paperwork involved was time consuming, confusing and, at times, overwhelming, and I hope that other doctors planning to travel to the United States to carry out research will benefit from my expeience.