emails and laptops

If logged in to a free Wifi site it would be free to send anything or do anything. If you are asking about a 3G network with cell phone that is a whole different world and is expensive. Unless you have a world phone from Verizon, the US based Verizon phone will NOT work in Europe for anything. But a standard laptop with wifi is fine and works great. Second, if you are using a wireless connection it is easy to capture your signal. But who would be interested in your emails or pictures? Just don't do financial transactions on an unsecured wireless network which most free wifi sites are.

Frank has good advice. Also be sure you have a firewall and virus protection enabled and up-to-date. You'll be fine. I used my Netbook extensively, uploaded my pictures to Picasa, kept my journal, researched as needed. Was glad to have it. Some hotels may charge for WIFI, but I consider it a utility I can't do without. Phone I can do without, not the Net.

Diane, What a ridiculous statement for a Verizon rep. to make! I fail to see ANY logic in making a "blanket statement" that it's "extremely expensive to email home to the states". It's doubtful they were referring to E-mail from a Verizon phone, since they won't even work in Europe. There is a slight grain of truth if one is using a Verizon global rental smart phone for E-mail. If you plan on using a Laptop, you'll probably find that to be a very inexpensive method for Blogging, sending E-mails and storing photos. Many budget Hotels these days offer FREE Wi-Fi, so there would be NO cost to send E-mails. Some Hotels have a small charge for Wi-Fi access but even so, this is still a reasonably cheap method. I travelled with a Netbook for the first time last year, and it was a fantastic travel accessory! I used it for all the purposes you mentioned, and my costs for pay access for Wi-Fi connections were likely <€10. The Netbook will be with me on every trip from now on! One point to mention regarding "uploading photos to Kodak", is that this can be a time consuming process, depending on the number and size of photos. I prefer not to spend a lot of time with that, as it's a waste of valuable holiday time. Taking an hour or so each night (when I'm back in the Hotel room) to take care of E-mail, Blogging and backing up photos is about all the time I want to spend in front of a computer while I'm on hoidays. Happy travels!

"....Just don't do financial transactions on an unsecured wireless network which most free wifi sites are...." It's perfectly safe to use to do such activity on a free unsecured WiFi site as ecommerce sites are encrypted.

Totally agree with the other posters. I can't figure out in what context Verizon was informing you and it was trully awful advice. If you have a laptop you simply log into your hotel's wifi (many have hardline connections too). Even in the hotel's that charge for wifi, most offer it for free in the lobby. Having data stolen is extremely remote and who cares if someone intercepts your photos. Uploading photos can take a very long time on wifi though, so you might be better copying duplicates on a flash drive kept seperate from the laptop (just in case).

Folks, it used to be true that all of Verizon's phones would not work outside the US because they were strictly CDMA technology. These days, however, Verizon has several phone models that are GSM capable and global ready as well as CDMA. There are a couple of Motorola Droid models as well as some Blackberries by RIM. In addition, most of their 3G data solutions for laptops are also global ready. And like most other US carriers their international roaming rates are pricy and don't include a lot on the data side.

It's been said elsewhere here recently, but connect to your email using an encrypted connection. Gmail can be set to always connect over HTTPS (which means everything sent between your computer and Google is encrypted). If you don't use gmail, or if you don't know if your email is over a secure connection, you can usually forward your email to a gmail account. It is a good idea for a safe travel connection. Other ways your email program may describe a secure connection is by that it uses SSL or TLS.

I love traveling with a netbook, also. Easier to check schedules, confirmations, etc. I don't have an iPhone which would probably do all that just fine.
Verizon has an international phone loaner plan, if you are already a customer and need to be connected by phone. The per minute is pricey= $1.29 and up per minute, but do not send any emails in that way. The Loaner plan is pretty reasonable for texting.

Contrary to the experience of others, had no problem uploading my photos via WIFI. I did it every day or two. In order to ensure no lost photos, I saved them to the netbook, uploaded to Picasa, and had my netbook backed up to Mozy. If the netbook was stolen, I'd have two places from which to retrieve my precious pictures. I'd say the uploading process, left unattended, took 15-30 minutes when I did it. While Mozy takes awhile the first time (set it up at home before you travel), subsequent backups are fast.

Since Verizon is CDMA and does not work in Europe it seems Verizon is pretty clueless about internet options. I just returned from 3 weeks in Italy. I am an IT person with big high tech needs. I went with 3 internet options partially as an experiment, partially for my needs. 1-I bought an iPhonetrip.com micro SIM card for my iPhone 4 for $15 a day. I had all you can eat internet (7GB a day) for that price and was able to call the back to the US using Skype ( I had purchased a $10 Skype credit in 2007 and just finished it up while in Italy and purchased another) and I had my phone calls forwarded to Google Voice which I could access from my iPhone. 2-For 15 euros I purchased a SIM card from TIM for my unlocked android phone and had a 5 euro calling credit. I used this for calling within Italy and for additional data and logging GPS data for tagging photos. 3- For 30 euros I purchased a micro SIM card from TIM for my iPad2. I got 5 GB of data for that month. I found it very important to keep up communication, interpret menus, translate, download maps, look up restaurants while traveling. There was also WIFI at my hotel though it was slow. There are a few internet cafes here and there but not many. I was very happy with my choices.