Your ipod will charge all over the world, but your GMS World-ready phone won't.

You will need a voltage converter.

The "brick", as they call the white half-cube that is the power adaptor for the ipod, is also a voltage converter. They send the same brick to every country, apparantly, so it works on AC electricity all over the world. All you need for the ipod is a set of plug adaptors, which I had. So my ipod was good to go on my round the world trip.

My phone, however, was not. I could get signal all over the world (with the exception of Japan because they are not on the GSM system yet), but I could not make any phone calls. I had been assured that my phone would work all over the world, but what I hadn't realized was that you need to activate international calling somehow. This I did not do. So my phone was basically a glorified alarm clock. That I couldn't charge.

See, unlike the brick, the plug for the phone is not a power convertor. It has a large box attached to it, but this just converts US voltage (110AC) to the correct voltage for the phone. To get one that works all over the world you have to buy the world power plug for that phone or just get a stand alone voltage converter that can be used with any electrical device.

I have a nokia, which is sold all over the world. Unlike the ipod, however, each country gets it's own power plug. So they don't include an adapter with them. This means, though, that you can buy a chrger for your phone in whatever country you happen to be in and it will work for your phone. Each plug is calibrated to change that country's voltage into the voltage suitable for the phone, which doesn't change no matter where the phone is sold. In my case, I was able to borrow the charger for my host's nokia phone. It managed to charge my phone while I was in Scotland without blowing it out.

So, one option is to buy a new charger in each country you visit. Or you could just maintain two, one that works on 110AC and one that works for 220AC, which is used in Britain and most of the commonwealth, Canada excepted. Then the only thing you would need is 2 sets of plug adaptors, one for each type of charger, since every country has its own plug design. There may be 2 prongs or three, they may be angled this way or that, they may have slightly more or slightly less space between them. See how complicated it can get?

So perhaps the simplest thing to do is just get the world wide charger for your phone in your home country, and then you can use the same set of adapter plugs in every country, for both your ipod and phone. And first talk to your cell phone company and double check that your phone plan does indeed allow you to make calls from outside your home country. Nothing is more frustrating than having clear signal but still being cut off from everyone, even in emergencies. Well, I'm sure some things are more frustrating, but I prefer not to think about them.

The odd thing about electricity is that it is quite variable. Most countries are around 110 or 220 volts, but some go as high as 240 and others as low as 100. To my knowledge there aren't any that fall around 190 or something else comewhere in the middle. It seems that the world is either 100-120 or 200-240. Very interesting. Even within a country the voltage can vary.

The good news is that a small discrepency in voltage doesn't seem to harm appliances. I suppose even if they remain in the same outlet their whole lives, power fluctuations do occur. So it seems small appliances that are designed for 110 AC volts can run on 100 AC volts and vice versa. I was able to charge my phone in Japan, even though I couldn't get a signal, because Tokyo runs on 100 AC volts. This was close enough for my phone and I could use my home charger. My ipod, of course, had no trouble wherever I went. I just love apple.