<p>DW will be going to France, Germany, Hungary, Czech republic, Slovakia, and Croatia in a month. We’re with Verizon and they said it would cost from a buck to two per minute with the international plan on her Blackberry at several dollars a month, or fifty cents higher per minute without. I know people from overseas get prepaid Sim cards that allows them to make low cost calls in the US. Are there similar options for us to get on plans that cost cents/minute rather than dollars/min?</p>
<p>My suggestion is to get a quad-band unlocked phone cheap on ebay (I paid $40 or less) and then research SIM cards. You can buy on eBay or online. You will likely not find one SIM compnay that will work in all those countries. And it depends on how long she will be in each county as to whether you need to cover every single one. Maybe a SIM for every other stop (country) along the way. They are very inexpensive. They include a certain amount of texts and minutes. In Europe, incoming texts may even be free. You can often reload using the phone or the internet. We found using the phone easy as finding internet not always easy. </p>
<p>Also remember the if she takes the Verizen phone (for emergencies) to turn of DATA roaming as it is VERY EXPENSIVE on Verizon and US plans abroad. And TEXTS, they add up. You can be charged for sending and receiving as much as $.50 a pop by Verizon when overseas.</p>
<p>You can pick up SIM cards as you go in Europe as well They are easy to purchase and are prepaid/loaded with minutes.</p>
<p>You can do the same in Europe. Make sure your phone is unlocked (will accept cards from other carriers) or buy a cheapie there. You can buy a sim card & recharge it at a lot of places (the tobacco kiosks in France for sure; I imagine any kind o f convenience store as well).</p>
<p>You can buy very cheap pay as you go phones in Europe. I don’t know about all the different countries. I know my UK cell phone was about 5-10 pounds. The SIM card I buy gives free international minutes with a top up (so a 20 pound top ups is 200 free international minutes). And UK cells are free for incoming calls.</p>
<p>So I would check the other countries to see what sort of service they have. Tripadvisor forums can be a good place to look and ask.</p>
<p>No sure the pay-as-you-go cards in Europe will cover all countries you are traveling to. as to activate it takes time. DD stayed in France for 2 months, so we spent time to get a number set up for her in a large supermarket, it took at leaset one hour. You will need the passport and a local address and US credit card is ok. If your wife doesn’t have the time to go to a place where the sim card can be activated while traveling country to country, it might be a hassel. OTOH, I believe one sim card can be used through out the Europe, just don’t know if there is a roaming charge.</p>
<p>Thanks for your suggestions; I’ll check some of the other forums and perhaps the one organizing the trip. The trip will be a series of legs by air/train/bus in a group of her old classmates, and they won’t have any local address other than a hotel where they’ll stay for a night or two. So spending some time in each country getting a local plan may pose a problem.</p>