I loved my phone -- Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but it wasn't a quad band phone so couldn't be used in Europe. We were leaving on the 26th and my phone was eligible for replacement on the 25th with Verizon. I considered everything, including biting the bullet and paying full price for a new phone.
I went phone shopping at Best Buy Mobile. They told me that the International division of Verizon could often issue new phones sooner. So that's how I got a Galaxy S4 in plenty of time for the trip.
Melissa already had a quad band S3, but not to be outdone, she went out and added a Note 10" tablet. I would be bringing my Nexus 7 for email, surfing, reading and reference. I also decided to take the old Nexus phone because it would take a photosphere picture. And the good Canon camera for its zoom.
We used every single gadget and in some cases really needed them. We also needed a suitcase just for the chargers! We had wall chargers and car chargers for each and even had extra chargers and batteries for everything.
We had an extension cord designed for European 220v current. It was Melissa's idea to leave all the chargers plugged into the extension as we moved from city to city. All we had to do was change the plug in each country.
The extension cord featured a blue light so we could confirm there was power. This actually came in very handy -- but that's another story.
Why bring extra chargers? Have you ever had a charger die on vacation? I have -- on the third day of two week trip. And it was for a camera that used proprietary accessories. We didn't find a replacement until the vacation was over.
Melissa used an International sim card from One Sim Card that gave her a US phone number and a European phone number on the same card. I went with Verizon's International plan. The cost was about the same for both, but she used her phone extensively and I made one call per day.
I also erred by not turning off mobile data while in the airport in the US. Something had a major update and used up the first 100MB of data before I even left but after I had switched over to the International Plan.
