What to expect in Germany...

[chasswen]

atm card must be 4 numbers
use bank of America for atm and if you use desute bank no fees.
we took two diff bank cards.
only place visa and mastercard work is the hotels and dr b
dvds and portable dvd player.
power converter at least 2
rent a cell phone over there and all in coming calls are free.
tell anyone whom may call you there to call the phone company about international calling as verizon for 4 buck a month makes the calls only 10 cent a min vs 1.00
when i think of more ill add to this.
chuck
p/s credit cards and bank companys must be called 1 week before travel so they know you will be in germany. visa,mastercard and ATM cards

[jessmith07]

Whenever my husband travels overseas, I use prepaid calling cards from a website called Nobelcom (Phone Cards and International Calling Cards from NobelCom). I can call France for about 2 cents per minute from the States, and I'm sure the rates to Germany are just as reasonable...the rates are a little more in the reverse, but still much cheaper than international cell phone plans charge.

[treefrog]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good power converter, they like?

[fuzzy]

What are you trying to convert??

Laptop computers tend to come with powersupplies that don't need converters. All you need as a plug to put on the end of the powercable to fit the euro plugs. Check the powerbrick to see if it says 110-230 volts (most do). Easiest way to buy the plug is at the airport. Another way is to buy the whole cable in germany (harder to do). Radioshack used to carry these but don't know about these days.

Portable DVD player? Runs on batts? Cell phone, make sure it works to begin with (might be pricy). Or buy a quadband gsm phone (cheap on ebay) and then over in germany a prepaid sim card to put into the phone The t mobile ones work great. Check the phone charger again for 120-230 volts. Mine work, I got 2 cheap phones for germany, chargers work fine, I had one in hospital and my wife had the other phone. They do make some actual little electronic converter thingies but me travelling over there all the time never need them. One place to try might be amazon.com or at the airport.

Tell me what you have and I can figure it out.

[chasswen]

radio shack i believe still sells them.

[treefrog]

Thanks so much for this information. I did just check my laptop adapters (I have two, one is for travel with car and airplane plugs too, as well as a number of different plugs - none for Europe though), but yes they do say 100-240VAC. So, for that I would just need to purchase plug adapters, so they plug into the German outlets, is that correct?

I'm not sure about our phones yet. I know I was able to use my phone when I was in Belize, though it was expensive. But I would like to have converters for charging our iPod's at the very least. I don't think we will be bringing many other electronics.

[dshobbies]

Most luggage stores sell travel converters as well as other travel necessities. I think Brookstone also sells these things???