This traveler's phone gives you free, local data (pictures)

Available in Hong Kong, Singapore and some European countries, the Handy phone comes standard-issue in participating hotel rooms, giving travelers free, unlimited local data wherever they go.

I took mine all over Hong Kong, from the crowded markets of Mong Kok to the elegant Peninsula Hotel pictured here.

A standard-issue orange case covers up an otherwise blah Alcatel phone.

But for travelers like me, the phone's guts don't matter one bit -- it's the free, unlimited local data connection that counts most.

Handy's software skins the Android base to add helpful information on local sites and also sell you tickets to visit them.

Most valuable for me were Android apps like Google Maps, which helped me navigate a foreign country.

In Hong Kong especially, with so many businesses inside labyrinthine malls, real-time map navigation was the difference between finding my destination or wandering, teeth-gnashingly frustrated, for hours.