Extended vacation thru eastern Europe and Turkey

I've used a sim card from http://www.telestial.com and it worked okay. With almost all new phones all you need is the sim card and an unlocked phone. The same company will sell you a cheap unlocked basic phone. But for the most part I use my T-mobile US phone when I must use a phone, and Skype or the phone's built-in wifi calling feature when internet is available. I just don't need mobile phone service that often on vacation and its there when I do need it. I do turn off the data connection and leave the phone on so people can reach me in emergencies. I have used T-mobile without failure from the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria through Central Europe and in France and England. The typical "I will call you back when I get to wifi" conversation is something less than two bucks in most cases.

Hi,
Here is your answer: Eurobuzz. for $40 you get a phone, electrical adapters for the whole world, and calls for 79 cents per minute. No need for SIM cards. no need for national call cards. Just dial the number and be short/brief. A SIM card might cost $20 for a country and if you use it once. That call cost $20. Sure they advertise pennies per minute. But unless you use the WHOLE card's value...well you should be able to do the math. $40 plus 79 cents per minutes. And, save the phone for next year, and start using it again. Minutes are charged to your credit card. So set the log-in carefully in case you lose it. Read the reviews on this. wayne iNWI

I was a little suspicious of Wayner until I looked it up. It looks like a logical alternative. Telestial (one SIM card for all of Europe) runs 49 cents a minute but you have to buy $29 worth of time to get started. (plus $19 for a phone) Eurobuzz is 79 cents a minute but you don't have to buy a block of time. Its pay as you go. (on sale now for $29 for the phone) TMobile charges $1.49 a minute but I don't have to buy a new phone Skype FREE So in my case if I used my for 2 minutes a day over a 15 day trip (the time out of the room when I could not use Skype or similar) then it would cost me: Telestial $19 PLUS $29 = $48.00 (and there would still be a surplus of about another 30 minutes on the card - unused) Eurobuzz: $29 PLUS (30 X .79) = $52.70 TMobile US Phone: 1.49 x 30 = $44.70 If you talk somewhat more on the phone the Eurobuzz would be a better deal, if you talk a lot on the phone the Telestial seems to be best and if you talk rarely on the phone (like I do) then my US phone is competitive.

Wayner, if I were standing in Hungary for instance and I wanted to call Romania could I just type in the number and wait for the other party to pick up or is this one of those ip deals were I have to type in the number and then hang up and wait for it to ring back to complete the call?

Carol... if you have an AT&T phone you can add your international plan and pay about .99 per minute if you need to make calls, but
you can add texting for a few dollars and get 50 outgoing texts (they can be as long as you want) and all incoming texts are free. That way, you have your own phone with your own number and in case of an emergency you can be reached. Just leave off your data. That is so much simpler for me to just have my own phone that I know how to use.