First, do not panic. Your plant is perfectly capable of regrowing a new crop of leaves, and reflowering. Your posting gives no information on its current growing situation. I am assuming you have it in full sun, all day. Bougainvilleas are sun and heat lovers big time (and yours has variegated foliage no less!) If the growing conditions are significantly different from its previous location, that could trigger leaf loss independent of the road trip. So, if you give it full sun, day long and refrain from watering (don't feed either), it should recoup. They really are NOT hard plants to maintain, and actually thrive on a certain degree of benign neglect...as long as they get SUN and warmth.

Ok, I did move her into a brighter room. This room gets quite a lot of sunlight and I keep my apartment pretty warm. I read that some people give their bougianvilleas 15-15-15 fertilizer about once a week. To me this seems a little excessive for how little care they need. When it comes time for me to water her again, should I also be concerned with giving her fertilizer?

To me, regular, weekly fertilizing and watering of a bougainvillea that was just transplanted into a larger container sounds excessive. This will encourage foliage, but flowering will be inhibited.