Happier Abroad Forum Community

I'm debating getting a Samsung S5 on Verizon and wanted to know if any of you have had any success in Central or South America using American phones and just swapping out the SIM cards to get on a local network. I've bough a couple of phones locally once I arrive and just had minutes put on a card, but I would like to be able to use my S5 if I'm able to in one of these other countries.

Oh, I have Verizon and they use the CDMA format. I know overseas, most cell phone services are either CDMA or GSM.