I'll be traveling in Australia from June 30th to July 21st. I'm kinda confused on what I should be doing. Can anyone give me a little guidance?

The basics: I'm on Verizon Wireless and I have the LG Flip Chocolate (it's old, I know). I ordered the HTC Incredible which should be arriving before I leave (I'm not planning on activating it until I get back though).

What I want to know is what makes sense for me to do. I need a phone that makes cheap calls and has cheap texting in Australia because I'll be keeping in touch with my friends who are there. I also need it to make occasional cheap calls to the US so I can talk to my parents. I will have Skype on my iPod so the cheap calls to the US aren't as much of a priority. Mostly I really, really don't want to get slammed with huge roaming charges just for having the phone on.

Also, can someone explain roaming to me? I thought it was if I'm abroad, any time I have my phone on and it's connected to cell service it's roaming, right? But that seems completely ridiculous if it's over $1.00 a minute in some places. Verizon's Global phone thing also doesn't totally make sense to me. Do they give me a phone that works where I'm going, but I still get hit with roaming charges? Or is the whole point of the global phone that I don't get charged for roaming? I checked the Verizon website about both, but I've found it to be pretty useless.

If you read all that and took the time to answer: thanks! You rock.