phone card or phone, buy or rent, for Italy

Unless you have to be able to give out the number you can be reached at before you leave for Italy, buy a cell phone once you arrive. Basic phones are 40-50 euro. You only pay for calls made, not calls received. For a 3-week stay it would be cheaper to buy a phone than rent one.

Samsn, thank you. any thoughts on getting a SIM to put into our cell phone.
Bill

If you buy the phone in Italy, it will almost certainly come with a local SIM card containing your Italian phone number.

If the sole purpose is to call home. I would buy a pin card at a tobacco shop and use pay phones.

The second choice would be to use your own phone if it's capable of working in Europe. My razr phone works but costs a dollar a minute to use (T-mobile).

Since you will be in only one country, you can get a cheap phone and sim card at kiosks in the airport or downtown in your first stop that will work well. This will cost more than a pin card and probably is only a really good option if you are making lots of local calls.

Bill,

If your "home" cell phone is with AT&T or T-Mobile, you might consider just roaming if you'll only be making or receiving occasional calls. I believe AT&T has an "International Roaming" plan that provides slightly cheaper rates (you'd have to check with them for the details).

Cheers!

I would avoid getting a calling card. Sure they have good rates, but you need to find a pay phone to use them. Pay phones are a disappearing commodity as cellphones become ubiquitous. And do you really want to go stand on some street corner late at nite (because of the time difference to CA) to call home? To get that good rate, you have to call a toll-free number in Italy. Hotels have long known about the competition from these cards, so it is pretty common to get a stiff charge to call that toll-free number from your room.

What phone do you have now? You need a quad-band phone. If it has a SIM, it can often be unlocked. Also ask among your friends if they have any old phones; I keep an old Razr for just this purpose, loaning to friends going abroad.

Finally, you need to ask yourself how much you're going to be talking. If its 20-30 minutes total, then its a lot easier to just use your existing phone if its GSM or get a loaner phone from your carrier and pay the $1/min.