Same here. I was able to get out of the contract by proving that I was leaving the country, so there was nowhere they could just transfer the contract to.
I hung on to the phone itself because it had so many phone numbers in it, which was helpful in the beginning. (I don't use that now.) Then on my last trip to the US, I took it and bought a temporary package that gave me a week's use on it so I could use it while I travelled the US. It had been so many years though since I bought it, the battery turned out to be rubbish, and I was constantly recharging it or running out of juice on long hauls, so I won't be using it again.