I have learned that my prepaid phone card (which used to be MCI but is now apparently Verizon) does not work in Croatia. My cell phone is AT&T. We are only in Croatia for a week, so buying a SIM card isn't necessary. What is the best way to call the US?

This is what I did in Dubrovnik last year: The cheapest way to call home is to go to an internet cafe. Most will have a VOIP set up and it will be pennies per minute. Ask them in advance for the price and if it is too expensive go to the next place. Should be 8-15 cents per minute.

As krgystn mentioned it is cheapest to do via the Internet at an Internet cafe. The next cheapest option is to go to the post office. Many of them in Croatia are also call centers and the prices are reasonable.

Would it be possible to enjoy an entire week without calling the US at all?

I do not know if you will be taking your own netbook or laptop with you but you can also make calls from it on Skype. It is easy to set up (if I can do it anyone can) and it costs very little to call anywhere to a land line. It is a little more expensive to call cell phones.

I've been going to Dubrovnik for the past 4 years. The first year, I bought a phone card from a tabac and used it in a pay phone. That was pretty expensive. The next year I took my Euro phone and got a SIM card installed with 350 kuna worth of time. That was used up the first week, making several longish calls home and then I would just refill the SIM with more time as I needed it. I've been using that method ever since, but it's not cheap. Last year I mostly used my little lap top at a bar that offered free wifi. That worked really well. As suggested you can also call from the Post Office. I've just started calling less and emailing or Skyping more.

Hi Barb! Two things you might look into for your next visit to Dubrovnik: if your SIM card allows free incoming calls while in Croatia, then look into a service I used last year called Local Phone. They will forward your calls from a US phone number to your Croatia SIM phone number, for a small per-minute fee. I did this at the beginning of my trip last fall but I had an Italian SIM (so no free incoming once I left Italy). Cost varies by country and by type of phone (cell vs. landline) but I think it cost me about 15 cents a minute (to my Local Phone account). MUCH cheaper if you forward to a hotel's landline phone vs. forwarding to a cell phone. But the people calling me could call a US phone number, without worrying about country codes or how much the call would cost them, for free if they had free cell long distance.

http://www.localphone.com/

So if you want to call someone in the states, you can either Skype or text them a "call me now!" message or make a short call on your cell phone and have them call you back immediately.

Using Skype itself is probably cheapest, but then you are tied to a computer with a headset or a speaker phone using your computer's microphone and speaker. Sometimes it's worth the convenience of using a real phone, even if it costs slightly more. When I was in Italy it was fun talking to people at home walking around describing what I was seeing, etc. instead of being stuck in my hotel room or something on my computer.

Hi Andrew!

I was able to get free calls from the US, so I did "schedule" some calls, but at times, like you said it was fun talking to people spontaneously. My family pretty much knows now that I will call to let them know I arrived safely and maybe right before I leave, but other than that it will be through email only. Mostly the phone is used to talk to friends in DBV. I wonder why it is so much more expensive there than say Italy, or France to use a SIM to call US.