Phone cards
 

If we want to call the states while we're in Italy, is it better to pre-purchase a card here or wait until we get there?

Thanks.

A few people commented recently about this. They bought the phone card in Italy.

I will say the same thing I said in that other thread. If you have a phone card, how do you initiate a call? On a public pay phone, for example. They are disappearing as every 10 year old kid today walks around with a mobile phone. Hotels often add on stiff surcharges to make phone calls using their phones.

I don't know where you are from but the direction to go is to look into cell phones. You may already have a carrier that gives you very very reasonable rates for cell service while in Italy. Or if the phone is just for making a few calls and having the ability to be reached just in case, you can get cell phones and plans for next to nothing. While, just as an example, there was a time people would not leave home without travelers cheques as Karl Malden reminded us for years, today they ar almost extinct and very hard to cash. While we're not quite there yet for communications with cell phones, we're not all that far away either.

xyz123, the OP is 12 years old, resurrected by the spammer above.

Didn't notice that...but the response is still valid (not all responses Not made to be contentious and it wasn't meant to be so). The fact is we do see lots of advice to get travelers cheques and phone cards and the like and as far as I am concerned, the former are dead and buried and the later are fast approaching that for the reasons indicated. So the response can be viewed as advice in general.