You are correct.
If your trip was strictly to improve the property then it would not be deductible. Just like the improvements would not be expensed but capitalized to be depreciated.
You mentioned that the purpose of the trip was two-fold: to improve the property and to perform certain maintenance work. In this case. I would recommend splitting the cost of the trip in 2 parts (maybe according to the time spent on each task). The portion related to the improvement will be added to the cost of improvement to be capitalized and depreciated, the other portion to be expensed as travel expense.
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