European cell phone by Telestial

Not familiar, but my wife and I are going to England later this year and wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just get a phone card for when you have to make these calls?
EDIT: I've since found out our T-Mobile cell phones will work in England (and other countries) by just calling T-Mobile and asking them to activate international roaming. 99 cents a minute.

Yes, I've had this phone for the past several years. It's very basic but certainly useable. We use it mainly for short calls--confirming hotel, making dinner reservations, and short calls home. You can add additional minutes online as you need them.

The advantages of this company is that you have a permanent phone number (as long as you use the phone every so often--I think the website will tell you the time period) and you don't need a new SIM card for every locale. The downside is that calls are much pricier per minute than if you had a local SIM card in an individual country.

We're quite happy with it, since we travel a lot to lots of different places, and we don't use cellphones on a regular basis. It sounds like it would fit your needs, based on your description.

Do you plan to separate (one in museum & one shopping e.g.)? We each (4 adults, 1 teen) had phones and got local SIMs after unlocking phones before we left. Really helped when trying to communicate with each other or find each other in a plaza with a thousand or so people.

What country(ies) are you visiting? More than one? How long will you be there? Longer trip means more usage.

We purchased a telestial phone for international studies trips for the college where I work. We have been happy with it. We have used pthe the multicountry SIM and the SIM for Italy, both have been very handy. We are getting ready to order a second one too.

Thanks to everyone for the replies. John, we will likely be together most of the time and just need a phone for calling ahead to confirm reservations and for emergencies. Thanks.