cell phone

If you have a mobile phone in America- set up and international plan for the time you are traveling . It is not that expensive. I use Verizon, and it is saving my butt right now - as I am in the middle of travel- and am needing help while I am here! Save yourself the hassle- get set up stateside! Best of luck!!

Renting a phone has to be the most expensive and inconvenient way to go that there is. It is simple to pick up a cheap phone with a SIM card when you arrive. SIMs come with a small amount of credit on them already. No hassles with changing your plan to use your regular phone, and no one will call you in the middle of the night by accident because they didn't know you were traveling, as could happen with your regular phone.

You can either buy an inexpensive phone when you arrive in italy or buy one from one of the travel phone firms such as Roam Simple, Cellular Abroad, Telestial, Mobal, EuroBuzz or Lebara.

The Italian phone will have the cheapest rates for calls within Italy, but calls to the U.S. will be more expensive, depending on which calling plan you choose when it's set-up. This will be on a prepaid basis, so you'll have to top-up the minutes when depleted.

The travel phone will have slightly higher rates, but not appreciably so. One benefit of the travel phone is that you'll have a working phone as soon as you step off the plane, and won't have to bother looking for one. These also have consistent rates across most western European countries, should be be travelling to other countries. Many of these use post-paid billing (calls charged to a credit card), so no need to bother topping-up.

Check with your carrier at home.

During the last few weeks, most of the major cell carriers have beefed up their international offerings to compete with what T-mobile did awhile back.

Here is Rick's page on communication in Europe; if you click on all the links, you'll learn the basics of all your options. You can then come back if you have more specific questions: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/phones-tech

Yes, these days, renting a phone is one of the least convenient and most expensive options. As said above, the most convenient is to see if your current phone works in Europe; if it does, see how much it will cost. If the cost is too high for you, then look into buying a phone in Italy.