Stuck With a $10,000 Phone Bill

When in roam, be careful with your phone. Smartphones and tablet computers set to automatically update data can trigger hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in expensive roaming charges. Data plans have become a more expensive travel gotcha than expensive voice-call rates overseas—as high as $5 or more per minute. Even if your phone checks the local temperature, that'll cost you. AT&T T and Verizon charge up to $20 per megabyte, so uploading a few photos, downloading a few attachments or watching three minutes of YouTube video can easily cost $100; watching a full-length feature movie through an Internet-based service can be an $18,000 show ticket.