Yes you can travel only speaking english, but I found it more fun to at least attempt the local language. Most people appreciated(and usually were amused by)the attempt! Besides, did you know that learning a new language develops new brain cells? Can never have enough of those!

According to Christina's definition, I am bilingual as I am a native Brazilian-Portuguese speaker and very fluent and confortable in English since I lived in the US for over 12 years and got all my univesity degrees there (BA, MA, PhD). This does not mean that I speak and write "perfect" English (I do not, as you will gather from my postings).

Besides English and Portuguese, I also speak (read, write, understand) Spanish (very easy for Portuguese speakers) and French (read, write, speak, but have some trouble understanding Parisians...). As to Italian, I can read, understand some when people speak, but am lousy when I try to speak (in Rome, people used to aswer my "Italian" with Spanish...).

I hope to learn German, someday...