These days almost every traveler seems to bring along a cell phone, EBook reader, a tablet or laptop computer or one of each.. On my last trip I counted that at one time i had 5 devices charging at the same time. So once I travel out of  North America, I need to  be sure I have the correct plugs and outlets for different parts of the world. Figuring this out can drive one crazy.  I have a couple of so-called universal plugs but checking them against the outlets shown for various countries and cruise ships convinced me that universal is a misnomer.

For this particular journey, I identified  5 different plugs recommended for the areas I will visit or the ships on which I will travel. Interestingly, the three pronged plug recommended for Italy was not included in any of the travel packs I looked at nor is it sold as an individual adaptor in the stores I checked. Maybe the universal European one will work just as well there.

I am curious to check the accuracy of the information provided see what the reality is so I decided to keep this record. Here goes.

So as I venture into each new environment I will update this post re the electrical outlets.

The next issue was foreign currency and deciding what is necessary to have on hand.

Fortunately Europe is on the Euro so one does not have to worry about country specific currencies in France and Italy.

But Turkey uses the new Turkish lira (TRY) as well as the euro, and the other countries bordering the Black Sea have their own unique names - it's like a Jeopardy quiz.  Approximately 2 TRY equals 1 USD, 10 Ukraine hryvnia = 1 USD, 1.5 Bulgarian lev = 1 USD similarly to the Georgian lari which is about 1.6 to the USD. Whew!  Anyway since I am not much of a tourist shopper, I decided to stick to euros and a small  amount of TRY, and rely on my credit cards for eating out. We'll see how that goes too.