Last time I went to England, I had a devil of a time making calls back to the U.S. Even though I bought a recommended calling card, it was so hard finding a phone that would take it. I'm going again this fall and would love to hear of suggestions on how to call to the U.S. without having the expense of using a credit card. Thanks!

One way, not the only way, is to take a pre-paid calling card with you. I've done this many times; you have a toll-free number for use from a variety of countries, and some of the cards are re-chargeable. I also don't get charged by the hotel I am staying in for a local call, either, unless they charge for toll-free calls to local access numbers.
Just one way to do it. Am sure you'll get lots of other suggestions.

Thanks for the reply. Any other suggestions?

jon - Last time in London (Mar. 02) I purchased a calling card in a grocery store for 5 British pounds called Pay Peanuts. It has a toll-free number and a pin. It also had no connection charge. I had no problems using it in the BT phonebooths. My MCI/Costco card did not work in London even though I had called MCI to verify the access number.
Mara

When we were in Britain last year, we bought a prepaid 10# phone card from the post office and it worked everywhere. We made many calls to the US and still had money left on the card when we left.

You will find that with calling cards, the BT payphone will surcharge every call with 19p per minute. What actually happens is your call credit goes down by the same amount, plus the actual call charge. By comparison, calls to US from BT payphone is 24p a minute. '5p to USA' sign you see in newsagents only refers to calls made from residential or business line, not phone boxes. So there's no advantage in using calling card with BT payphones for US (maybe for some other countries).

You might check with your telephone company or long distance provider to see if they have a service comparable to Canada Direct (I just checked and found out that AT&T has a similar service called AT&T Direct.)

You make a toll-free call that connects you to an operator in Canada, and you pay the Canadian long distance rate for your phone company's calling card or you can use it to call collect.

When our daughter went on her school trip to Europe, she called home every couple of days, and it was surprisingly inexpensive.