Oh, that's really smart to set it up and set up call forwarding.

This all seemed so complicated to me at the beginning, but I'm starting to work my way through it, and there are lots of workarounds the costly US systems. I don't need to get calls forwarded, but it's still good to know. Thanks, xyz123!

Bookmarking. There are some great ideas here for the future. Thanks.

We use Verizon global to receive calls from people who don't know our foreign number. It's $.05 to receive texts and $.99 to receive calls - covered as business expense for us.

When somebody calls, we return the call using our phone w/foreign SIM (in this case, Lebara). This system just worked well for us in India (especially with my old Blackberry, which still has all my contacts), Indian SIM calls were practically free and our Verizon bill was next to nothing.

localphone seems intriguing, but overkill because we also have Viber, an app like Skype for free calls with iPhone and iPad http://www.viber.com/ Requires wifi, contacts must have the app as well.

The apt. where I'm staying for the first few days with friends also has a free global landline. And of course, there's email, so I'm good to go. This is a short trip for me, so I think Lebara + Viber should be enough. Hope to not be on the phone the entire time! Thanks, everyone.

May the OP comes back to benefit from all this great advice.