I need plug adapters for my stuff to fit into the sockets, but the appliance itself has to have dual voltage itself. The adapters, thankfully, are super cheap, so I have 3 or 4 of them.
If the thing isn't dual voltage, you have to buy a converter, and when I looked into that, I saw that not only were they kind of pricey, they were big and bulky, not something I wanted to lug around.
Plus, the only thing I had that would need to be converted was the flat iron, and I saw that I could get a decent dual voltage flat iron for cheaper than the converter.
Hair dryers are typically the big things that need converters, but I kept reading that not only do a lot of hair dryers crap out over there even with a converter, but most hotels and B&Bs have them now anyway, so a converter wasn't worth buying.