Calling the States from abroad
 

I haven't been to Europe in a few years (since before the cell phone became ubiquitous). This trip to Denmark will be 8 days. Are there many payphones on the streets on Denmark? Are phone cards to the States readily available or should I bring an international card with me? Or is it worth it to get a cell phone for the week? I will probably be calling the States once (or twice) a day for a few minutes.

anyone??

Hi beth,

I would buy an international calling card in Denmark and use pay phones.

Cell phones are ubiquitous, pay phones are not. We took our cell phone and used ATT International Roaming, sign up for $5.99 and it cost us $1.00/minute from Germany and Poland. This is how I keep in touch with my office and kids.

I don't know if I can use my cell phone in Europe. I think I just may buy a calling card. If we find that there aren't that many pay phones, we may just have to use the phone at the hotel.

I'll be the one to chime in and suggest using a VOIP app to make calls but first make sure that the WiFi connection is fast enough.


I use Vonage but I'm an expat.

This is a ten year old topic topped by a spammer.

Dammit.

When I was in Europe, including Denmark in 2010, I used a phone simm card from Ekit which I purchased for a very cheap price on ebay. My cell phone was old enough that AT&T unlocked it upon request. When I got to Europe, I took the old simm card out of the phone and replaced it with the card from Ekit.

They then assign you two phone numbers, one a US phone number (different than your original) and another number for Britain. You then can go to the Ekit site and add minutes to your plan. I think I paid $10 for the card and it came with $10 worth of minutes on it.

My kids could call me at no cost, since they were just calling another US number and we have national wide calling on our cells. When I called out, there was a connection fee, like 40 cents and then it costs me about 19 cents a minute there after.

I am sure the rates have changed by now. We simply called the kids when we were available to talk and then told them to call us right back. We had no issues the entire trip and we used the card in Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany.