The only 900/1900-phones I remeber are the
Ericsson I888 and the
Ericsson T28 world. That combination was rather rare, I think Nokia didn't produce phones with that at all.
For transatlantic travellers cellcos usually offered phone rentals. When I travelled to NYC in 1997 I rented a Nokia 2190 from D2 mannesmann (today Vodafone Germany), which costed me DM 100,- (~ $50) for 4 weeks. Luckily they had some billing problem and my calls were never charged on my account.