RENT A PHONE?

I used an internet cafe the whole time I was there. The one on Via Celimontana be the Colliseum was 15 cents a minute to the U.S., and the one by the apartment we stayed in San Giovanni was only a dime. My cell didn't get any service, and I ended up using it as an alarm clock!

Carole,
I don't think you can rent one as cheap as buying one. I paid 39 euro for a phone and SIM card at TIM. A cheaper option is to bring an unlocked quad band phone and just buy the SIM about 10 euro with five euro of call time, you can add call time at most tabacchi.

Hmm thanx. I thought I heard that Rick Steve's rented phones. Or that Hertz did. I will keep checking.

This is not in Italy, but my son is in Riga Latvia now, and he is there for six weeks. He is renting a phone in case of an emergency at work. It's expensive to rent. He's paying $165 for one month plus $2.49 a minute! But that's in Latvia, so it may not be that expensive in Italy. It's worth looking into, so you'll know for sure. I'm going to Italy this fall, so I'll keep an eye on this thread, because I would like to know too!

Try callineurope.com. I have had some contact with them and they seem reasonable. I found it through flyingblue, the Air France frequent flier program. I am getting a free phone with an Italian sim card, $29. Calls are reasonable. Check it out.

Carole,

Hertz will charge you big bucks for renting a phone.
It's much cheaper to buy a phone here in the US from ebay.You can get a used one for $30-40 and make sure it's unlocked and GSM (tri or quad band) so you can use any SIM card.

If you are using it to place calls out (rather than having people call you), just get a phone card. They are cheap (the Europa card I bought provided 180 minutes for just 5 euros) and you can use them at pay phones (easier to find in Italy than in the US) or from the phone in your hotel. Plus you don't have to worry about misplacing it.

Carole, you could also have a look at Cellular Abroad as I believe they rent phones.

However, as you're only going to be in Italy, the easiest (and probably cheapest) solution would be to take a quad-band, unlocked GSM Phone with you and just buy a local PAYG SIM card. There are lots of unlocked phones on EBay, but of course with anything there, "caveat emptor".

Happy travels!

Thanx everyone. I just bought one from someone who had just come back from Italy and contacted me after reading this notice.

We bought a phone for 35 Euro for our month trip in June. The convenience was worth every Euro. We also were winging for reservations and this left us the flexability of not having to find internet access.

We used my own cell phone in Italy last Sept. My plan is with Cingular, but now is called ATT. We had them activate it for international use. It is a Motorola Razor. We had not problems with it. The rate was about $1 a minute, so we didn't use it for long calls. It came in handy a few times. We also sent email from our laptop on the trip.

yes - you can rent a phone in Italy (and no, they are not expensive)Our local cell phone and electronics store rents them out; if you are staying in a vacation rental, just ask the owner if they know a place locally. The cheapest option is to just buy an Italian SIM card for your own phone - I think they are maybe $20 and you will then have a local phone and phone number and you just buy prepaid minutes (you can also buy them over the internet before you go...much higher price, but nice to have the number in advance to give family and firends - I think I once used cellular abroad) someone once told me they had a problem buying in Italy as a nonresident...I've never been asked...but it may depend on the location you're in.