international cell phones

Theresa, As you're going to be travelling in several countries, you have several options. Unfortunately, as you're leaving in about two weeks, you'll need to get this sorted quickly. Under the circumstances, I'd suggest trying one of the "travel phone" firms, such as Roam Simple, Call In Europe, Cellular Abroad, Telestial or Mobal (there are others, but I can't remember all of them). They can supply either a phone with SIM that will provide consistent rates regardless of where you're travelling in western Europe. For those that already have a quad-band, unlocked GSM Cell phone, they can also supply only a SIM with the same calling plan. The calling plans offered by the above firms often use "post paid billing", with calls charged to a credit card. This offers the advantage of never running out of minutes, and never having to "top up". However, should the phone be lost or stolen, it's important to notify them immediately to avoid unwanted charges! You could also buy a PAYG phone in the first country you visit. That will provide the least expensive rates while you're in that country, but the rates will increase when you travel in other countries as you'll be "roaming". You'll probably need help to set-up the plan and phone settings, as these will be configured for the language of that country. I'm sure the others will have some comments as well. Happy travels!

Theresa: Lots and lots of posts about cell plans. I won't cite to them all, but the latest post I've made can be found in the "To the Boot" subforum and is in the thread titled "Cell phone info." It addresses the issue of cost vs. convenience. You can look for some of the other ones if you are interested. Where are you going? How long will you be gone? What kind of calling do you expect to do? Calls back home? Calls where you are? Calls just among those traveling with you? Calls from home to reach you? How long do you think the calls will be? How comfortable are you with communicating by text message? Will you need any data services? The best answer depends on the how you respond to all of these questions. The cheapest plan is to get a phone card from a convenience store over there, find a pay phone, and call using that. Or, to take some device (laptop, netbook, ipad, or smartphone) that will connect to wifi and then call using skype (must set up your skype account and load some credit on to it before you go). Neither of these is necessarily the most convenient because it can be hard to find a pay phone or a wifi connection and it makes it hard for others to contact you, if that is what you are trying to accomplish. I'm happy to help, but I'm afraid we need more specifics.

Good luck finding pay phones in Europe. There are hardly any because everyone has mobile phones. If you have an unlocked GSM phone you can buy sim cards very cheaply in most countries.