Calling the US from Germany, Austria, and Italy
 

In the past we've used a calling card purchased in each country. Is that still a good way to phone home? I have an ATT cell phone also. $.99 a minute

It depends on the way you use the phone -- how many and how long your calls would be, how long you'll be in each country, whether you have ready access to a landline.
For several calls of two or three minutes, I'd pay the high roaming fee for the convenience of the cell phone. If I have a landline at my fingertips and want to have long chats, I'd buy a prepaid calling card locally.

We use SKYPE Mobile on our iphones and also buy a local calling card upon arrival. You can find them inexpensively at the Tabachi in Italy and all over the place in Germany. We also turn on the international texting plan which is reasonable and lets us keep in touch fairly inexpensively.

http://www.lidl-mobile.de SIMs cost 10€ and come with 75min to the US included. Calls are 9ct/min to Germany, Europe and North America.

If you have an iphone, or droid type phone, donwload the Skype app. You can do A LOT of talking for $10.

If you only had to pay skype, but you also have to pay for the roaming data per kilobyte. This is about the most expensive option possible. If you use a german card in Germany, in addition to skype rates, you'll pay 24ct/mb. If you use a US card in Germany, it'll be A LOT more.

Thanks all for the information.

":If you only had to pay skype, but you also have to pay for the roaming data per kilobyte. "

This is not correct. I turn off my data roaming as soon as I get on the plane and do not turn it on again until the trip home and use SKPE with a wifi connection. Works great and is very inexpensive.

But then, finding "free" wifi will be the problem. So many have shut down during the last years.